CIM FINANCE. INTEGRATED REPORT 2022 | 33 demand for digital products and contactless payments, and become reputednames in the payment ecosystem inMauritius. For the time being, this partnership is limited to online card acceptance services for Mauritian companies, but we aim to progressively expand this to other digital payment services and secure a stronger foothold in the payment space. The business environment is still fragile, given the economic situation. How has that impacted demand for Factoring services? Factoring is a solution that grants businesses access to immediate liquidity, a solution that several businesses have had recourse to in viewof the adverse economic environment. A central component of Factoring is the provision of credit insurance cover to safeguard our clients against default of their debtors. We onboarded a new credit insurer, Credit Guarantee Insurance. Additionally, we took our partnership with the Mauritius Export Association (‘MEXA’) a step further by signing anMOU that will nowenable us to provide factoring facilities to all their members engaged in export activities. Next, the goal is to explore further supply chain financing solutions among other working capital products, to offer evenmore flexibility to our customers. This will be a major source of growth for us in the coming years, given the scope and evolution of themarket. SMEs and entrepreneurs are particularly vulnerable to disruptions in the economy. Were any specific measures taken to support them through the crisis? This year, our commitment to supporting SMEs took on greater meaning and importance. Evenbefore thepandemic, SMEswere facing a slew of headwinds, mainly a lack of access to finance, qualified personnel and appropriate infrastructure, amongst other constraints, making it difficult for them to embark on any expansion project. The pandemic struck heavy blows to SMEs, who are now facing additional challenges in the form of reduced demand and spiralling costs of raw materials. We extended an olive branch through several measures, such as the SME factoring scheme, moratoriums, and extensions of the tenure of their loans. As emphasised by our Chairperson in hermessage, supporting SMEs has beenone of CimFinance’smissions since its inception. As prolific job creators and the fuel to our national engine, thriving SMEs translate into a thriving economy. The launch of Noubiznes in November 2022 provides the missing link that enables SMEs to scale up their business and play their expected role in revving up economic activities. Through personalised support, access to a large network, mentorship and practical guidance, wewill no doubt see aspiring entrepreneurs develop their competencies and take their business to the next level. Five Noubiznes desks have been set up in key locations across the island to better serve them. Is CimFinance still pursuing its regional expansion strategy? Our regional expansion plans remain relevant and continue to gain ground. Aspira, our Kenyan counterpart, has firmly established itself in the Hire Purchase market in the region, mainly for financing consumer electronics goods. Having built the network and expertise, we are now ready to diversify into other product offerings, beginning with leasing, and tap into different customer segments, such as the B2B market. Besides the digital solutions introduced for the Consumer Finance segment, how is the Group’s Technology Transformation programme advancing? For any digital transformation initiative to be successful, it is important that we have a robust technology backbone and ecosystem to support it. To deliver on our Technology Transformation programme, we have designated an investment of MUR 500m for the upgrade of our IT systems and infrastructure over a four-year period, from2019 to 2022. As a first step, we migrated our Leasing business to a new core lending system in October 2021 and created a scalable integration infrastructure throughwhichour vehicle dealers can seamlessly log on to the application from their showroomand review the status of customer applications. The second phase of the project, which involves the migration of our Consumer Finance activities to the new core system, has been kicked off and is progressing well. This integration ecosystem is also benefitting our merchantpartners, who can nowprovide ‘CimCredit’ as a checkout option on their respective e-commercewebsites, enabling customers to submit their applications online, be apprised of the status of their application instantly and even sign their credit contracts digitally. This fully automated process is a game-changer for our customers, as they can have access to instant credit without having to visit any store or our office. Inmy opinion, co-opetition plays an important role in digital transformation and in our endeavour to providemultiple payment avenues to customers. Our collaborationwith theMauritius Post, Peach Payments and MIPS testifies to the power of partnerships in addressing the soaring demand for digital payment services.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzQ3MjQ5