(Business in Cameroon) - With 37 million accounts by 2022, Mobile Money now stands out as a significant competitor to traditional banks in terms of financial transactions in the CEMAC zone. According to the recently published Beac report on payment services in the CEMAC region in 2022, "the most widely used payment instrument is the instant transfer of electronic money".

The document indicated that over 96% of transactions (2.3 billion operations) in the CEMAC zone during 2022 were carried out via Mobile Money, compared to only 2% (48.3 million operations) using traditional bank transfers and cards. However, despite the boom in financial services via mobile platforms, it should be noted that mobile money is mainly favored for small-value transactions carried out by economic agents. Transactions with the highest value continue to be dominated by traditional banks, Beac specified. "In value, conventional bank transfers come in first place with 44% of transactions, totaling CFA48,573 billion, followed by instant transfers of electronic money used in 21% of transactions (CFA23,332 billion). Transfers (across all categories) represent 65% of the total transaction value in the zone”.

As per the central bank's records, in 2022, the CEMAC region counted 498 payment service providers. Within the reviewed period, a total of 2.4 billion transactions were conducted, exceeding a total amount of CFA107,126 billion.