For several years, a sort of crossover has been going on between Pathé Dione, Sunu's boss, and Jean Kacou Diagou, his great rival, founding president of the Ivorian insurer NSIA. Long time competitors in the bancassurance market in the CIMA zone (Inter-African Conference on Insurance Markets), the two men are now competing in the banking sector. It was Jean Kacou Diagou who was the first to diversify his activities, NSIA having bought in 2006 the Ivorian subsidiary of the International Bank for West Africa (BIAO), since renamed NSIA Banque Côte d'Ivoire and listed on the Stock Exchange from Abidjan. In 2011, NSIA did it again by acquiring the Guinean subsidiary of BIAO. Then, in November 2017, the bancassurance group bought the French-speaking network of the Nigerian Diamond Bank for 61 million euros. This latest acquisition, its largest to date, allows it to increase its market share in Côte d'Ivoire, as well as to establish itself in the banking sector in Benin, Senegal and Togo. Finally, in 2018, NSIA partnered with French Orange to provide financial services digitally. Pathé Dione followed its competitor many years later, only acquiring its first bank, BPEC, in 2018. To catch up, it now plans to rapidly grow its banking activities across the region, but the gap remains wide. However, being second can have certain advantages. Sunu can thus learn from the mistakes made by NSIA, which has already experienced setbacks. In Côte d'Ivoire, in particular, his bank was hard hit by the bankruptcy in 2018 of the trader SAF Cacao, since it was the most exposed of its creditors. To which are added a fraud on his credit cards and the fall in the price of shares of NSIA Banque Côte d'Ivoire. So many pitfalls that Pathé Dione, who worked alongside Jean Kacou Diagou at the Paris Insurance Union in the 1980s, must try to avoid.