> African Finance Evolution:
It May Not Be Televised Yet, but the World Is Certainly Taking Note Burkina Faso-based Fidelis Finance specialises in meeting leasing, credit, factoring, surety and payment guarantee needs — especially those of West African SMEs.
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he company’s knowhow has earned it national and international recognition, raised living standards and created jobs in the five African countries in which it has operations: Burkina Faso, Ivory coast, Mali, Benin and Togo. The Fidelis business model has become the object of study for finance professionals and university researchers — including behavioural finance scholars at Britain’s renowned Oxford University. All this culminates in an exciting and rapidly evolving sector, says CEO Abdoulaye Kouafilann Sory. “Working as a banker has demands and challenges, but it is an exhilarating mission. It offers you the opportunity to play an important role in the lives of many companies and customers. “I have been in this dynamic area for 25 years. At the beginning, we were driven by a desire to meet challenges and achieve performance objectives, in terms of activity and profitability. “At the same time, we were ensuring compliance with organisational and regulatory requirements through our trained and motivated team.” With thanks to the organic growth of the company and the development of its activities, the odd contradiction has arisen from relationships and initiatives created by Fidelis. That factor is welcomed and tackled head-on. “The sense of corporate social responsibility is growing,” says Kouafilann Sory. “This is the motivation that makes us excited to get up each day to take up new challenges on a firm footing.”
CEO - Fidelis Finance Group: Abdoulaye Kouafilann Sory
The specifics of Fidelis Finance lie in its cultural foundations. The team receives training on cultural values, professional conduct and ethics. Also in the company DNA are co-operative, flexible and agile structuring processes — valuable advances for the company as a whole, reflected in the talents of the staff. “Our focus on SMEs has led to the implementation of a skills-development policy 112
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