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YooMee takes on competitors for a share of Cameroon’s mobile money market

By , Freelance Investigative Journalist
Cameroon , 04 Oct 2021

Cameroon’s ISP and mobile virtual network operator YooMee has launched its new mobile money service in direct competition with MTN MoMo and Orange Money.

In June 2021, the Central African Banking Commission (COBAC), via United Bank for Africa (UBA), authorised the telco to offer electronic money services.

As MNOs and MVNOs are not financial institutions, they are obliged to partner with commercial banks to conduct mobile money banking business in the central African sub-region.

YooMee Money has been in use since 15 September 2021 and can be accessed through the platform ‘All In One – YooMee Mobile’ which is available on App Store and Google Playstore.

YooMee officials are counting on the advanced security features of their platform to gain a substantial share of the market. “We lay much emphasis on security by QR Code and digital fingerprint. Even with your pin code, it is impossible for someone to withdraw money from you YooMee Money account,” the company said in a statement.

Touting YooMee Money as 100% Cameroonian, the telco claims it will be offering users over 50% less in transaction cost as compared to the offer by competitors. It has also promised users value-added services and options such as bonuses for using YooMee Money for online purchases.

YooMee has yet to announce how much it will be investing in this venture. But COBAC regulations make it obligatory for payment services providers to have a minimum capital of 500 million Francs CFA. The telco had earlier pledged to invest 15 billion Franc CFA between 2020 and 2022.

According to Datareportal, there were 23.62 million mobile connections in Cameroon in 2020.

The challenge before YooMee is to successfully convert some of these subscribers to clients and make a dent into the dominance claimed by both MTN Cameroon and Orange Cameroun.

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