Central Africa has plugged into the continent’s instant-payment rails. The Bank of Central African States (BEAC) has officially joined the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), extending the network to the six countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC).
PAPSS, developed by Afreximbank in partnership with the African Union and the AfCFTA Secretariat, allows money to move between African markets in seconds, settled in local currencies, without routing through banks outside the continent. With BEAC on board, the system now connects 28 African countries, more than 190 commercial banks and fintechs, and 16 payment switches; through extended network partners, participants can reach more than 250 additional financial institutions.
Why BEAC matters
BEAC is one of only two regional central banks in Africa, issuing the Central African CFA franc for Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad, a market of more than 72 million people. Its membership gives PAPSS a strategic entry into Francophone Africa, with a pilot with the other regional central bank, the BCEAO in West Africa, scheduled to begin later this year.
“By joining PAPSS, BEAC is creating the conditions for faster, more affordable and more efficient cross-border payments between the CEMAC countries and Africa,” said Yvon Sana Bangui, governor of BEAC. “We encourage commercial banks and financial institutions across our member states to embrace this opportunity and prepare for participation in the platform.”
Mike Ogbalu III, chief executive of PAPSS, called the move “a significant milestone in advancing Africa’s financial integration” that “opens new trade and payment corridors between Central Africa and the rest of the continent”.
What changes in practice
For banks and fintechs in the CEMAC region, PAPSS membership opens a path to offering services beyond national borders. For businesses, it promises faster transactions, lower costs and easier access to regional markets; for individuals, a cheaper way to send and receive money across Africa. The deeper play is financial sovereignty: payments processed and settled on the continent rather than through correspondent banks abroad.
The plumbing matters because intra-African trade still leans heavily on third-party currencies, a friction the African Continental Free Trade Area is trying to remove through digital trade protocols, while fintechs race to own the same local-currency corridors, as seen in Grey’s recent local-currency push in Ghana and Kenya.
PAPSS says it will work with BEAC through the end of 2026 to operationalise the membership, integrate financial institutions across CEMAC, and roll out services to businesses and individuals in the region.
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