Ecobank has said it is harnessing its digital expertise and innovation to bring efficiency and convenience to the international and intra-African remittance markets, while significantly reducing the costs of the service.

The launch of the Rapidtransfer mobile application will enable Africans around the world to easily and instantly send money to bank accounts, mobile wallets and cash collection in, and across, 33 African countries.

As well as being intuitive, easy to navigate and multi-lingual with English, French, Spanish and Portuguese variants, the application provides simple and secure digital onboarding.

Users can choose how and when funds are delivered to the intended beneficiary, with transparent foreign exchange rates prior to each transaction. Charges range from nothing to 3 percent depending on the options the customer selects.

“Historically the cost of sending cross-border remittances in Africa has been far too high. Similarly, the process to send funds has long been inefficient and burdensome, with customers forced to physically go to an agent, and yet still have little or no clarity as to when the money will reach the recipient,” said Ade Adeyemi, Ecobank’s Group CEO.

Adeyemi added, “The Rapidtransfer app remittance solution is a quick, easy and reliable digital solution that removes all of these issues. It is a game-changer for Africans with its sustainable and standout affordability.”

He further stated that the application further demonstrates Ecobank’s commitment to enhance the economic development and financial integration of the African continent. “We know that remittance flows into and across Africa from migrants working away from home has an enormously beneficial impact in powering Africa’s domestic economies,” the Group CEO noted.

“By reducing the costs to send the money, Rapidtransfer ultimately enables the beneficiary to receive more of the funds originally sent to them, which in turn will have a multiplier effect on national economies by boosting demand and driving business growth,” he pointed out.

In the first quarter of 2018, the average cost of sending US$200 was 7.1 percent and remittance services in Sub-Saharan Africa were the costliest in the world at an average cost of 9.4 percent.

A substantial proportion of migrants financially support their dependents back home and the potential size of this remittance market is illustrated by the United Nations’ estimate that the number of international migrants, including refugees, was 258 million in 2017.

Money transfers from migrant workers and others to all countries worldwide were US$613 billion in 2017 and those into Sub-Saharan Africa grew by US$4 billion to US$38 billion in 20173.

The importance of the inflow of remittances into many African countries cannot be underestimated. Remittances play a hugely important part of many national economies and their inflows represent 27 percent and 21 percent of Liberia and The Gambia’s Gross Domestic Product respectively, the Lome based group

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Uganda is ranked 127th out of 190 economies in the global 2019 Doing Business report but Mauritius joins the group of top 20 economies this year. It is the highest ranked Sub-Saharan African economy.

The second highest ranking economies in the Sub Saharan region are Rwanda (29) and Kenya (61).South Sudan (185), Eritrea (189), and Somalia (190) are the lowest ranked economies in the region. Other large economies in the region and their rankings are Democratic Republic of Congo (184), Ethiopia (159), Nigeria (146), Tanzania (144), Sudan (162), and Uganda (127).

The region’s economies perform best in the area of Starting a Business (122). Rwanda ranks among the best globally in the Doing Business areas of Registering Property (with a rank of 2) and Getting Credit (3). In registering property, Rwanda has an efficient land registry where it takes 7 days to transfer property and costs only 0.1% of the property value, the same as in New Zealand.

Sub Saharan Africa also underperforms in the areas of Getting Electricity (145), Trading Across Borders (139) and Registering Property (131). It takes on average 112 days for a business to obtain a permanent electricity connection to the grid in Sub-Saharan Africa, compared to a global average of 86 days.

This year’s report marks the sixth year in a row that Sub-Saharan Africa leads with the highest number of business regulatory reforms captured by Doing Business.

One-third of all business regulatory reforms recorded by Doing Business 2019 were in the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa. With a total of 107 reforms, Sub-Saharan Africa has a record number for a third consecutive year.

In addition, this year also saw the highest number of economies carrying out reforms, with 40 of the region’s 48 economies implementing at least one reform, compared to the previous high of 37 economies two years ago.

The largest number of reforms implemented in the region was in the areas of Enforcing Contracts (27), followed by Starting a Business (17), and Registering Property (with 13 reforms)

17-member states of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa, known by its French acronym OHADA adopted a Uniform Act on Mediation in 2017 (filling a legislative void that existed in most OHADA member states) which introduced mediation as an amicable mode of dispute settlement.

Four Sub-Saharan African economies – Togo, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Rwanda made the list of global top 10 improvers this year. Over the past 12 months, collectively these economies implemented a total of 23 reforms.

Rwanda led the region in terms of the number of reforms implemented – seven in the past year, while Gabon, Guinea and Sudan were also among the notable reformers, with five reforms each.

Sub-Saharan African economies recorded eight reforms in the area of getting electricity, the highest number of any region worldwide.

