Orange and Yabx collaborate with Cofina in Ivory Coast

By Edlyn Cardoza

Orange, a leading operator in Cote d’Ivoire and Yabx Netherlands, a FinTech venture offering credit products across multiple countries in Africa, recently announced their collaboration with Cofina Cote d’Ivoire, a leading financial institution dedicated to mesofinance, to facilitate smartphone financing for Orange customers. The announcement was made during the MWC show in Barcelona.

This partnership will make a significant difference in promoting digital lifestyle and expanding financial inclusion across Côte d’Ivoire. Yabx’s device impairment technology enables Cofina to launch EMI plans, where Yabx manages the complete customer journey through digital channels, including selection, acquisition, disbursals, collections, etc.

Commenting on the partnership, Raoul YOBOUET, Chief Marketing Officer of Orange Côte d’Ivoire, said, “To experience high quality of digital services and user experience, it is imperative for customers to buy 4G smartphone. High one-time expenditure becomes key challenge to increase user adoption. We are confident that through this partnership with Yabx, the high entry-cost barrier will be eliminated, which will help in driving smartphone adoption.”

Speaking on the occasion, Puneet Chopra, Chief Growth Officer, Yabx, said, “Our collaboration with Orange Côte d’Ivoire is a part of the company’s long-term strategy to enable digital lending services in Africa. Our partnership would facilitate the vision of affordable and convenient handset financing. The main economic and social objectives of our partnership is to help the population of Côte d’Ivoire gain instant access to smartphones in an affordable and convenient manner, enhancing digital adoption through financial inclusion.”

Elhadj Kane, Legal Director & Company Secretary at Cofina, said, “This partnership helps us further advance on our vision to be the pan-African model for inclusive finance and use of technology to do responsible lending.”

Yabx provides the technology to underwrite smartphone financing for customers in multiple emerging markets. In doing so, the company builds customer profiles from tens of thousands of data points, using a digital customer footprint on mobile services and mobile money.

Yabx is showcasing its FinTech solutions at MWC Barcelona, emphasizing its collaborative lending model where they partner with mobile network providers and financial institutes to create innovative and disruptive propositions that bring substantial new value pools for all stakeholders.