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" As a bank, we want all Africans to participate in prosperity: to be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor, to succeed and to realize their dreams, " Ecobank Nigeria's Managing Director, ] Charles Kie says this during the visit of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron .
Read the full speech below:
I am enormously honored and privileged to welcome His Excellency, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron who is with us today. I understand that it is the first time that a French president is making an official visit to Lagos and I am sure that he will enjoy the experience and will want to return to Lagos at the same time. to come up.
Honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to all of you and hope you are all as excited as me to be able to see, experience and hear directly this celebration and showcase of creative industries and influencers of Africa.
Special thanks to Trace for organizing this event, which launches the 2020 season of African cultures in France
I am calling Charles Kie and I am the Managing Director of Ecobank Nigeria
Ecobank is a pan-African bank operating in 36 African countries and employs 15,930 people. in more than 940 branches and offices. We are proud to sponsor this Trace event.
Ecobank's main goal is its determination to help develop and grow African businesses and economies and to be the bank of choice for consumers and businesses in Central Africa, which will benefit everyone. people in Africa and bring greater financial integration and cohesion. It makes sense that Africa's strong heritage in dance and music brings together so many people by integrating them through entertainment and interest.
Ecobank is passionate about Africa and we intend to do what it takes for the continent. We want to help people reach their potential and integrate them into the traditional economy.
Our continent has long suffered from financial exclusion, which has deprived many of them of access to basic banking services. Thanks to our digital strategy, which has already enabled more than 5 million people to download and use our revolutionary Ecobank mobile app, we have succeeded in serving the mass market regardless of where we live or work. work of our customers.
can be opened instantly via the app and it has removed barriers to the bank, allowing our banking services to be used by the unbanked. It relies on the widespread use of mobile phones and, coupled with our collaborative partnerships, including those with multinational telecom companies, it is no longer illusory to expect that the company will have a mobile phone. financial exclusion is eradicated on the African continent. . We do it and we are replacing the only monetary society in which many have lived because they previously had no alternative.
We give everyone access to banking services, allowing them to send money, pay bills, buy things Internet, recharge their time of day. Antenna and receive money on their mobiles wherever they are and when they want it. We are moving from the slow, bureaucratic bank of the past to the practical, functional and customer-centric bank of the future. Our number of customers is growing rapidly – we have gained 4 million customers last year – and we are determined to reach our goal of serving more than 100 million customers in the medium term.
Africa has a growing population, with an average of about 19, and a growing middle class. By 2040, it should be one of the few continents where youth demographics will be the largest. It is no wonder that we have a rich and varied taste for food, fashion, music, arts and culture in general.
As a bank, we want all Africans to participate in prosperity: from their work, to succeed and to realize their dreams. In Africa, we have an innate entrepreneurial spirit that has literally spawned millions of business creations.
Businesses need to access funding to grow; they need convenient and efficient banking services to allow them to focus their energy on their activities. Some of today's small business start-ups will be the multinationals of tomorrow. Ecobank has a thriving commercial bank that meets the financing needs of businesses.
Companies that can offer their customers a wide choice of convenient payment options will increase their turnover. Ecobank enables them to provide this choice through digital solutions such as Ecobank Pay, which offers unified and instant self-service on a range of interconnected payment solutions and offers instant pay-to-pay capability to businesses, making it easy to greatly their cash management. I am also proud that Ecobank has chosen to launch it here in Nigeria first.
If you want to listen to the latest success of our own Femi Kuti – which will entertain us here today – you can do it easily on your mobile phone, wherever you are, and this is of great comfort for those of the diaspora who want to stay in touch with their country of origin. What is not so good for expatriate workers is the expense they incur when they send cross-border remittances to their dependents or to their parents back home. These charges can take huge bites of what they send – the World Bank found that remittance services in sub-Saharan Africa are the most expensive in the world at an average cost of 9.4%. Interregional remittances can be even more expensive, the payment corridor linking Angola to Namibia representing up to 21.4% of the remittance amount, more than a fifth of that amount. who is sent. This reduces the standard of living of dependents, which has a negative impact on the local economy.
At Ecobank, we are doing something about it. Rapidtransfer, Ecobank's mobile application transfer solution, is a game changer for the cross-border remittance market. It is a fast, easy and efficient digital solution that facilitates low cost remittances.
African culture is growing and receiving widespread attention on a global scale. We are witnessing recently large sums paid for African art. African art sales at Christies in Paris yielded 6.1 million euros in June and a little over a year ago, the inaugural sale of Sotheby's D & # 39; s 39, modern and contemporary African art generated a cumulative business turnover of 2.8 million pounds sterling. & # 39; Crash Willy & # 39; from the UK based UK artist, Yinka Shonibare MBE, is sold at £ 224,750. In the movie world, 'Nollywood & # 39; is the second largest film industry in the world with 2,000 productions a year, generating more than $ 4 billion. The recent Black Panther movie has been a phenomenal success and is one of the most lucrative movies ever made.
Some African musicians have become global superstars and we have African models on the catwalks of major international fashion brands. , culture and creative industries realize their potential and demonstrate the potential of Africa as a whole. Ecobank is committed to helping cultural industries develop, share and share their perspectives, and ensure growth that will benefit their sector and the whole of Africa.
It is heartening to see the international recognition of African culture Let me assure you that Ecobank shares a modern vision of Africa: we are not a continent to be defined by our past, we have a bright future, shaped by Africans for the benefit of all Africans. We welcome his commitment to embrace and work with all of Africa, not just our French-speaking brothers and sisters. We join him in his desire to deepen Africa's global economic relations.
Africa is open to international investment to drive our business development and continue to industrialize and improve our infrastructure to develop our regional and global value chains. can diversify our economies and can expand our business and our economies.
Ecobank does its part to help these things. We ensure that all Africans have access to the innovative digital banking and practical services they need and deserve. We want to engage with all sectors of society and help them all help their businesses and nations realize their visions and ambitions and position them as a valuable and valuable contributor to the world. 19659002] The future is bright, the future is pan-African.
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