MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Wave Digital Finance Receives E-money Licence from Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)

The Central Bank of West African States, which is commonly referred to by its French acronym BCEAO, recently granted an e-money licence to Wave Digital Finance, a Senegal-based firm providing mobile money services in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal. Whereas previously Wave only could offer its financial products to customers through banks, the new licence allows the firm to provide savings, credit and remittances directly to customers. On the occasion of the announcement, Wave CEO Drew Durbin noted the firm’s vision of boosting financial inclusion via “radically inclusive and affordable financial services” that can “make Africa the first cashless continent.”

Wave is a subsidiary of the Senegal-based Wave Mobile Money Group, whose other holding is Sendwave, a Tanzania-based provider of digital remittance services. Data on the sizes of the firms have not been released.

Founded in 1962, BCEAO serves as the common financial authority for the member states of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, which is often referred to by its French acronym UEMOA. UEMOA was established in 1994, and its members are Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. These countries all use the euro-pegged West African CFA franc as their official currency. The acronym “CFA,” which has different meanings since the currency’s creation in 1945, now refers to the Communauté Financière Africaine.

By Saulius Simonas Ramanauskas, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Sources

Wave press release
https://www.wave.com/en/blog/sn-emi/

Wave homepage
https://www.wave.com/

BCEAO homepage
https://www.bceao.int/

UEMOA homepage
http://www.uemoa.int/

LinkedIn profile on Wave Mobile Money Group
https://www.linkedin.com/company/wavemm/

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