In the cut-throat world of African mobile money, generosity is often a competitive strategy. This week, Orange Cameroon, a subsidiary of the French telecoms giant, announced it was slashing all peer-to-peer transfer fees to zero. Customers will now only pay government-mandated taxes, a move Orange framed with a breezy pop-up ad: “We’re lowering it again, hey! 0% on transfers.”
This sudden burst of pro-consumer altruism is, of course, coincidentally timed. It comes just as the American-backed fintech unicorn Wave, known for its penguin mascot and market-disrupting pricing, prepares to launch in the country. After securing a partnership with Commercial Bank Cameroon (CBC) and appointing a former MTN mobile money executive as its country head, Wave’s arrival is imminent. Orange’s preemptive strike is a clear signal: the war has begun before the first shot is even fired.
This skirmish in Cameroon is the latest front in a sprawling, ruthless conflict between Africa’s deeply entrenched telecom operators and the fintech upstart that beat them at their own game. Wave’s playbook, brutally effective in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, was simple: offer a flat 1% fee for money transfers and make cash withdrawals free. The model proved wildly popular, forcing incumbents to slash their own prices.
Now, having learned their lesson the hard way, the telcos are no longer waiting to react. They’re launching counter-offensives, copying Wave’s own tactics and turning the competitive landscape into a race to the bottom that is squeezing margins and testing business models across the continent.
The Cameroonian Preemptive Strike
Cameroon is a prize worth fighting for. Between 2019 and 2023, the value of mobile money transactions in the country rocketed by 162% to reach 24.3 trillion CFA francs (€37bn). With over 24 million active accounts, it represents over 70% of all mobile money activity in the six-nation CEMAC bloc.
Sensing blood in the water, Wave appointed Joël Bertrand Ndjodo, an 11-year veteran of MTN Cameroon’s mobile money division, to lead its charge. The move signalled a serious intent to leverage local expertise against the market’s duopoly of Orange and MTN.
The incumbents didn’t wait. Even before Orange’s 0% transfer fee announcement, both it and MTN had already cut their withdrawal fees to 1%. It’s a transparent attempt to neutralize Wave’s core value proposition before it can even be marketed to Cameroonian consumers. The message from the old guard is clear: “Whatever you’re selling, we can give it away for less, at least for a while.”
Of course, disruption is easier said than done. The market is littered with casualties, most notably YUP, Société Générale’s failed mobile money venture. Despite its institutional backing, YUP was shuttered in 2022 after failing to make a dent against the telcos’ vast agent networks and brand loyalty, peaking at just 22,000 active users. Wave, for all its success, faces the same monumental challenge of unseating rivals who have had years to embed themselves into the financial fabric of the nation.
Total War in Abidjan
If Cameroon is a preemptive strike, Côte d’Ivoire is a full-blown war of attrition. Last month, MTN Côte d’Ivoire made the most aggressive move yet by any telco, scrapping withdrawal fees entirely. This directly attacks the feature that was once Wave’s silver bullet.
For Wave, this presents a strategic conundrum. When your primary weapon is a low price and your competitors start giving the service away for free, you are forced to find a new edge. The move is particularly pointed given the existing tension. Wave currently has an active antitrust complaint before the Ivorian telecoms regulator, ARTCI, accusing MTN, Orange, and Moov of blocking it from selling airtime on its platform — a crucial revenue stream.
The telcos argue that selling airtime is a financial service, not a telecom one, and thus outside the regulator’s purview. In a touching display of industry solidarity, MTN and Orange even appeared at one regulatory hearing represented by the same lawyer, reinforcing the perception that they are presenting a united front against the common enemy.
The Regulatory Squeeze
As if battling entrenched monopolists wasn’t enough, a new front is opening up: the regulators. The Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) is set to launch its long-delayed regional instant payment system (PI-SPI) on September 30. The platform promises full interoperability between banks, microfinance institutions, and mobile money operators across the eight-nation monetary union.
On the surface, this is a win for consumers, who will be able to move money seamlessly between any bank account and any mobile wallet. But for Wave, it threatens to dilute another of its key advantages. The fintech built its brand on fluid, interoperable transfers at a time when legacy systems were clunky and expensive. When system-wide interoperability becomes a mandatory feature, that unique selling point vanishes.
The BCEAO is also tightening its grip with new licensing rules, requiring all payment providers to secure direct authorisation. This adds a high-stakes regulatory hurdle to an already crowded and hostile battlefield.
It is tempting to frame these developments as a coordinated assault on the upstart. But incumbents are simply defending hugely profitable businesses, while regulators are, belatedly, bringing much-needed oversight to a sector that has grown at lightning speed.
What is clear is that Wave’s disruptive model is under pressure from all sides. Its pricing strategy is being copied, its access to markets is being challenged, and the very structure of the digital payment landscape is shifting beneath its feet. The penguin’s audacious march across Africa is far from over, but the easy victories are a thing of the past. The endless war has just entered a new, far more ruthless, phase.