A workshop to build a database on mobile payment in the West African Economic Monetary Union (UEMOA) zone was held on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 in Abidjan, at the initiative of the Macroeconomic and Financial Policies Department of the Ministry of African Integration and Ivorians Abroad.

According to its director general, Golé Bi Guillaume, this meeting makes it possible to establish, on the one hand, an informational database on mobile payments and, on the other hand, to know the level of integration of this payment method in the UEMOA zone.

In particular, it is a question of taking stock of the texts governing mobile payment methods, of informing very small and medium-sized enterprises of the contributions and challenges that mobile payment methods represent, to know the contributions of mobile payments in the financial inclusion of the sub-region and the cross-border mobile payment ecosystem of the UEMOA zone.

Various themes are addressed, namely “the state of play of financial inclusion in the UEMOA zone, mobile payment, a means of financial inclusion at the service of banks and mobile payment, regulatory database (BCEAO)”.

Since 2013, mobile payment has been popular in the UEMOA. The number of e-money accounts grew from 11 million in 2013 to over 50 million in 2017. The value of transactions, which was 1.606 billion CFA francs in 2013, reached 16.943 billion CFA francs in 2017, with a significant part of the digital financial services activity in the Union owned by Côte d'Ivoire. It accounts for 37.9% of electronic money accounts, or 19.15 million, up 49% compared to 2016. It is followed by Burkina-Faso (13.8%) and Benin