In Côte d'Ivoire, Societe Generale, driven by mobile money, is stepping up its strategy aimed at companies and the country's millionaire customers.

Société Générale Côte d'Ivoire (SGCI), the Ivorian subsidiary of the French banking group Société Générale, is now focusing its strategy on the development of digital and mobile money to pursue its sustained growth. A plan that has reduced physical customer visits to agencies by 40%. And the approach is no different from that of its immediate competitors in the country, such as the pan-African Ecobank, or the Moroccans Attijariwafa and BMCE, or Banque Atlantique.

Over the 2018-2023 period, digital should represent 30% of the bank's project portfolio. Online banking grew in 2019, with more than 59% of individual customers emerging, compared to 61% of corporates.

Moving towards mobile money, Societe Generale has also launched several applications such as Sogepay in 2016, which allows you to top up your phone credit from your bank account, or even Connect (labeled SGCI Connect in Côte d'Ivoire), which facilitates day-to-day banking transactions.

Business version of Yup

But the mobile banking service on which Societe Generale relies to accelerate its strategy in Côte d'Ivoire is Yup. Born from its partnership with the French fintech TagPay in 2017, and independent of telephone operators, Yup continues to grow. Côte d'Ivoire recorded around 3,500 merchant points at the end of 2019.

Yup is the e-wallet created for unbanked customers, it allows to store money and perform transactions through a mobile application or with a large network of agents. The system works with all operators. The SGCI targets the pool of 80% of unbanked people.

Updated on May 19, 2020 at 2:24 p.m.
[The General Society of Côte d'Ivoire (illustration photo).]

In Côte d'Ivoire, Societe Generale, driven by mobile money, is stepping up its strategy aimed at companies and the country's millionaire customers.

Société Générale Côte d'Ivoire (SGCI), the Ivorian subsidiary of the French banking group Société Générale, is now focusing its strategy on the development of digital and mobile money to pursue its sustained growth. A plan that has reduced physical customer visits to branches by 40%. And the approach is no different from that of its immediate competitors in the country, such as the pan-African Ecobank, or the Moroccans Attijariwafa and BMCE, or Banque Atlantique.

Over the 2018-2023 period, digital should represent 30% of the bank's project portfolio. Online banking grew in 2019, with more than 59% of individual customers emerging, compared to 61% of corporates.

READ Africa will exceed 500 million mobile money users in 2020

Moving towards mobile money, Societe Generale has also launched several applications such as Sogepay in 2016, which allows you to top up your phone credit from your bank account, or even Connect (labeled SGCI Connect in Côte d'Ivoire), which facilitates day-to-day banking transactions.

Business version of Yup

But the mobile banking service on which Societe Generale relies to accelerate its strategy in Côte d'Ivoire is Yup. Born from its partnership with the French fintech TagPay in 2017, and independent of telephone operators, Yup continues to grow. Côte d'Ivoire recorded around 3,500 merchant points at the end of 2019.

Yup is the e-wallet created for unbanked customers, it allows to store money and perform transactions through a mobile application or with a large network of agents. The system works with all operators. The SGCI targets the pool of 80% of unbanked people.

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The business version, dedicated to companies, totaled 7,000 beneficiaries for one million transactions relating to the payment of salaries and the reimbursement of expenses. “This market is doing well for individuals and businesses. We are in the process of strengthening this segment,” said Aymeric Villebrun, Managing Director of Societe Generale Côte d'Ivoire during the presentation of the 2019 financial results in Abidjan.

Yup Business makes it possible in particular to pay salaries by minimizing the risks linked to the manipulation of liquidities and by saving costs linked to the transport of funds on site, by reducing the additional security required, possible fraud and the cost of personnel. dedicated to this task.

Cap on millionaires confirmed

Still in the launch phase, the private banking segment is still in SGCI's sights. The subsidiary has so far only opened two specialized branches in 2019: one for private banking and wealth management and another for SMEs. And even if the heritage bank, which targets some 2,500 millionaires in the country (assets and assets of more than 300 million CFA francs), still has an embryonic activity, the ambitions are there.

“We have no fears regarding the development of this activity. We decided to launch this project after having identified market needs in this segment,” said Franck Bonin, the group’s development director based at the Paris headquarters in Abidjan when the activity was launched in June 2019.

In terms of figures, on the Regional Stock Exchange (BRVM), despite an environment marked by gloom, the price of the SGCI share has evolved by + 14% since the beginning of the year while the stock market index has fallen by 16 %. The price of the SGCI share is the third best performance of the year with a capitalization of 271 billion CFA francs (413 million euros).

The tricolor bank has kept its position as market leader with 2,152 billion FCFA of total balance sheet in 2019, up 13% compared to 2018. And the net result came to 50.3 billion FCFA, good news for shareholders who will receive this year. It should be noted that part of the result estimated at 41.8 billion FCFA served to strengthen equity, which increased to 211 billion FCFA against 167 billion FCFA previously. Finally, outstanding loans, approximately 1,622 billion FCFA and trade finance are part of the bank's growth levers.