The Ivorian fintech PUSH-CI is strengthening its partnerships with BNI, Ecobank Côte d'Ivoire, Versus Bank, and Orange Money to improve the traceability of agricultural financing and facilitate income disbursements to producers. This mechanism aims to better secure transactions in the coffee-cocoa sector and broaden access to digital financial services.
The digitalization of agricultural payments reaches a new milestone in Côte d'Ivoire. Indeed, the fintech PUSH Côte d'Ivoire officially formalized this 15 of October in Abidjan, the Ivorian economic capital, the signing of four strategic partnerships with the Banque Nationale d'Investissement (BNI), Ecobank Côte d'Ivoire, Versus Bank, and Orange Money.
The objective is to strengthen the security of financial flows in agricultural sectors, particularly coffee-cocoa, from the disbursement of bank loans to the effective payment of producers. See also - Why the evolution of Push reveals that of the entire African fintech sector.
At the heart of this innovative initiative is the desire to ensure better traceability of funds mobilized to finance agricultural activities. The system should allow for tracking financial movements throughout the value chain and verifying that the resources granted are effectively routed to their beneficiaries and used in accordance with their intended purpose.
For an agricultural economy where payments to producers and the financing of marketing campaigns constitute major challenges, this development could contribute to reducing risks associated with cash handling while strengthening trust between banks, cooperatives, companies, and producers. Georges Abi Aad, PDG and co-founder of PUSH Côte d'Ivoire.
For Georges Abi Aad, PDG and co-founder of PUSH Côte d'Ivoire, this alliance is based on the complementarity between financial institutions and technology companies. 'Our role is not to replace financial institutions, but to strengthen their capacity to serve the real economy.
Regarding interoperability, it is a matter of enabling all those producers who wish to be paid digitally to be paid both to a Push account, as well as to an Orange Money account or a bank account...', he explained, highlighting the ambition to build a more integrated, efficient, and inclusive financial ecosystem. Concretely, the platform must help ensure the monitoring of financing from disbursement by banks to the various actors in the agricultural value chain, he indicated.
Cooperatives, companies, exporters, and producers are thus concerned by this improved circulation of financial information. Digitalization and traceability are thus presented as levers for better managing the risks associated with agricultural financing and improving trust between the different stakeholders.
Producers at the heart of the mechanism. Beyond tracking financial flows, the partnership aims to facilitate the receipt of agricultural income.
Thanks to the coordination between banking services and electronic money, producers should be able to receive their payments into the accounts they usually use. The partnership with Orange Money is intended in particular to allow linking the producer's electronic money account to their producer card, in order to facilitate the direct payment of their income.
BNI, for its part, provides its banking and payment infrastructure for the secure processing of operations carried out in the PUSH ecosystem. According to Mikaël Bogui, Deputy CEO of PUSH Côte d'Ivoire, the platform intends to offer producers more flexibility in receiving their funds by allowing them to choose the accounts to which they wish to receive their payments.
This development could also alleviate the logistical constraints faced by some agricultural actors, particularly when the settlement of harvests requires the travel of producers or cooperative managers with cash sums. On behalf of the Ivorian Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food Production, Chief of Staff Drissa Ouattara insisted on the need to propose simple solutions adapted to realities on the ground.
While reaffirming the unwavering support of his ministerial department for this initiative developed by Push Côte d'Ivoire, he specifically called for ensuring the accessibility of services for women and young people, who play an important role in agricultural activities. The challenge is therefore to transform digitalization into concrete advantages: more reliable payments, better secured income, and easier access to financial services capable of supp...
