31 I N T E G R A T E D R E P O R T 2 0 2 1 Against this backdrop, our Cards & Payments business unit performed well. Issuing spend was in line with FY 2020 and our Point-Of-Sale (POS) acquiring volumes increased by MUR 1.0bn between FY 2020 and FY 2021. We have been actively engaging with the Bank of Mauritius (BOM) to ensure that as a company, Cim Finance is well positioned to take advantage of the benefits of the MauCAS Instant Payment System (IPS), a solution that facilitates digital payments with the goal of transitioning towards a cashless society. Examples of the key benefits we can derive are the integration of our consumer app into the IPS to enable digital payments of monthly loan instalments, as well as the instant disbursement of loans to our clients. We recently received our Payment Services Provider license from the BOM and have completed the IPS technical integration. We are now ready to start deploying payment and disbursement functionalities linked to our app, Mo Finans. The Factoring team provides Cim Finance’s customers with solutions that help them access the working capital needed to support their business growth by: financing of up to 90% of invoice values; managing the administration and collection of their sales ledger; providing credit insurance cover of debtors to protect businesses from bad debts. The impact of COVID-19 has certainly prompted both SMEs and large corporations to shift their attention to the credit risk of their debtors. As a result, our Factoring business has been seeing strong growth over the last two years, with a 20% growth in factoring assignments for the current year. We are collaboratingwithMauritius Export Association (MEXA) on an export factoring partnership for MEXA members, where Cim Finance will provide export factoring credit facilities for exported goods, which will, in turn, be covered by credit insurance provided by Coface. We look forward to developing this mutually beneficial partnership with MEXA and its members. An important initiative in the last financial year was the comprehensive review of our SME strategy and go-to-market offering for our SME clients. We began by setting up a dedicated SME team to better service our SME clients and develop our multi-channel strategy so our customers are able to reach out to us through different mediums. We launched the ‘WhatsApp for SME’ channel, which accelerates the application process for SMEs: they can effortlessly apply for our products through WhatsApp, and our sales team is quick to follow up on all pre-vetted queries. We have already received over 2,000 enquiries for SME loans. We also put in place ‘SME Desks’ in our Port Louis, Goodlands, Rose Hill & Flacq branches, and are looking to roll out a few more in the coming year. Another important endeavour is the development of the Cim Accelerator Programme. We aim to launch a website with useful videos, tutorials and articles that are relevant to SMEs; to organise quarterly Meetup Events, which will serve as a forum for SMEs to network and connect with the Cim SME teams; and to launch an annual Accelerator Booster Programme for a number of selected SME clients over a six-month period to support them with the development of their projects and business plans. FACTORING SMEs G R O U P R E V I E W
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