The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) has absorbed the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) into its network, a move that extends the continent’s flagship cross-border payment infrastructure into a region of more than 72 million people and leaves only a handful of African monetary zones outside its reach.
BEAC, one of only two regional central banks on the continent, serves the six countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC): Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. Its accession means PAPSS now spans 28 African states, linking more than 190 commercial banks and fintechs directly or indirectly, with 16 payment switches and an extended network of over 250 additional institutions.
The inclusion of the CEMAC zone plugs a conspicuous gap in the map. Before the announcement, PAPSS had already established corridors across large parts of West, East, Southern and North Africa, but Central Africa — a strategic land bridge between those regions — remained outside the system. By joining as a bloc, BEAC gives PAPSS a single point of entry into six markets, avoiding the need for six separate bilateral integrations.
Yvon Sana Bangui, governor of BEAC and chair of the African Association of Central Banks, said membership would create “the conditions for faster, more affordable and more efficient cross-border payments between the CEMAC countries and Africa”. He urged commercial banks and financial institutions in member states to prepare to join the platform, cautioning that “the success of African trade integration will depend not only on policy and infrastructure, but also on the active involvement of the financial sector.”
PAPSS was developed by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in partnership with the African Union and the secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area. It settles transactions in local African currencies and aims to eliminate the need for third-party currencies such as the US dollar or euro, cutting both the cost and the time required to move money across borders. For businesses, the system promises faster payments and lower fees; for individuals, it offers a cheaper remittance corridor; and for the continent, proponents argue, it builds a layer of financial sovereignty.
BEAC’s entry comes amid a broader wave of state-led payment infrastructure building across Africa. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) recently launched a digital retail payments platform, while the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) deployed an interoperable instant payment system last September. These regional initiatives have reduced fragmentation within blocs, but they have also raised the prospect of new digital islands. PAPSS is designed to be the “super-connector” that allows these separate platforms to communicate, and the BEAC decision extends its stitching significantly.
Central Africa itself already possesses an integrated regional payments switch, GIMACPAY, which as of early 2025 supported outgoing remittances to other parts of the continent — a capability that its West African counterpart, WAEMU’s PI-SPI platform, does not yet offer. BEAC’s link into PAPSS should allow CEMAC-based institutions to deepen that outward connectivity and tie their domestic networks into a pan-African clearing layer.
Mike Ogbalu III, PAPSS’s chief executive, described the development as “a significant milestone in advancing Africa’s financial integration” that “opens new trade and payment corridors between Central Africa and the rest of the continent”. PAPSS plans to work with BEAC through the end of 2026 to bring CEMAC financial institutions into the system and to begin rolling out services to businesses and individuals.
The move also sets the stage for a further expansion. A pilot with the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), which covers the eight WAEMU countries, is scheduled to begin later this year. If completed, PAPSS would link the two CFA franc zones — together accounting for 14 countries and about 200 million people — with the rest of the network, leaving North Africa’s remaining non-participating markets as the last major block absent from the system.
The immediate challenge for PAPSS is operational: connecting central bank infrastructure is one thing; getting commercial banks, fintechs and end-users to route transactions through the new pipes is another. BEAC’s governor acknowledged as much in his call for the private sector to “embrace this opportunity”. For financial institutions, the calculus will depend on whether the promised reductions in cost and settlement time materialise quickly enough to shift behaviour away from entrenched correspondent banking relationships. For the fintechs that have built businesses on solving cross-border payments friction, the encroachment of public infrastructure raises a more existential question: whether they can layer enough added value on top of cheap state-provided rails to survive.