In a region where only 12% of adults hold a bank account, Central Africa has achieved something remarkable: 87% of its adult population now has access to financial services. The catalyst isn’t a slick app or venture capital-backed neobank. It’s an army of 449,000 mobile money agents operating from corner shops, market stalls, and roadside kiosks across six countries.
These agents — often small business owners doubling as financial intermediaries — processed transactions worth €44bn in 2023, according to data from BEAC, the Bank of Central African States. That’s a 24% increase from the previous year, and it’s reshaping how 31 million people across Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Equatorial Guinea manage their money.
The agent economy
The agent network grew 37% in 2023 alone, adding more than 120,000 new cash-in/cash-out points across the CEMAC region. This expansion followed a regulatory change that ended exclusivity arrangements, allowing individual agents to serve multiple mobile money providers simultaneously.
“The non-exclusive model changed everything,” explains the region’s payment systems data. Previously, agents could only work with one provider — limiting their earning potential and creating service gaps. Now, a single shop owner can handle transactions for multiple operators, improving convenience for customers and economics for agents.
The model is straightforward: agents receive cash from customers and credit their mobile money accounts, or reverse the transaction when customers want to withdraw. They earn commissions on each transaction, typically ranging from 1-3% depending on the amount and service.
This human infrastructure has enabled mobile money to account for 94.8% of all payment transactions by volume in Central Africa — a proportion that dwarfs even Kenya’s celebrated M-Pesa system, where mobile money represents roughly 70% of payment transactions.
Small transactions, massive scale
The average mobile money transaction in CEMAC has fallen to just €12.50 — down from €14.75 in 2022. Rather than signaling decline, this decrease points to genuine mass-market adoption. People are using mobile money for everyday purchases: buying groceries, paying school fees, settling utility bills.
The data reveals an ecosystem maturing beyond simple money transfers. In 2023, merchant payments reached €4.5bn, up 36% year-on-year. More significantly, 1.4 billion payment transactions were recorded — indicating mobile money has become a genuine payment method, not just a transfer mechanism.
Yet there’s a contradiction: while 40 million mobile money accounts exist across CEMAC, only 42.7% showed activity in the past 30 days. The region still grapples with dormant accounts and inconsistent usage patterns, suggesting the digital finance revolution remains incomplete.
Cameroon’s dominance
Cameroon has emerged as Central Africa’s undisputed fintech hub, accounting for 63% of all mobile money accounts and processing 77% of transaction value. With 24.9 million mobile money accounts for a population of 15.4 million adults, the country shows clear evidence of multi-banking — individuals holding accounts with multiple providers to maximize network effects and service options.
The country’s capital, Yaoundé, hosts GIMACPAY’s main data center — the regional interoperability platform that allows customers to send money across different mobile money providers and even across borders. A backup facility operates in Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital.
Congo follows with 22% of accounts and Gabon with 9%, but these countries show different usage patterns. Gabon, despite fewer accounts, generated 13% of transaction value in 2023, suggesting higher-value transactions among its more affluent population. Congo’s transaction volume dropped slightly, attributed to new taxes affecting mobile money usage.
The interoperability breakthrough
In 2020, Central Africa achieved something many regions still struggle with: full mobile money interoperability. GIMACPAY, operated by the regional banking consortium GIMAC, now connects 95 participants including 53 banks, 13 microfinance institutions, 11 mobile money operators, and 16 payment aggregators.
The platform processed 12 million interoperable transactions worth €916m in 2023. While this represents just 0.3% of total mobile money volume, it marks critical infrastructure for cross-border commerce in a region where informal trade remains dominant.
Cross-border transactions reveal interesting migration and trade patterns. The Cameroon-Gabon corridor accounts for 66% of transnational mobile money transfers within CEMAC by volume and 52% by value — reflecting the strong economic ties between the region’s two largest economies.
Banking’s shrinking footprint
As mobile money expands, traditional banking has contracted. The strict banking rate fell from 13% in 2021 to 11.68% in 2023. Banks closed numerous accounts during restructuring exercises, effectively pushing customers toward mobile money alternatives.
