Ismaël Kouassi, PawaPay Côte d’Ivoire Director, emphasizes: “We are a facilitator, empowering businesses to seamlessly integrate with Africa’s mobile money economy.”
Ismaël Kouassi, the Côte d’Ivoire Director for PawaPay, a cutting-edge fintech specializing in African mobile money solutions, highlighted in a recent interview that the company positions itself as a technological enabler. PawaPay allows businesses, banks, and SMEs to tap into diverse payment ecosystems through a singular integration. He elaborated that their core function involves streamlining payments, facilitating disbursements, meticulously tracking transactions, and efficiently managing financial flows.
Kouassi pointed out that Côte d’Ivoire and the broader UEMOA region are currently among Africa’s most vibrant zones for digital payments. Propelled by robust mobile money adoption, modern infrastructure such as the BCEAO’s interoperable PI-SPI platform, and a rapidly evolving financial landscape, the region is solidifying its status as a key hub for fintech innovators. Ismaël Kouassi also projects that the synergy between traditional banks and mobile money services will be a primary driver of financial expansion in the coming years. This growth will particularly benefit SMEs, who stand to gain access to a wider array of financial services through enhanced integration of digital flows. With this outlook, PawaPay is committed to dismantling technical and operational obstacles, thereby accelerating trade, investment, and economic integration across the entire continent.
PawaPay is presented as a payment infrastructure company offering a single integration, a unified dashboard, and consolidated treasury services across approximately twenty African nations. What exactly does this infrastructure role encompass? Where do your responsibilities end, and those of mobile money operators, banks, payment processors, or e-wallet issuers begin?
The simplest way to grasp PawaPay’s essence is to view our enterprise as a catalyst, enabling businesses to connect effortlessly with Africa’s dynamic mobile money economy. Today, mobile money stands as one of the continent’s most pivotal financial infrastructures. According to GSMA data, global mobile money services processed over $2 trillion in 2025, a remarkable doubling of transaction value in just four years. This underscores that we are no longer discussing an emerging payment method, but rather a fundamental component of African commerce.
Our mission is to grant businesses access to this extensive ecosystem through a single, streamlined integration.
This could involve empowering a money transfer company to dispatch funds to mobile wallets, assisting an internet service provider in collecting subscriptions, supporting an urban mobility platform in paying its drivers, or enabling digital enterprises to serve customers across multiple African markets. We provide the technological framework that orchestrates payments, manages disbursements, tracks transactions, oversees financial flows, and facilitates reconciliation. Mobile money operators retain responsibility for customer accounts and the issuance of electronic money. Banks continue to provide core banking services and safeguard funds. Regulators ensure market integrity and supervision. While mobile money serves as a vital infrastructure fueling African commerce, our primary objective is to make it easily accessible for businesses across diverse markets.
PawaPay currently operates in 20 African markets. What guided the selection of your initial target markets, and what criteria steer your expansion today?
From our inception, we strategically focused on markets where mobile money already played a significant role in daily economic activity. Africa has pioneered some of the world’s most successful digital payment ecosystems, and we aimed to establish our presence where businesses were actively seeking to engage with their customers via mobile money. Today, three key factors continue to drive our expansion. Firstly, customer demand is paramount. We closely monitor the markets our clients are entering and where they wish to reach new consumers. Companies like Bolt, Yango, LemFi, or GiveDirectly operate across several countries, and their evolving needs naturally shape our priorities. The second factor is the robustness of the local payment ecosystem.
We prioritize markets where mobile money, digital commerce, and financial services are increasingly central to the economy.
Finally, we place considerable emphasis on the potential for long-term partnerships. Infrastructure development is a multi-year endeavor. Building trusted relationships with operators, financial institutions, and other ecosystem players is absolutely essential. Our objective is not merely to add more countries, but to build a cohesive coverage that empowers businesses to operate effectively across the entire continent.
Côte d’Ivoire, and more broadly the UEMOA region, are frequently highlighted as a future regional hub for fintech and finance. What makes this area particularly appealing for a pan-African payment infrastructure? Which elements truly differentiate it?
I would even assert that UEMOA is already one of Africa’s most significant regions for digital payments. West Africa processed nearly $500 billion in mobile money transactions in 2025 and boasts over 517 million registered mobile money accounts, making it the most active region globally in terms of operational services.
Within this vibrant landscape, Côte d’Ivoire holds a strategic position. It is the leading economy in UEMOA, a major financial center for the region, and a market with over 28 million registered mobile money accounts and more than 13 million active accounts.
What is particularly noteworthy is the deliberate investment in regional financial infrastructures. The BCEAO’s interoperable instant payment platform (PI-SPI) serves as an excellent illustration of this commitment. By April 2026, over 80 institutions, including banks, electronic money institutions, and microfinance institutions, were already connected. For both businesses and financial institutions, the quality of payment infrastructure directly dictates their capacity to participate in economic activity. For a pan-African infrastructure provider like PawaPay, this presents a significant advantage. A regulatory decision or a partnership forged in Côte d’Ivoire can potentially have a ripple effect across several countries in the region. The depth of the banking sector, the widespread adoption of mobile money, the entrepreneurial dynamism, and Abidjan’s geographical position as a regional economic powerhouse also contribute significantly to its unique appeal.
