(Business in Cameroon) - The Electronic Inter-banking Group of Central Africa (Gimac) will officially launch, on 29 January 2016 in Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, the “Gimac card”, which can be used to withdraw money and make payments through the electronic terminals of the six countries (Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and CAR) of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC in French).

The information was revealed by Cameroonian Valentin Mbozo’o, MD of Gimac, in an interview given to Quotidien de l’Economie. According to him, this community bank card is “a reality since the first quarter of 2015” and “there was an order for two hundred and fifty thousand (250,000) cards by end December 2015 from the banks that have already been certified”.

According to Mr. Mbozo’o, this new financial integration tool in the CEMAC area “is marketed by the National Financial Credit (NFC)”, a Cameroonian microfinance institution. “The Cameroon International Bank for Savings and Credit (BICEC in French), the Commercial Bank Chad (CBT), Ecobank Cameroon, already certified in 2015, are now at the inter-banking pre-production”, the MD of Gimac specified.

With “about 10 banks already operating on the platform” at the moment, “and another 10 or more projects of bank integration starting from January 2016, Gimac is targeting the integration of most of its members by end 2016, to finish setting up the inter-banking infrastructure of the electronic payments ecosystem of the sub-region”, Valentin Mbozo’o indicates.

BRM