WHEN COVID-19 hit Ivory Coast, Bonaventure Kra, who works at an import-export business, began to worry. Handling hard cash all day was a risk. Queuing in crowded bank branches exposed him to infection.

Then, in the midst of the pandemic, French telecommunications giant Orange launched an entirely digital bank — its first full banking venture in Africa.

“Going back to cash would be like travelling back in time,” Kra said in the country’s commercial capital, Abidjan. “I intend to use it permanently.”

Africa’s mobile phone operators are ramping up plans to bring banking to millions of Africans, in some cases for the first time, after the coronavirus crisis caused a surge in use of digital financial services.

Orange, MTN, Telkom and Vodacom are lowering fees, rolling out new lending services ahead of schedule, and expanding mobile payment networks with the aim of finally denting the so-far unshakeable dominance of cash.

“It’s one of those industries that we consider to be ripe for disruption,” said Sibusiso Ngwenya, financial services managing executive at South Africa’s Telkom.

With their revenue under threat as governments cap data prices and customers abandon voice phone services for free messaging apps, mobile phone operators have sought to leverage their reach into remote villages and urban shanty towns in a pivot to banking.

Some African governments released COVID-19 stimulus grants via mobile money platforms and central banks eased regulations, including limits on mobile transactions.(SD-Agencies)