(Ecofin Agency) – In a context of low access to bank credit to promote income-generating activities, the Gabonese executive is counting on the high smartphone penetration rate to set up an alternative to traditional financing.
The Ministry of Commerce is currently working on setting up a digital tontine in Gabon. The project was presented on Friday October 28, by the Minister of Commerce, Psmall and Maverage Ecompanies, Yves Fernand Manfoumbi, to the women of the Komo Mondah department in Ntoum, during the campaign to raise awareness and promote the Gabon equality program.
“This is about modernizing the operating mechanism of the tontine, for better monitoring and securing redistribution to the various members of the community dynamics concerned. Organized generally by women, they will be able to manage their contributions from software that would allow them to interconnect their smartphones.explains the Ministry of Commerce.
This project should be in place by December 2022, learnsd The New Gabon. According to one source at the Ministry of Commerce, « iThere was a mission from the Dgeneral direction of the social economy who went to Senegal to meet people who have already experienced the operating mechanism of the digital tontine. When we return from this mission, it is agreed that a service provider will accompany us in the deployment of this project”.
The introduction of such a form of rotating financing would allow, to the fairer sex of Ntoum and other localities in the country, to further develop their activities in a context where operators in the informal sector as well as SMEs are struggling to find financing from conventional banks.
And with the wide telephone coverage, the penetration rate of which is quite high (3 million subscribers in 2019), a digital tontine would be advantageous for these populations, which are mostly unbanked, according to finance specialists. According to official data, the banking rate in Gabon is around 30%.
SG