When a Francophone African bank collaborates with a payment infrastructure like PawaPay, what tangible benefits does it observe beyond mere technical access to mobile payments? How might this impact client acquisition, service costs, liquidity management, compliance, fraud prevention, or the offerings extended to SMEs?
The foremost point to emphasize is the complementary nature of banks and payment infrastructures. Banks remain central to settlement processes, liquidity management, regulatory compliance, client relationships, and broader financial services. This fundamental role remains unchanged. What is evolving, however, is the increasingly pervasive role of mobile money within the daily economy.
According to the GSMA, transfers between bank accounts and mobile wallets reached approximately $167 billion in 2025.
Flows in the opposite direction are reaching comparable levels. Therefore, the future isn’t a choice between “bank or mobile money,” but rather a powerful synergy of “bank and mobile money.” An infrastructure like PawaPay empowers banks to access multiple payment ecosystems through a single connection. This enhances visibility over financial flows, simplifies treasury management, and broadens their capacity to serve their clientele. This is particularly relevant for SMEs. Many small and medium-sized enterprises already collect their payments via mobile money. Banks that can seamlessly integrate these flows into their suite of financial services are uniquely positioned to offer greater value to these growing businesses.
How do you envision the evolution of the mobile money ecosystem over the next five years? Will the primary growth drivers be merchant payments, mass disbursements, government payments, e-commerce, B2B transactions, savings and credit, or cross-border uses?
One of the most fascinating phenomena we observe today is that growth is simultaneously originating from multiple segments. Consumer adoption is already well-established across numerous markets. For instance,
in the UEMOA region, financial inclusion rates surged from 56% to 71% between 2018 and 2022, primarily driven by digital financial services and mobile money.
Merchant payments perfectly illustrate this dynamism. Studies indicate their volume increased by over 40% in 2025, making this segment one of the most vibrant within the ecosystem. This trend reflects a deeper reality: mobile money is progressively becoming an everyday tool for commerce. We witness this across digital services, internet subscriptions, transportation, education, retail, and many other sectors. Cross-border payments are also poised for continued expansion as African businesses increasingly operate across multiple markets. Mobile money is no longer a niche product; it has transformed into an indispensable infrastructure for African commerce.
The mutual recognition agreement for licenses between Ghana and Rwanda was perceived as a significant signal for African cross-border payments. What does it reveal, in your opinion, about the evolution of regulatory cooperation among African jurisdictions? Is this a precedent that can be replicated on a large scale, or an advancement still very specific to certain conditions?
I believe it reflects a fundamental trend that is becoming increasingly evident across the continent. African regulators are recognizing that commerce, investment, and the digital economy are becoming profoundly integrated. Consequently, regulatory cooperation can effectively bolster economic growth while upholding essential safeguards. The Ghana-Rwanda agreement serves as one clear example, and UEMOA’s harmonized framework offers another. While the approaches may differ, they both convey the same underlying reality: economic activity now extends well beyond national borders. It is unlikely that a single, universal model will apply everywhere, but the growing willingness to collaborate, share experiences, and construct common frameworks represents a highly positive evolution for African trade and investment. Ultimately,
Africa will require more mechanisms for mutual recognition and regulatory harmonization to truly sustain the growth of cross-border payments.
Many stakeholders envision a future African payment network that is fluid and fully interoperable. What, in your view, is the realistic trajectory towards achieving this objective? Which prerequisites must be addressed as a priority?
The encouraging aspect is that the essential foundations are already in place. Mobile money adoption is robust. Financial institutions continue to invest significantly in digital infrastructure. Initiatives like PAPSS, PI-SPI, and various regional interoperability programs clearly demonstrate a shared ambition to enhance connectivity. The next crucial step hinges on increased collaboration among operators, banks, infrastructure providers, and regulators. The objective should not solely be to expedite payments.
The ultimate goal must be to foster commerce, facilitate exchanges, and broaden economic participation across the entire continent.
When businesses can more easily serve customers in multiple countries, when consumers are presented with more options, and when financial institutions gain access to a larger regional market, the entire ecosystem benefits immensely. However, technology alone will not suffice. It will also be imperative to resolve complex issues related to currency management, compliance, fraud prevention, and the robust governance of payment networks.
What role can infrastructure companies like PawaPay play in supporting the growth of a regional hub such as Côte d’Ivoire? Where can you generate the most significant value?
Our role is fundamentally about reducing friction. Every time a business seeks to expand into multiple African markets, it confronts significant technical, regulatory, and operational complexities. An infrastructure provider like PawaPay is designed to simplify this expansion process.
We empower businesses, banks, and fintechs to rapidly access multiple markets through a single, unified platform.
For a regional hub like Côte d’Ivoire, this translates into increased investment, greater innovation, and more businesses capable of operating at both regional and even continental scales. The most substantial value we can create is by accelerating the circulation of funds, services, and economic opportunities throughout Africa. In our perspective, the next phase of African financial development will not only be digital; it will also be profoundly pan-African.
