Sending money from a bank account to a mobile wallet run by a different operator, in seconds and at any hour, is now possible across almost all of the West African Economic and Monetary Union. On October 1, the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) published the list of 175 institutions authorised to offer the public the services of its interoperable instant payment platform, known as PI-SPI. The list includes banks, electronic money issuers, microfinance institutions and payment institutions. Senegal has the most participants with 43, ahead of Côte d’Ivoire with 38 and Burkina Faso with 20.
The network has grown sharply. When the platform launched on September 30, 2025, it had only 45 institutions. Last June, the central bank set September 30, 2026 as the deadline for every bank, electronic money institution and payment institution to connect. Exactly one year after the launch, that deadline brought in the network’s most conspicuous absentee. Wave Digital Finance, a heavyweight of mobile money in West Africa, joined the system on September 30, notably in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. Its customers can now exchange money with accounts held at other participants, depending on which services have been switched on.
According to the BCEAO, more than 38 million people now have access to these payments. The bank promises every resident of the Union’s eight countries transactions completed « in a few seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in a simpler, more secure and interoperable way. » Until now, moving funds between two competing operators often meant withdrawing cash and depositing it again elsewhere, with fees at each step.
The central bank has done more than widen the network. It has also revised the fees. From November 2, 2026, domestic electronic money transfers will be free up to 8,000 CFA francs sent per day and per user, a little under 14 dollars. Above that ceiling, fees cannot exceed 0.8 percent before tax. Receiving money will cost nothing, whatever the amount. The old rule worked the other way round: the first thirty transfers received each month were free, after which the recipient could be charged up to 1 percent. The BCEAO estimates that about 75 percent of the zone’s electronic money transactions will stay free under the new scale.
On the same date, every interoperable transaction in the Union will have to go through PI-SPI. That makes the platform the region’s central payment infrastructure, where operators used to settle with one another through bilateral agreements. The next step comes on June 1, 2027, when the same pricing will apply to transfers between member countries. A shopkeeper in Lomé will then be able to take payment from a customer in Bamako on the same terms as from a neighbour.
Uses will widen too. On September 16, the BCEAO approved standardised interfaces for businesses that allow merchant payments, bulk transfers, payment requests and real-time notifications. Salaries, bills and social benefits will be able to travel through the same channel as transfers between individuals.
The gains are not shared equally. Making most transfers free cuts into the commission income operators relied on, and how to split what remains is already a matter of debate in the industry. For users, the outcome will depend on how the 175 institutions apply these rules in practice, and on how quickly each one actually switches the services on in its app.