Nearly two years after taking over as head of Orange Bank Africa (OBA), Ivorian Jean-Louis Menann-Kouamé is keen to highlight the strength of his digital bank, which the French telecoms operator launched in July 2020 with its partner NSIA, a 25% shareholder. At the beginning of the adventure, however, OBA’s announced ambitions were much greater than they are today. The African digital bank, chaired by Paul de Leusse, director of Orange Bank in Europe, had hoped to reach 10 million customers by 2025, thanks to a rapid launch in Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Due to a longer than expected approval process with the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), these objectives have not been achieved. At the end of April 2022, the service had 800,000 customers in Côte d’Ivoire, the only market at the moment. We met with the director for an interview on the sidelines of the Cyber Africa Forum
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