Côte d’Ivoire now counts over 400,000 mobile money service points, according to the Agency for the Promotion of Financial Inclusion – 300 times more than the number of ATMs. Ivorians rely daily on these kiosks to deposit salaries and withdraw cash, but agents often face liquidity shortages that hamper their operations.
Late afternoon in the Angré Château neighborhood. It’s time for shopping or catching transport, but at this busy intersection, the mobile money kiosk has run out of cash. Rosette is resigned; she came to withdraw 10,000 CFA francs – about 15 euros: “When you come, they don’t have what you need. It happens, so we just deal with it.”
Sitting in the yellow kiosk, cashier Nema makes customers wait: “Some days there are many withdrawals and we run out of cash. We apologize and tell customers we are in deposit-only mode.”
Rather than queuing, some customers leave to withdraw elsewhere. Affoué manages the kiosk. For this former accountant, losing a customer means lost earnings: “You lose the client and the commission. That’s why you must take care of customers so commissions can increase and you can generate net profit.”
Loss of customers, loss of profitability
Mobile money operators like Orange, Moov, MTN, and Wave pay commissions to kiosk managers. For example, they earn between 20 and 60 CFA francs – 3 to 9 euro cents – for a 10,000 CFA franc transaction. The more transactions and the larger their value, the higher their income.
The system breaks down when cash or credit runs out. Agents must close shop to restock with operators or banks. “They lose customers, don’t earn enough commissions, it’s not profitable. They are forced to close and go to distributors.”
Motorbikes for quicker response
Gertrude Yapi is operations director of Leya, an Abidjan-based startup that offers motorbike cash transport to replenish mobile money points: “We supply them – in credit – in under four minutes, and send cash in less than 30 minutes to satisfy customers. We allow sales points to increase turnover by 50%.” Leya now claims over 3,000 active clients in four Ivorian cities: Abidjan, Bondoukou, Bouaké, and Korhogo.
According to Ivorian economist Kassoum Timité, service continuity is essential to support overall economic activity: “Mobile money directly reaches the population in the informal sector, which makes up the largest share of economic activity in Côte d’Ivoire – it represents up to 40% of GDP, according to the IMF. So a lack of liquidity will slow transactions and reduce economic activity.”
In 2024, over 140 billion CFA francs – more than 210 million euros – were exchanged daily via mobile money, according to the Ivorian financial inclusion agency, nearly four times more than in 2020.
