Société Générale’s African mobile banking underway with TagPay
Core banking goes mobile in Africa
Société Générale has acquired a stake in TagPay, a French mobile banking firm, as it looks to develop mobile banking in Africa.
Société Générale says the deal will support the development of TagPay on the market and it will roll out the service to its African subsidiaries.
TagPay’s mobile-centric core banking system, also called TagPay, is multichannel, can be rolled out via a cloud-based architecture, and is built around the mobile phone. It is independent from telecom operators and works with “any mobile device”.
Société Générale says the solution “enables banks to reach unbanked populations” and caters to “basic mobile phones, which are still widely used in emerging countries”.
Users of TagPay include Societe Generale’s Manko subsidiary in Senegal, “merchant payments” in Ivory Coast (who tested it at service stations), as well as mobile banking projects in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
TagPay (sometimes referred to as Tagattitude) was founded in 2005 by Yves Eonnet (CEO) and Hervé Manceron (COO). It has 25 customers in over 20 countries, and currently has 20 employees.
All in Africa
There have been a number of other recent fintech developments across Africa.
Standard Chartered Bank is bringing its video banking service to Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the “biggest roll-out of its kind by any international bank”. It is also rolling out a new mobile and online banking platform to eight countries in Africa.
ALTX East Africa launched its new exchange in Uganda – offering the ability to handle 150,000 transactions per second.
South African heavyweight Absa became the first bank in Africa to join New York-based R3’s blockchain consortium.
Greece-based banking software vendor Intrasoft International launched its African subsidiary. Kenya-based Intrasoft International East Africa will sell and implement the vendor’s flagship core banking system, Profits.
Barclays Africa has become the first bank on the continent to introduce a chatbot.