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Economies in Sub Saharan Africa set a new record for a third consecutive year, carrying out 107 reforms in the past year to improve the ease of doing business for domestic small and medium enterprises, says the World Bank Group’s Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform report, released Wednesday.

The latest reforms were a significant increase over the 83 reforms that were implemented in the region the previous year. In addition, this year also saw the highest number of economies carrying out reforms, with 40 of the region’s 48 economies implementing at least one reform, compared to the previous high of 37 economies two years ago.

Four of the region’s economies have earned coveted spots in this year’s global top improvers, Togo, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Rwanda. And, Mauritius regained a spot in the world’s top ranked economies, in 20th place. Five reforms were carried out in Mauritius during the past year, including the elimination of a sole gender-based barrier.

In the area of Starting a Business, Mauritius equalized the business registration process for men and women and further consolidating the registration process for all applicants. Minority investor protections were strengthened by clarifying ownership and control structures and introducing greater corporate transparency.

Reforms were also carried out in the areas of Registering Property, Trading Across Borders and Paying Taxes. Rwanda carried out the most reforms in the region in past year, with seven, and moved up to 29th rank globally. The latest improvements in Rwanda, which has carried out the most reforms since the inception of Doing Business 16 years ago, included making starting a business less costly by replacing electronic billing machines with free software for value added tax invoices.

In Registering Property, an area in which Rwanda is second only to New Zealand in the world, new land dispute resolution mechanisms made property registration easier. A new insolvency law strengthened access to credit, another area in which Rwanda excels, and made it easier to resolve insolvencies by making insolvency proceedings more accessible for creditors and granting them greater participation in the proceedings.

Other reforms in Rwanda were in the areas of Trading Across Borders and Getting Electricity. Kenya implemented five reforms, advancing to 61 st rank. One reform included the introduction of a new law which helped further strengthen access to credit. This latest reform catapulted Kenya to 8th rank in the world in the area of Getting Credit.

Kenya also made it easier for businesses to pay taxes by consolidating permits and utilizing the country’s iTax platform, while an online system helped make property registration easier. Other improvements strengthened minority investor protections and made it easier to resolve insolvencies.

Notable reforms in Côte d’Ivoire and Togo included the introduction of online systems for filing corporate income tax and value added tax returns, making it easier for businesses to pay their taxes. In Côte d’Ivoire, which carried out five reforms, access to credit and construction quality controls were also strengthened and business registration and enforcing contracts were made easier.

In Togo, which carried out six reforms, business registration was made easier with a reduction of minimum capital requirement and enforcing contracts was made easier with the adoption of a new law on mediation, among other reforms. Nigeria carried out four reforms which included making Starting a Business easier in Kano and Lagos, the two cities covered by Doing Business.

Getting Electricity and Trading Across Borders also saw reforms in the two cities. In addition, Lagos made Enforcing Contracts easier by issuing new rules of civil procedure for small claims courts, while Kano, in a negative move, made property registration less transparent by no longer publishing online the fee schedule and list of documents necessary to transfer a property.

Elsewhere in the region, Ethiopia carried out three reforms to make it easier to register a new business, enforce contracts and obtain construction permits, while two reforms in South Africa improved the monitoring and regulation of power outages and reduced the time needed to start a new business.

Regionally, much of the reform activity in the past year focused on improvements in the area of Enforcing Contracts, with the region’s 27 reforms accounting for more than half of the reforms recorded in this area globally. The uptick was the result of reforms carried out by the 17-member states of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA).

The organization adopted a Uniform Act on Mediation in 2017, which introduced mediation as an amicable mode of dispute settlement. Starting a Business saw 17 reforms, which largely focused on reducing the time to obtain a business license, by streamlining existing services or introducing new online solutions.

Burundi, the region’s top-ranking economy in this area with a global rank of 17, further reduced the cost needed to register a new business. “It is a year of records for Sub-Saharan Africa. The significant acceleration in the reform effort over the past year and spanning several years is a testament to the strong impetus for change in in the region.

A more efficient business environment, in which private enterprise thrives, is a fundamental building block for job-creation and growth,” said Santiago Croci Downes, Program Manager of the Doing Business Unit. The region’s economies perform best in the areas of Getting Credit and Starting a Business, with four economies – Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia – ranked among the world’s top 10 in Getting Credit ranking.

And, on average, it now takes 21 days and costs 39 percent of income per capita to start a new business in the region, compared with 61 days and 305 percent of income per capita in 2003, when Doing Business was first published. And the minimum capital requirement has been eliminated in a majority of economies and drastically reduced in others.

The region underperforms in the areas of Getting Electricity and Trading Across Borders. For example, it costs on average 3456.5 percent of income per capita for a business to get connected to the electrical grid, compared to 1229 percent globally. And it takes 98 hours to comply with documentation requirements to import, compared with 61 hours globally.

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