PI-SPI: the silent revolution of payments in UEMOA (by Maître Amadou SOW)

For a long time, sending money to West Africa involved either transporting cash or bank transfers that could take several days to complete. The rise of Mobile Money then profoundly changed people’s habits by allowing rapid shipments from a simple mobile phone.

This practice has developed so much that in everyday language sending Mobile Money is likened to the sound emitted by smartphones upon reception, “Ting” to ironically receive the long-awaited amounts.

However, this development quickly revealed a significant limitation: banks, e-money operators and other financial service providers often operated in different systems that communicated with each other with difficulty or not at all.

To remedy this compartmentalization (sometimes expressly according to market logic) the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), an institution responsible in particular for monetary policy and the supervision of payment systems within the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), bringing together Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo, launched the Interoperable Instant Payment System Platform (PI-SPI) on September 30, 2025.

A common infrastructure, not an application

Contrary to popular belief, PI-SPI is not a mobile application that you download to your phone (for those who have had the instinct to download, don’t be discouraged).
This is a regional payment infrastructure designed and operated by the BCEAO. Users therefore continue to use their usual applications, whether mobile Money applications or their banking applications or other digital financial services.

Through PI-SPI, a bank account holder can directly send money to an e-wallet user, while a Mobile Money user can receive funds from a different bank. Transactions are executed in seconds, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (tired of following the execution of a transfer).

A project supported by an ambitious regulatory framework

After a phase of testing in real conditions launched in 2025, the BCEAO has gradually organized the connection of all the Union’s financial players to this regional infrastructure.
Thus, banks, electronic money institutions, payment institutions as well as microfinance institutions in WAEMU were invited to complete their connection to PI-SPI according to a timetable set by the Central Bank.

The objective was to ensure effective interoperability between all participants, so that each user can carry out transactions with any establishment connected to the platform.

A new step was taken with Notice No. 0019 of October 2, 2026 relating to electronic money transactions between individuals via the UEMOA Interoperable Instant Payment System Platform (PI-SPI). This text expressly provides that:
“All interoperable electronic money transactions within the UEMOA must be carried out through PI-SPI.”

PI-SPI has thus moved from the status of a new payment infrastructure to that of a reference platform for interoperable transactions within the Union.
Pricing designed to encourage small transfers

One of the major contributions of Notice No. 0019 lies in the regulation of fees applicable to transfers between individuals. The BCEAO wanted to promote daily operations while limiting the costs borne by users.

The rules are relatively simple:
national transfers whose cumulative daily amount is less than or equal to 8,000 FCFA are free;
beyond this threshold, fees may be applied;
these fees are capped at 0.8% of the transfer amount excluding taxes;
receipt of funds remains free.
However, it should be noted that the free threshold is assessed on the total amount of transfers made during the same day and not transaction by transaction.
Let’s take a simple example.

A user makes three transfers of 2,000 FCFA, 3,000 FCFA and 2,500 FCFA during the day. The total amount transferred is 7,500 FCFA. This amount remaining below the threshold of 8,000 FCFA, all operations remain free.

On the other hand, if a user transfers 5,000 FCFA in the morning then 6,000 FCFA in the afternoon, the cumulative amount reaches 11,000 FCFA. Having exceeded the threshold, the financial institution concerned may apply fees within the limit of the regulatory ceiling set by the BCEAO. For illustration, a transfer of 10,000 FCFA subject to the maximum authorized rate could not generate more than 80 FCFA in fees excluding taxes.

How to use PI-SPI in practice?
Using PI-SPI does not require any special registration or specific download. The bank or electronic money service used simply needs to be connected to the platform.

A user can in particular:
send money from a bank account to an electronic wallet;
transfer funds from an electronic wallet to a bank account;
carry out transfers between different operators;
pay a merchant using a compatible QR Code;
instantly receive funds from another financial institution.
Thus, an OM client can now transfer funds to a user of another network participating in PI-SPI without having to worry about the operator used by the latter. In the same way, a company can pay a supplier or an employee to an account with a different establishment without being subject to the technical constraints that previously existed.

Beyond technological innovation, PI-SPI constitutes an instrument of regional economic integration. By creating a single infrastructure linking banks, electronic money institutions, payment institutions and microfinance institutions in the UEMOA, the BCEAO pursues a clear objective: to make payments faster, more accessible and less costly for citizens and businesses.

After experiencing the Mobile Money revolution, West Africa is entering a new phase of payment modernization, based on interoperability, speed and regional integration. The technical boundaries between operators are gradually tending to disappear in favor of a unified ecosystem where money circulates freely between the different players in the financial system.

In our next article, we will return in more detail to the regulatory framework which accompanied the deployment of this infrastructure, in particular the decision of compulsory connection to the PI-SPI platform as well as the measures to extend connection deadlines imposed on banks, electronic money establishments, payment establishments and microfinance institutions of the UEMOA.