Amid the requisite pomp and a backdrop of the eight flags of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), the region’s central bank, the BCEAO, today celebrated the launch of a project it hopes will redefine its financial landscape. The Interoperable Instant Payment Platform (PI-SPI) is officially live.

At a ceremony in Dakar, officials lauded the new system as a revolution in financial inclusion. The platform is designed to be a universal translator for the region’s fragmented payment ecosystem, allowing a customer of any bank, microfinance institution, or e-money issuer to send money to anyone else, instantly and at any time. For individuals, the service is meant to be free.

“The PI-SPI platform is a unified regional instant payment platform, designed for everyone,” declared BCEAO Governor Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, adding that it would “erase the boundaries” between financial players.

For years, that fragmentation has meant sending money from a bank account to a rival mobile money wallet was either a costly headache or simply impossible. The PI-SPI, with its promise of a single, unifying QR code, is the BCEAO’s painstakingly engineered solution. Guy Martial Awona, head of the region’s banking federation, called it a “major step forward.”

But as the speeches concluded, a conspicuous silence emanated from the region’s largest mobile money player. Wave, the American-backed fintech unicorn that has captured a dominant market share with its low-cost model, was not on the list of launch partners, casting a long shadow over the celebration. The central bank may have built a public superhighway, but it appears the region’s most popular vehicle plans to stay in its own, very large, private lane.

A Glaring Absence

The go-live list of 31 authorised institutions is as notable for who is on it as for who is not. Coris Bank Group emerges as the best-prepared, securing authorisation across all eight member states. Orange is also well-represented with its mobile money and banking arms.

Their biggest competitors, however, are missing. MTN, which with Orange forms a long-standing duopoly in mobile money, is absent. So are the vast regional networks of banking giants like Société Générale, UBA, and Bank of Africa.

Most strikingly, there is no Wave. The fintech’s $1.7bn valuation was built on the very premise of seamless, low-cost interoperability. The omission of the fintech firm from the official system designed to achieve just that raises immediate questions about strategy, compliance, and the true balance of power in Francophone West Africa’s finance.

The PI-SPI platform is the carrot in the BCEAO’s new regulatory strategy. The stick is a set of tough new licensing rules (Instruction №001–01–2024) introduced earlier this year, which effectively function as a gatekeeper for the new system.

In a notice from Governor Brou, the bank’s message was unequivocal: from September 1, 2025, only entities licensed under the new framework will be permitted to offer payment services. The PI-SPI launch list is the first public scorecard of who has successfully navigated the notoriously complex process.

For those not on it, the implication is they are either still mired in the paperwork, haven’t completed the technical integration, or have made a calculated decision to opt out.

A Question of Sovereignty

Wave’s decision to bypass the PI-SPI is being interpreted by some as more than a business move. In a widely circulated opinion piece, financial analyst Dr. Seydou Bocoum described it as a “silent earthquake,” arguing that de facto monetary sovereignty in the region has shifted from the institutional regulator to a private, foreign-owned fintech.

“The BCEAO can issue as many regulations as it wishes; if it cannot enforce them among the dominant players, its sovereignty remains formal,” Dr. Bocoum wrote. “Wave, for its part, holds massive transaction volumes, popular trust, and an independent infrastructure.”

The central bank’s vision is a system where all roads lead to PI-SPI. The market reality is that for millions of users, all roads already lead to Wave. The fintech has constructed a “walled garden” so large and efficient that its users may feel little need for the interoperability the BCEAO is offering.

This standoff highlights a potential weakness in the central bank’s legal arsenal. Dr. Bocoum argues that with the WAEMU’s CFA franc legally pegged to the euro, the BCEAO often waits for European legal precedent before making major regulatory moves. With the European Parliament yet to legislate on a digital euro, the BCEAO is left in a “legal void,” possibly without the solid footing to compel a foreign entity like Wave to join its system.

Meanwhile, with backing from global stablecoins and potential coverage under frameworks like Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, Wave could simply bypass the regional system entirely, he further argues. It appears the BCEAO has meticulously designed a state-of-the-art train station, only to find the region’s most popular transport company has already built its own airline.

The launch of the PI-SPI is a landmark achievement. But as the BCEAO works to regain control over its monetary space, it must first reckon with a market where power, as one analyst put it, “is not the text… it is the control of flows.” And for now, the player controlling the most significant flows seems to be charting its own course.