Orange Money Group and banking as a service financial technology provider JUMO, have partnered to enhance digital financial services across Africa. This collaboration aims to extend Orange Money Group's services to include additional microcredit solutions for unbanked populations.
The partnership
With over 100 million customers in sixteen countries across Africa and the Middle East, Orange Money Group facilitated more than EUR 160 billion in transactions in 2024. JUMO has disbursed over $8 billion to more than 31 million African customers, matching expertise and a desire to scale with Orange Money Group.
This partnership will enable Orange Money Group to advance its financial inclusion strategy by introducing new microcredit services to their customer value proposition. The collaboration with JUMO leverages their data analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities refined over 10 years to optimize credit allocation, reduce the cost of risk for lending to < 4% and grow sustainable portfolios.
This strategic alliance will enable the rollout of various credit products across multiple markets from a multitude of funders, creating a new microfinance marketplace for the unbanked in emerging markets, with an initial focus on Francophone Africa. JUMO's leading expertise in asset allocation and credit risk management makes them a key partner for Orange Money Group in Africa. Orange Money Group customers will be eligible to securely request credit through their mobile devices, without needing a bank account or collateral.
JUMO has developed a range of short-term and installment loan products for consumers, merchants and distributors with limited access to these services. They use trained AI algorithms to assess credit risk and facilitate the immediate flow of capital through their partnerships with pan-African banks and development finance institutions.
JUMO's AI-driven technology for banks and payments ecosystems will provide Orange Money Group the opportunity to introduce real-time app-based and USSD lending to their African customers. The offering is multi-country, multi-product, and multi-funding with plans to launch in Burkina Faso imminent, to be followed by Mali and Botswana.
The customer experience
This partnership delivers a streamlined user experience that combines financial inclusion with cutting-edge technology. The process is as follows:
- Users access the service via their Orange Money Group wallet
- They request an amount of credit
- JUMO's AI technology evaluates eligibility based on transactional data
- If validated, the amount is immediately credited to the user's wallet.
- Repayment is made automatically according to agreed terms.
Aminata Kane, CEO of Orange Money Group comments: “After developing transfer and payment services used thousands of times every second, we now aim to support our customers in their personal projects, as well as help them manage everyday emergencies. In recent years, Orange Money has expanded its portfolio with highly accessible small loan offers. By partnering with JUMO, we aim to accelerate this momentum, roll out these services across a wide range of countries, and combine our expertise with their technology to deliver support that is even faster, more transparent, and better tailored to the needs of all our customers”.
Andrew Watkins-Ball, JUMO CEO and founder: “We are proud to have been chosen to partner with Orange and we are excited to connect Orange customers with products from the market leading banks that run on our platform. This collaboration, built on top of Orange Money Group's mobile payments and money transfer platforms, will provide customers with great financial choices and allows our bank partners to grow in new markets”.
About Orange Money Group
Orange Money, a pioneering solution for financial inclusion, is used every month by more than 43 million people across 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East. Orange Money Group, in coordination with local Orange Money entities and Orange Bank Africa, is responsible for defining the mobile financial services strategy for the Middle East and Africa region. It provides local entities with operational support to help them accelerate their growth, establish new partnerships, support their compliance plans, and develop new value-added activities that meet market expectations.
About Orange Middle-East and Africa (OMEA)
Orange is present in 18 countries in Africa and the Middle East and has 161 million customers at 31 December 2024. With 7.7 billion euros of revenues in 2024, Orange MEA is the first growth area in the Orange group. Orange Money, its flagship mobile-based money transfer and financial services offer is available in 17 countries and has more than 100 million customers. Orange, multi-services operator, key partner of the digital transformation provides its expertise to support the development of new digital services in Africa and the Middle East.
About JUMO
JUMO has built AI-led financial technology that powers banks to deliver a new generation of digital credit and savings products to millions of entrepreneurs in Africa. We work with partners, such as banks, e-money operators and payments providers, to facilitate high-tech information and money management systems.
Since founding in 2015, JUMO has disbursed over $8 billion dollars to more than 31 million people in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Côte d'Ivoire, South Africa, Benin and Cameroon. Our administration of over 250 million individual loans has proven that microcredit in Africa is imperative, impactful and sustainable.
With unmatched speed to market and low infrastructure costs, JUMO aims to bring banking to everyone, everywhere, anytime.
www.jumo.world