The contrast is stark: 53 commercial banks operate 663 branches serving 4.2 million accounts across CEMAC. Meanwhile, 17 mobile money services manage 40 million accounts through their agent networks — nearly 700 times as many touchpoints as bank branches.
Banks have noticed. Several have launched their own mobile money services or partnered with telecommunications operators. Even the region’s postal service and national treasuries have connected to GIMACPAY, recognizing that digital payments infrastructure is now essential for government service delivery.
Chad’s Ministry of Finance pioneered direct integration with mobile money platforms for tax collection, while Cameroon’s treasury uses the system for certain government payments. These moves toward digital government services contributed to mobile money’s 46% transaction growth in 2023.
The remittance shift
International money transfers tell a revealing story about regulatory evolution and competitive dynamics. Traditional remittance services — Western Union, MoneyGram, and RIA — saw outbound transfers drop 41% in 2023, from 1.5 million to 907,000 transactions.
The decline reflects two forces: stricter enforcement of foreign exchange regulations limiting remittances to €1,525 per transaction, and growing competition from mobile money providers now licensed to receive international transfers directly.
Mobile money platforms received €848m in international remittances during 2023, with 72% originating from the European Union and 15% from North America. France, the former colonial power and home to large Central African diaspora communities, dominates these flows.
The regulatory tightening also affected prepaid card issuance. The number of payment cards in circulation fell slightly to 2.7 million in 2023, as anonymous prepaid cards — previously popular for circumventing transfer limits — faced increased scrutiny.
Infrastructure and security challenges
Despite explosive growth, Central Africa’s fintech ecosystem operates on limited infrastructure. The entire region has just 3,599 electronic payment terminals and 2,015 ATMs. For comparison, Portugal — a country of 10 million people — has over 398,000 payment terminals.
Card payments remain negligible: just 3.2% of transactions by volume and 7% by value. The 964,000 cards connected to GIMACPAY represent only 35% of cards in circulation, indicating many banks still haven’t integrated with the regional interoperability scheme despite regulations requiring it.
Cybersecurity poses growing concerns. While reported fraud represents just 0.07% of transactions, 82% of detected fraud occurs online. The central bank’s data notes increasing sophistication in phishing attempts and SIM-swap attacks targeting mobile money users.
A November 2023 circular addressed another problem: erroneous transfers. The guidance requires payment service providers to establish clear procedures for reversing mistaken transactions — a basic consumer protection that apparently needed formalization.
The savings problem
Perhaps the most striking indicator of mobile money’s limitations emerges in savings behavior. The total electronic money float — the amount customers keep in their mobile money accounts — reached €570m in 2023. That sounds substantial until you realize it represents less than 2% of annual transaction value.
Put differently: Central Africans use mobile money extensively for transfers and payments, but they don’t trust it for storing value. Money flows through these accounts but doesn’t accumulate. The average account balance hovers around €14 — barely enough for a few transactions.
This behavior reflects several factors: concerns about account security, lack of interest earnings on mobile money balances, and deeply ingrained habits of keeping savings in physical cash or informal savings groups. Until mobile money providers can convince users to store rather than just move money, the ecosystem remains fundamentally different from traditional banking.
The central bank has encouraged providers to more actively promote IBAN numbers — the international bank account numbers assigned to each mobile money account since 2022. Greater awareness of IBANs could facilitate salary payments directly to mobile money accounts, potentially increasing float and transforming usage patterns.
Regulatory evolution
Central Africa’s fintech growth has prompted regulatory adaptation. In 2023, BEAC and national telecommunications regulators signed co-regulation agreements, establishing a Regional Coordination Committee for Digital Financial Services. The collaboration aims to address jurisdictional ambiguities when telecommunications companies provide financial services.
New technical standards were approved for QR code payments, automated letters of exchange, and direct debit systems. The QR code standard particularly aims to create unified payment acceptance infrastructure, allowing any mobile money account to pay any merchant through a single QR code — similar to systems in India (UPI) and Brazil (PIX).
