Ivorian fintech leader Djamo has secured a microfinance license from the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), a landmark approval that formalizes its strategic shift from payments to lending and savings. The move provides a crucial defensive moat as heavyweight telcos and banks intensify their assault on the region’s digital payments market, a space Djamo once comfortably led.
The license, announced by co-founder and CEO Hassan Bourgi on September 11, is a first for a fintech in the region. It allows Djamo to evolve into a full-service digital bank, offering regulated products including remunerated savings accounts with up to 6% annual interest and loans up to CFA1 million ($1,650). This development is a calculated response to a market that has become fiercely competitive over the last year, threatening Djamo’s core prepaid card business.
The New Battleground: From Cards to Credit
While the banking license is new, Djamo’s move toward credit has been quietly underway. The company recently began piloting a microcredit service, a feature that highlighted its strategic direction. One user involved in the pilot reported applying for and receiving a CFA160,000 loan in under a minute, directly in the app, with no paperwork.
This pivot is a necessary flight up the value chain. Prepaid cards are an effective tool for customer acquisition but are fast becoming a low-margin, commoditized product. Credit and savings are “stickier” services that generate higher revenue and lock users more deeply into an ecosystem.
The pressure to evolve comes from all sides. The prepaid card market Djamo helped build is now a crowded arena:
- Telco Giants: Orange Money Group recently partnered with banking-as-a-service provider JUMO to roll out microcredit solutions, leveraging JUMO’s AI-driven scoring and Orange’s massive customer base.
- VC-Backed Behemoths: Wave, in partnership with Orabank, launched an aggressively priced VISA virtual card with no issuance or rejection fees, appealing directly to cost-conscious users.
- Bank-Backed Players: Wizall Money, owned by Moroccan banking giant Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP), has introduced its own prepaid card, backed by the institutional might of Banque Atlantique.
This onslaught of well-capitalized competitors forced Djamo to find new territory. The microfinance license is its definitive answer, transforming its lending pilot from a tactical feature into a regulated, scalable, and defensible business line.
A Foundation for Growth
With the BCEAO’s official blessing, Djamo can now confidently build out its neobanking services. The approval gives it the regulatory certainty to operate independently of partner banks for its core savings and credit products, a significant competitive advantage.
The company is well-capitalized for this new chapter. In April 2025, it raised $17 million in a funding round led by Janngo.africa, the largest ever for an Ivorian startup. This followed a CFA800 million (about $1.2 million) investment from Côte d’Ivoire’s Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC-CI), signaling strong sovereign backing. Since its launch in 2020, Djamo has processed over $4.5 billion in transactions and served more than 10,000 SMEs.
The license also positions Djamo perfectly for the BCEAO’s upcoming interoperable instant payments platform, set to launch by the end of September 2025. As a licensed microfinance institution, Djamo will be a first-class participant in this new ecosystem, which will connect banks, other microfinance players, and fintechs across the eight-country UEMOA region.
For consumers, the intense competition has been a clear win, bringing more choice and better products. For Djamo, securing this license isn’t the end of the fight. It’s the beginning of a new one: the race to become Francophone Africa’s dominant, full-stack neobank.