The push for financial inclusion in Francophone West Africa has got a major boost. Wave Digital Finance, a subsidiary of Wave Mobile Money Group (Wave), has been licensed by the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) to carry out digital financial services.
Wave’s services are available in eight West African Francophone countries – Benin, Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo—that form the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU).
The company, which offers free bill payments, free cash-in and cash-out and charges only 1% transfer fee, has relied on third-party financial institutions like the United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Ecobank, to render services to its customers that have ballooned in four years because of the company’s service fees, which is roughly 70% cheaper than its competitors’.
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“We are excited to receive our E-money issuer license. We are grateful to the BCEAO who has been supportive of our vision to offer radically inclusive and affordable financial services. They have witnessed us grow into the largest mobile money provider in Senegal with over 6 million active users in just 4 years, and that’s only the beginning of customer-first mobile money in WAEMU,” the CEO of Wave Drew Durbin said.
Wave has been a popular choice in WAEMU, and has disrupted the mobile money market in the bloc, forcing mobile-based financial services like Orange to slash its service charges by 50%.
The E-money license by the Central Bank signals a growing recognition of a new age of financial inclusion models led by Fintechs such as Wave.
In addition, it will allow Wave to diversify and offer more financial services like merchant payments, savings, credit, and remittances in collaboration with other partners in the WAEMU financial ecosystem.
Ms. Coura Carine Sene, General Manager for Wave in WAEMU, said, in addition to other benefits, the license will help the startup to compete with other mobile money providers.
“This is a momentous occasion for us. Despite being one of the largest mobile money providers in Senegal and other WAEMU countries, we were limited in what we could offer our customers. We will now be able to compete with other mobile money providers on an equal footing. The shift in the licensing structure will benefit both our customers and agent network in the long run. We expect new products to drive customer growth. Thus, benefiting our customers, while increasing the take-home income of our agents.
“In partnership with the national directions of BCEAO, we hope to extend this license very quickly to the other WAEMU countries so that our entire customer base in the region can benefit equally,” she said.
Securing license in the seven remaining countries of the bloc may be the magic wand that Wave needs to stay ahead of its competitors.