(Ecofin Agency) - The Ivoirian government announced the implementation of the interoperability of digital financial services for this year, as part of the regional financial inclusion strategy led by the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO).  

The interoperability of digital financial services, including mobile money and mobile banking, will allow any customer to send money to any other financial service. Consumers will no longer be limited to carrying out only financial transactions to recipients affiliated to the same service provider as themselves.

For the government, with this restriction lifted, the volume of financial transactions made by the population should grow further and thus increase the customer base of these services. Moreover, the government, to achieve its goal of financial inclusion, is also focussing on the “digitalization of financial flows with the effective operationalization of existing platforms and the digitalization of 80% of government financial flows.”

The opening of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (code USSD) is also planned, long monopolized by mobile telephone operators, to other players in the financial sector to reduce the costs of related services.

Currently, in Côte d’Ivoire, 44% of the adult population still does not have access to digital financial services.