The Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP) has just taken a majority stake in Wizall, a Mobile Money player with Total Sénègal among its shareholders. This acquisition, which meets a well-defined strategy, makes Senegal the backbone of BCP’s Mobile Banking strategy in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“M-Banking’s operations, including money transfer and payment activities, will be provided by our subsidiaries Wizall, a mobile money player, and ATPS, a financial services aggregator and a proximity agent network operator” said Kamal Mokdad, director general of the BCP in charge of international development, traveling to Dakar on December 4, 2018, at the head of a large delegation of executives of the bank.
Two Senegalese nuggets that will carry the digital strategy of the BCP
ATPS operates under the Proximo and Proxicash brands. Initially created to facilitate the payment of Senelec bills, the company has expanded its activities, becoming the leading aggregator of financial services and value-added services: as such, ATPS has built a relationship of trust with all operators Telecom (Orange, Tigo, Expresso) and money transfer operators (Western Union, Moneygram, Ria, etc.). It has also built a network of more than 6,000 partner sales outlets in Senegal.
“The BCP has decided to capitalize on the know-how of the Senegalese ATPS teams, to deploy it in all countries of the WAEMU zone, starting with Côte d’Ivoire and Niger,” said Mr. Mokdad.
“The Wizall solution has demonstrated its relevance, for it is for example through it that the salaries of the unbanked employees of the Dakar Regional Express train yard are paid. It is also through Wizall that several tens of thousands of student grants are paid each month, “says the BCP CEO.
AMIFA, the vehicle of inclusion
This acquisition foreshadows the direction of development of the bank in the coming years. “We are not in a race for size but in an inclusive logic.” The latter will be accelerated next January with the launch of AMIFA, a microcredit structure that will be mainly active in the rural world. “The financing of income-generating activities, micro-entrepreneurs and VSEs, particularly in rural areas, will now be provided by AMIFA,” Mokdad said. As a reminder, AMIFA was born from a high-level partnership signed between King Mohammed 6 and President Macky Sall.
Already operational in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Guinea, AMIFA is targeting a presence in a dozen African countries by 2020. “In addition to contributing to the financial inclusion of populations previously excluded from the traditional banking system, rural women and young people, it will play a significant role in eradicating precariousness and reducing poverty, “Mokdad said in his address.
