(Business in Cameroon) - Maxwell Ndecham, Director and CEO of the insurance company Zenithe Insurance, is formal: the launch, last May, of the digital platform of this Cameroonian company, which from now on allows quotations to be requested and received, subscription and payment of one's insurance policy directly online, is a revolution in the insurance sector in Francophone Africa.

"We are the first in the CIMA area (common regulatory body, editor's note), which includes 15 countries in Central and West Africa. I cannot speak about what is happening in Anglophone African countries", he stated on 15 June in Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital. On that day, the top management of Zenithe Insurance, came to meet economic operators in the construction sector, to present an offer allowing them to request, obtain and pay (MasterCard, Visa and Orange Money), directly via the company platform the different guarantees required for the execution of service contracts with the Cameroonian state.

These guarantees, which can often take several weeks to obtain, claim the management of Zenithe Insurance, could henceforth be issued in an hour, and at reduced costs, as a result of the launch of the digital platform of this insurance company. Better still, confided Maxwell Ndecham, this insurance company, created by operators in the building sector, has set up the "Zenithe Executive Club", whose members, must fulfill certain prior obligations at registration, will obtain all guarantees freely for the implementation of contracts with their partners. According to Zenithe Insurance management, the company's new digital platform, also accessible on smartphones and other tablets, was inspired by the government project called e-procurement, financed by Japanese cooperation, and which aims to dematerialise public procurement procedures in Cameroon.

Hence, as well as allowing economic operators to increase speed in obtaining their guarantees, but also in terms of cost, uninterrupted service (available 24h/24) and security, we learn, the guarantees issued by Zenithe Insurance will be able to be directly authenticated, via the platform, by the Ministry of Procurement, as soon as the e-procurement service is launched.

Thanks to the digitalisation of subscriptions to its different insurance offers, as well as the delivery online of guarantees to companies, Zenithe Insurance, according to Mirabelle Dassé, Director of Development in this insurance company, aims to contribute to the improvement of the insurance penetration rate in Cameroon (officially 2%), and above all to triple the turnover of Zenithe over a period of 5 years. Officially, this turnover practically doubled over the period 2014-2016, from FCfa 4 billion to FCfa 7.9 billion.

Brice R. Mbodiam