Orange Côte d'Ivoire, a subsidiary of the French group, is marking a new stage in the rollout of its services in Côte d'Ivoire.
The operator plans to invest 181 billion CFA francs to strengthen the deployment of its 4G network in Côte d'Ivoire, thereby improving the quality of its services and coverage across the country. As a connectivity provider, Orange plays a key role in democratizing the internet on the continent, and Côte d'Ivoire is one of the most important markets in sub-Saharan Africa.
The subsidiary's CEO, Mamadou Bamba, also announced that this investment would enable the rollout of financial services via the digital bank, Orange Bank. To this end, the subsidiary is expected to obtain a banking license from the Central Bank in the near future to start offering microloans from 2020. Indeed, the CEO said he would "obtain the banking license from the Central Bank in June in order to start microcredit from 2020 with Orange Bank."
According to the latest 2019 quarterly report from the Telecommunications/ICT Regulatory Authority of Côte d'Ivoire, the Orange group subsidiary has more than 14 million subscribers.