Francophone Africa’s fintech boom solved access, not financial inclusion

Francophone Africa's fintech boom has solved access to financial services, but has not achieved true financial inclusion. Despite significant funding and continued growth, these fintechs have only addressed around 1 out of the 10 issues separating the population from genuine financial inclusion. Limited access to cash and difficulty moving money between regions were significant barriers.

However, this is no longer the case. Now, travelers can bring cash from Abidjan to Dakar and pay drivers directly, albeit with additional fees for usage outside Côte d'Ivoire. Currently, people arrive in Dakar with cash from Abidjan and struggle to find the exact currency or must land and buy a new SIM card to reassign their Wave account to the new line.

This creates a significant amount of friction in an economically integrated region. So, why, despite the technical capabilities of startups, is regional money transfer still so difficult? The Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) provided a solution on September 30, 2025: PI-SPI, the Interoperable Payment System Platform. This platform connects banks, microfinance institutions, and mobile money operators across the eight UEMOA countries and is supposed to operate 24/7, process transactions in seconds, and make transfers within the Union free.

In theory, it should work seamlessly. However, in practice, only 80 institutions were connected to PI-SPI as of April 2, 2026. Fifty-nine were banks, nine were mobile money operators, and eleven were microfinance institutions. Only one was a payment institution. Banks and fintechs dominate the platform, with banks having 59 connected accounts and fintechs having nine, while mobile money accounts outnumber bank accounts approximately ten to one in the region.

The BCEAO's 2024 annual report on digital financial services showed 248.7 million electronic currency accounts in the UEMOA, up from 25.5 million a decade earlier, with mobile money now accounting for 57% of the region's financial inclusion rate of 73.6%. Despite its promise, PI-SPI has struggled to gain traction, with the bank extending its connection deadline twice.

It initially set the deadline for June 30, 2026, then pushed it to September 30, 2026, for banks and mobile money operators, and to June 30, 2027, for microfinance institutions, citing "persistent integration delays." The central bank claims its technical teams remain committed to supporting latecomers. However, the platform that is touted as the backbone of regional interoperability has not only delayed its own deadline in its first year but has also failed to connect Wave, the most widely used mobile money application in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Young Africa reported this lack of connection shortly after the platform's launch, labeling it a risk to the project's credibility. A year later, nothing has changed.