The Ambassador of Switzerland for Senegal, Cabo Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and< > Mauritania calls for more support for and risk prevention of financial education.
For her, the challenge in the context of financial inclusion today is not only to facilitate access to
financial services, but also to ensure that these services do not harm their users in
causing them to lose money or by indebting them.
Ms. Weichelt Krupski Marion made this known at the opening of the High-level Forum on the theme:
"Promoting financial literacy for increased consumer protection", held on Tuesday 19
November at the headquarters of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), Dakar.
It was as part of the 2nd week of financial inclusion in the Economic and Monetary Union
West Africa (WAEMU).
She wanted to draw the attention of stakeholders to the fact that the digitalization of financial services, through
the use of the smartphone in particular, also poses new risks, such as extortion or fraud
identity.
In its view, it is therefore important to better protect consumers against abuse but also< to > ensure that they are treated fairly by financial service providers
For Krupski, good protection practices require customers to be informed about
the terms and conditions of use of the products.
"Let the comparison between offers be made easier so that consumers can take
informed financial decisions," she added.
In its view, it is also appropriate to introduce rules limiting abusive commercial practices
and facilitating access to redress mechanisms.
The Swiss ambassador in Dakar congratulated the BCEAO on the establishment of a regulatory
in favour of consumer protection.
Under this register, she recalled the importance of financial education in risk prevention, in
particular of over-indebtedness and financial losses.
According to her, a better understanding of financial products allows individuals to make more
adapted to their personal situation. Before warning: "It is also more difficult to deceive an individual better
form頻.
Ultimately, she concludes, "it is the economy itself that is better off if individuals can invest
with more serenity and if money circulates more".
To confirm Switzerland's commitment to the financial inclusion of the people of
Waemu, Ms. Weichelt Krupski recalled the agreement for an amount of more than 2 and a half billion francs
CFA that his country signed in May of this year with the BCEAO to support implementation
of the regional financial inclusion policy.

According to her, this agreement complemented a first contract signed with the Swiss Capacity Building Facility
(Scbf) for 2.4 billion CFA francs.
This, in his opinion, has since been reinforced by further support to the Social Performance Task Force (Sptf) for
an amount of more than 600 Me. cfa francs.