Get a payment license in Côte d'Ivoire.

One of two, and which one follows from what you sell. An établissement de monnaie électronique under Instruction n°008-05-2015 issues and distributes electronic money; an établissement de paiement under Instruction n°001-01-2024 of 23 January 2024 provides the payment services of article 4, with account aggregation registered rather than licensed. Both come from the BCEAO, and since 1 May 2025 offering payment services in the Union without one has been unlawful under Avis n°004-03-2025.

For an e-money issuer, 300,000,000 FCFA - about €457,347 - subscribed in full and paid in cash before the agrément under article 11 of the 2015 instruction, with own funds held at three per cent of e-money outstanding thereafter under article 22. For a payment institution, article 11 of the 2024 instruction asks 100,000,000 FCFA for the full service list, 30,000,000 for initiation with aggregation, 20,000,000 for initiation alone and 10,000,000 for aggregation only. Own funds may never fall below that minimum share capital, under article 44.

Not automatically. Most plans go wrong on this point. Article 20 of Instruction n°008-05-2015 entitles an e-money issuer licensed in one member state to operate in the others subject to obtaining the central bank's authorisation: a second dossier, filed at the Direction Nationale of the host state, decided by Décision du Gouverneur on the same three-month clock, then published in that state's journal d'annonces légales before activity starts. One central bank, one rulebook, one currency, eight markets - but eight authorisations, not one. For établissements de paiement Instruction n°001-01-2024 has no cross-border chapter at all; the text is silent, so an extension is settled with the central bank rather than read off the page.

Three months for an e-money agrément under article 13, and that clock suspends while the central bank waits for documents, which the applicant has two months to supply. Six months for a payment institution under article 18, extended to nine where a home-supervisor no-objection is needed, with article 19 treating a decision that never arrives as a refusal. Account aggregation is registered in three months under article 23. From first call to agrément, plan on nine to fifteen months; the central bank publishes no processing statistics.

The Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest grants, by Décision du Gouverneur - article 14 of the 2015 instruction, article 19 of the 2024 one. The Commission Bancaire de l'UMOA is the control authority for payment institutions under article 45, e-money issuers are subject to it as well, and the central bank may open an on-site inspection itself. The Ivorian finance ministry signs for banks under the loi-cadre; it has no role in either of these two licences.

It depends on the licence. An e-money issuer domiciles the counterpart funds without delay in an account used for nothing else, at a bank or licensed decentralised financial system inside the Union, and keeps the balance at or above the e-money in circulation - articles 32 and 33. A payment institution deposits funds it still holds at a bank or microfinance institution in accounts separate from every other deposit account, once they have not reached the beneficiary by the end of the following business day, under article 48. Neither may pay interest on a payment account: article 8 forbids it outright.

Article 31 of Instruction n°008-05-2015 caps what a single identified customer may hold at 2,000,000 FCFA, about €3,049, and monthly reloads by one customer at 10,000,000 FCFA. An unidentified holder is capped at 200,000 FCFA a month. The 2024 payment-services instruction sets no e-money caps of its own, which is one reason the 2015 text still governs product design.

Not on the evidence anyone can read. The published PDF of the 2024 instruction cuts off inside article 87, so its abrogation and transitional clauses are not legible, and the Commission Bancaire de l'UMOA still lists 008-05-2015 as the applicable e-money text. In practice the two are read together - the 2015 instruction for e-money capital, the own-funds ratio and wallet caps, the 2024 one for payment services, supervision and conduct - and we ask the central bank to confirm which governs your file before capital is committed.

BIC at 25%, with a 30% band for the telecom and ICT sector, and TVA at 18%. The line that changes a payments model is article 1130 of the tax code: 5% of monthly turnover excluding VAT on enterprises carrying out money-transfer operations, charged on revenue rather than profit. Dividends carry IRVM at 15%, or 10% for a company listed on the BRVM, and the tax on banking operations is 10%.

Côte d'Ivoire is the largest e-money market in a zone of eight states sharing one central bank, one currency pegged at 655.957 to the euro and one instant rail, and a payment-institution licence starts at 100,000,000 FCFA, about €152,449. Ghana publishes its fee schedule to the cedi and decides in 90 days; Nigeria has the bigger single market and asks NGN 2 billion of a mobile money operator. Groups selling across francophone West Africa license here and add an anglophone base later, usually Ghana.