Awards for Excellence 2019
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Société Générale’s deep commitment to supporting the communities it works in wins it the award as Africa’s best bank for corporate responsibility.
Working to improve the lives of its employees, customers and communities is built into its Grow with Africa initiative, where the bank collaborates with the public and private sector on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that span investments, financing infrastructure projects and supporting entrepreneurs. It is one of very few international banks to include Africa as a central pillar in its overall growth strategy.
SMEs are at the heart of economic growth in Africa, and in addition to targeting a 60% rise in credit to SMEs in the next five years, Société Générale offers access to microfinance through its mobile money solution, Yup, which it aims to roll out to one million users by 2020.
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Alexandre Maymat |
The Yup platform also supports hundreds of thousands of farmers in the region; for those in rural areas the bank is providing off-grid solutions.
In financial inclusion, the bank supports five microfinance institutions in five countries, serving 400,000 clients.
In February this year, the bank launched a Diversity for Africa Initiative to change its decision-making processes and culture, creating a more inclusive company with a target of reaching 30% female representation at executive committee level by 2020. It also supports several women’s entrepreneurship programmes.
“In Africa, women are the leading players in local economic development,” says Alexandre Maymat, head of Africa, Mediterranean basin and overseas. “And yet the path to becoming an entrepreneur remains a difficult one for them.”
