Although Safaricom’s M-Pesa was widely heralded as Africa’s first mobile money product after it was launched in 2007, French telecom giant, Orange, followed shortly after with the launch of Orange Money in 2008.
The service was first launched in Côte d’Ivoire but has since spread to the 18 markets Orange is active in – mainly Francophone West and Central African markets.
Jérôme Hénique, who took over as Executive Vice-President and CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa in April, says there are around 80m customers in Africa.
However, in recent years well-funded and fast-moving startups like Wave have drastically eaten into Orange’s market share, pushing the telco to look at new ways to maintain business.
One of those strategies was the 2020 launch of Orange Bank Africa; a stripped-back banking service allowing customers to save and borrow through their mobile phones.
“We…
