PAPSS adds Central Africa, now connects 28 African Central Banks

The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) has added its most significant member yet. The Bank of Central African States (BEAC), the regional central bank serving six countries in Central Africa, officially joined the network today, bringing the number of African countries connected via PAPSS to 28.

The move is more consequential than most central bank announcements. BEAC is one of only two regional central banks on the African continent, meaning that when it joins a payment network, it does not represent a single country. It represents six: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Chad. Together, those countries make up the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, known as CEMAC, a market of more than 72 million people.

All of them now have a pathway into PAPSS’s infrastructure for sending and receiving money across Africa in local currencies, without routing payments through the US dollar or any other third-party currency.

PAPSS now brings together more than 190 commercial banks and fintechs, supported by 16 switches. Through its extended network partners, participants can also reach more than 250 additional financial institutions beyond the core network.

What this means in practice

To understand why this matters, think about what cross-border payments currently look like for a business owner in Douala trying to pay a supplier in Lagos. The naira and the CFA franc, the currency used in the CEMAC region, do not have a direct exchange rate that two banks can settle between themselves cheaply and instantly. So the payment has to go through a correspondent bank, usually in Europe or the United States, that holds accounts in both currencies and can bridge the gap.

That trip…