mobileSierra Leone News: SLCB, Africell Launch Bank to Wallet Money Transfer System

By George M.O Williams

Sierra Leone Commercial Bank (SLCB) and the telecom giant Africell on Tuesday September 3, 2019, in Freetown officially launched an innovative service, Bank to Wallet or Wallet to Bank Money transfer service.

This service will allow Africell subscribers with Bank Account at the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank to transfer money from their bank account to their mobile money wallet and from their mobile money wallet to their bank account.

Managing Director of SLCB, Fidelis Turay said that their collaboration with Africell is geared towards financial inclusion, adding that “SLCB have no barriers in bringing together the population into the banking system”.

“Our partnership and launching of this service with Africell is to improve financial inclusiveness in about four million Africell subscribers. However, there are other developmental stake with Africell that includes the G2P (Government to People) and G2B (Government to Bank) which are under completion to ease financial transaction between government and employees,” he added

Project Manager, SLCB, Dr. Orlean Cole noted that the benefit derived from this latest innovative service is that subscribers will be able to move money from their bank account directly to their Africell account and vice-versa.

“To be activated, Africell subscribers holding a SLCB bank account will have to visit the nearest SLCB branch to link their Africell Money Account to their SLCB account. The limited transaction range from Le1000 to Le 15 million and 1.5 unit as transaction charge,” Dr. Cole added

Head of Marketing, Africell, Mr. Joe Abass Bangura said that the National Financial Inclusion Strategy released by the Bank of Sierra Leone, states that 80% of Sierra Leoneans do not have access to financial services in the country, adding that studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between the rate of financial inclusion and a country`s Gross Domestic Product s(GDP). ”The service we are launching will directly drive financial Inclusion and drive the growth of our nation’s GDP,” he said.

He said that the Africell is profound for always taking the lead in introducing cutting edge voice, data and Fintech services in the country, thus reducing the cost, improving the speed, comfort and security with which people talk and conduct their financial transaction.

He applauded management of Sierra Leone Commercial Bank for partnering with Africell to move Sierra Leoneans to join the electronic payment cashless era.