Worldline - 2019 Universal Registration Document

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EXTRA-FINANCIAL STATEMENT OF PERFORMANCE Building customer trust with reliable, secured, innovative and sustainable solutions

Solutions contributing to access to D.2.5.3.3 finance As a company specialized in payment processing, notably for the retail merchants, Worldline positively contributes to the issue of access to finance that affect the less privileged stakeholders including the un-banked communities or the under-served groups such as small or rural businesses. The Company has developed specific offers and partnerships in favour of the underserved communities in order to improve their financial inclusion. The partnership with the African Fintech, InTouch The sub-Saharan African region, including 50 countries and 1.1 billion inhabitants in 2019 of which 59.9% from rural areas, is amongst the late emerging market in the global field of e-payments and e-banking and more generally, in terms of development, modernisation, standard of living, political stability, law and order. Driving changes and development in those countries is all the more crucial as, according to a World Bank report (2018), “an estimated 413 million people in Africa currently live in extreme poverty – more than half of the world’s total” while, according to the UN’s World Population Prospects (2017), “[m]ore than half of the anticipated growth in global population between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa, with 1.3 billion new people in Africa between 2017 and 2050”, particularly in sub-Saharan African countries. To address this challenge of the population growth, Worldline is convinced that enabling and facilitating exchanges throughout all forms of payment in these regions is essential to improve economic development level, procurement of basic necessities and service accessibility like internet. In order to ease and accelerate the transformation, African countries have to take advantage of the technological opportunities offered by the fintechs (Financial Technologies). Indeed, traditional payment systems are relying on the creation of a bank account and payment cards operated by banking institutions. Such a system tends to be the safest but also the costliest. According to the World Bank, 350 million sub-Saharan African adults are unbanked and the two most commonly reported reason for that is first the lack of money and second the distance to financial institutions. The lack of traditional banking infrastructure and services has paved the way for fintech and telecommunication companies to revolutionise the Financial Services market on the African continent. In this context, fintechs have a considerable role to play in enabling other type of payments, including mobile money, which thus improves financial inclusion. Indeed, in recent years, mobile phone penetration is sub-Saharan Africa has increased dramatically. According to the most recent report from GSMA, an association of mobile network operators worldwide, there are 747 million SIM connections in sub-Saharan Africa, representing 75% of the population. Worldline have signed end of 2018, a technological, commercial and financial partnership with the African fintech “InTouch” to support financial inclusion through the fintech’s actions. One of the key innovative digital solutions of InTouch is the Guichet Unique , which is deployed in eight African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, the Republic of Guinea and Senegal (with a total of

180 million inhabitants targeted). Seven additional countries will open in 2020. The Guichet Unique provides retail networks with a single customer-friendly device enabling them to accept a very wide range of secure and convenient payment methods (e-money, mobile money, private cards and cash) and to offer services supplied by third parties (multimedia subscriptions, bill payment, money transfer, card reloading, and banking and insurance services). Deployed in more than 800 Total service stations and more than 10,000 independent points of sale in 2019, the Guichet Unique platforms manages more than 100,000 transactions per day and enables unprivileged population to have access to e-payment services. Thus, this solution facilitates payment transactions and financial digital services for people without bank account and payment card. It is making wide range of services available (mobile money, prepaid cards, remittance, money transfer, bill payment, etc.). Moreover, it is allowing small merchants (small neighbourhood shops, salons, restaurants, retailers, etc.) more payment options to develop their business. Besides, InTouch in partnership with Worldline also developed a specific initiative in Senegal to bring digital Financial Services to rural Senegalese areas where 61% of this population is financially excluded. With the support of the United Nations Capital Development Fund, the fintech deployed a network of 373 roving bank agents 10 underserved departments of Senegal within 18 months with the results of 800,000 transactions processed. In parallel, it has provided them with a specific mobile application allowing them to offer different types of transactions with all operators in the country and immediate money transfer free of charge. This innovation brought real progress in the villages: increase of awareness and use related to digital financial services (similar services than the Guichet Unique ), additional income for agents, less travels and intermediary fees, more discretion with mobile payment, etc. It should be noted that the recruitment of women has been a challenge in this project. If the objective of 30% of female agents was not reached because of traditional barriers – such as the approval of the husband who has decision-making power, the 27 women recruited (10% in total) benefit – on the same basis as men – from an equal salary supplement which can be considered as a first lever for their emancipation. In the coming years, Worldline and InTouch foresee to connect the solution with the Western Union type of offer to ease financial transfer across the globe. More generally, such a solution supports the development of digital payment solutions instead of cash exchanges only, which is in favour of economic growth and a more secure and transparent economy and society, fighting against fraud, encouraging financial flows traceability. In this way, it supports the Sustainable Development Goals 16 and 8 of the United Nation. Worldline brings to InTouch its expertise in payment solutions and also provides a secure industrial hosting infrastructure enabling the deployment and operation of its solutions aiming at digital financial inclusion on a pan-African scale. Through this solution and the InTouch partnership, Worldline is contributing to sub-Saharan Africa’s global financial inclusion and a more secure and transparent society with stronger institutions.

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Universal Registration Document 2019

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