The central bank also authorized payment institutions and microfinance organizations to hold accounts directly with BEAC, rather than maintaining reserves exclusively through commercial banks. This change could reduce systemic risk and transaction costs, though implementation remains ongoing.
Seven licensed payment institutions now operate across CEMAC, up from five in 2022. However, 17 entities actually provide mobile money services — indicating some still operate under partnerships with licensed banks rather than holding their own payment institution licenses.
The merchant acceptance gap
While person-to-person transfers dominate mobile money usage, merchant payments show the fastest growth trajectory. Yet they reveal curious patterns. Of the 1.4 billion merchant payment transactions in 2023, 818 million — 57% — were purchasing mobile phone airtime. This single use case accounts for just 16% of merchant payment value but dominates transaction volume.
Excluding airtime purchases, the average merchant payment transaction was €6.20 — small amounts for everyday purchases like transportation, food, and household supplies. The data suggests mobile money has penetrated daily commerce but hasn’t yet captured higher-value purchases that remain cash-based or handled through bank transfers.
Payment service providers have responded with aggressive merchant recruitment, signing up schools, small shops, and some government offices. Several operators eliminated merchant payment fees during extended promotional periods to drive adoption.
Yet physical payment acceptance infrastructure remains sparse. USSD codes — the text-based mobile phone menus predating smartphones — remain the dominant transaction method. While some operators have deployed NFC (contactless) and QR code systems, these advanced methods serve a small minority of transactions.
What it means for African fintechs
Central Africa’s mobile money success offers lessons and warnings for other African fintech companies eyeing expansion to the region. Senegalese fintech Wave recently expanded to Cameroun.
First, the agent network isn’t optional — it’s fundamental. Central Africa’s success depends on extensive physical infrastructure for cash conversion. Building or partnering for agent networks requires different capabilities than digital product development.
Second, transaction economics differ radically. At €12.50 average transaction size, unit economics must work at scale and low margins.
Third, interoperability matters more than first-mover advantage. GIMACPAY’s success demonstrates that open systems can thrive in developing markets, contradicting assumptions that proprietary networks provide sustainable moats.
Fourth, regulatory engagement proves essential. BEAC’s active role in setting standards, mandating interoperability, and coordinating with telecom regulators created conditions for growth. Fintechs entering the region must navigate complex regulatory relationships spanning central banks, national financial authorities, and telecommunications regulators.
Several African fintech startups have raised significant funding to expand across the continent. Wave, the Senegalese mobile money provider, raised $200m in 2021. Chipper Cash, facilitating cross-border payments, has raised over $300m. TymeBank in South Africa has attracted investment from British, Japanese and Philippine backers.
Yet Central Africa’s ecosystem remains largely dominated by telecommunications operators — MTN, Orange, Airtel — leveraging existing customer relationships and distribution networks. Pure-play fintech startups face formidable competition from these incumbents.
The bottom line
BEAC’s report concludes with recommendations revealing both progress and remaining challenges. The central bank urges payment service providers to more aggressively promote IBAN awareness, develop dedicated merchant acceptance networks, and accelerate the retirement of proprietary payment cards that fragment the ecosystem.
One recommendation stands out: BEAC must “take and publish the decision definitively ending the use of private cards.” Years after mandating interoperability, some banks still issue cards that only work within their own networks — limiting utility and contradicting the vision of a unified payment system.
The transformation of Central Africa’s payment landscape from 12% bank account penetration to 87% financial access in roughly a decade represents one of the more successful financial inclusion stories globally. The 449,000-agent network made it possible by solving the last-mile problem that purely digital solutions cannot address in cash-based economies.
Whether this model proves sustainable depends on evolving those agents from simple cash conversion points into full-service financial access points — and convincing customers to trust mobile money not just for transfers, but for savings and wealth building. The transaction data shows a region that has mastered moving money digitally. The next challenge is keeping it digital.
Data for this article comes from the 2023 Annual Report on Payment Services in CEMAC published by the Bank of Central African States (BEAC). Currency conversions use the fixed CFA franc rate of 655.957 per euro. Population figures are for adults aged 15 and over as of 2021, the most recent census data available.