The Orange alternative

French telecom provider Orange is rolling out its own mobile banking services this fall. Dubbed “Orange Bank,” the firm is offering checking and savings accounts, as well as issuing Visa debit-credit cards. Aside from being able to open your account at Orange mobile stores (where you don’t even have to have a subscription to their mobile services), transactions and customer service inquiries will be done entirely online. The service launches in early November, after several delays stemming back to the spring.

While Orange Bank is primed to be the first such mobile banking service in France, it offers financial services in its Polish market. On top of that, it is following in the footsteps of firms like Revolut and N26, which operate in Britain and Germany, respectively. It will be interesting to see how this rollout unfolds. Banking customers typically stay loyal to their banks unless they have severe problems with them. Knowing this, Orange hopes to attract first-time bankers primarily, hoping to grow to 2 million banking customers.

Orange may not be pushing the envelope, but it is lighting a fire under traditional banks. French financial stalwart Société Générale is upping the ante by offering mobile banking in Africa (where Orange already has a mobile banking presence) through its YUP mobile app. Although the bank has branches in 18 different African countries, there is an interesting twist to this story: most people there do not have bank accounts, and the infrastructure for financial transactions is dominated by telecommunications companies. Société Générale is expecting that their app will ramp up cross-border financial transfers. They are experiencing 10% annual growth in Africa, and they feel confident that the new service can break even in three years’ time.

The approaches between Orange and Société Générale differ somewhat as well. While Orange will offer an approach more in tune than traditional banks with a mobile-centric lifestyle – it will apparently offer credit and insurance in the future – Société Générale’s YUP app will use a technology called near-sound data transfer, using the audio channels of mobile devices to create electronic signatures which enable secure transactions such as “nano-loans”. In both cases, different aspects of mobile technology have been transforming the way people carry out everyday errands such as banking, and will continue to do so.