Orange announced a raft of new digital services at its third ‘Hello Show’ today (2 October), among them mobile money products for both France and abroad.

They include the addition of a ‘cash-to-goods’ feature to the Orange Money transfer service, courtesy of a partnership with start-up Afrimarket. It means users can transfer money from Europe to a partner retailer in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Togo or Benin. Orange pitches this as a straightforward, instant and risk-free system to pay for groceries for parents, say, or school supplies for relatives and so on.

In Poland, Orange has started to roll out a mobile banking service, while the operator’s mobile payment offer – Orange Cash – is being pushed out to three more towns in France: Nice, Lille and Rennes. Orange Cash, in partnership with Visa Europe, allows NFC payments regardless of the user’s bank.

Orange is also to commercially launch Mobile Connect in Q1 2015. A SIM-based authentication solution (and a GSMA initiative), Mobile Connect allows customers to use their mobile phones to log-on and access digital services. It uses an API incorporated into partner internet sites, which means customers only need to click on the Mobile Connect for ID purposes. “This is 100 per cent secure,” said Orange chief executive Stephane Richard (pictured).

Other measures announced by Richard included a move into the connected home. He claimed the industry was at the “dawn of the era of connected objects”.