Electronic Money: In WAEMU, 192 Million Out of 285 Million Accounts Are Inactive, According to BCEAO

The West African Economic and Monetary Union had 284.8 million electronic money accounts opened at the end of 2025, but only 92.7 million of them were active, according to the financial inclusion dashboard published on October 20, 2026, by the BCEAO and reported by Ecofin Agency. In other words, more than 190 million accounts recorded no transaction for three months.

Yet the number of opened accounts surged by 14.5% in one year, following 248.7 million in 2024. But the activity rate remains stagnant: 32.56% in 2025, compared to 30.9% in 2024 and 41.58% in 2022. The central bank considers any account left unused for ninety days as inactive.

A One-to-Six Gap Between Countries

Regional averages conceal very different realities. Guinea-Bissau boasts the highest activity rate in the Union at 60.67%, ahead of Togo (54.48%) and Burkina Faso (50.36%). Senegal (28.68%) and Benin (28.62%) fall below the average, and Niger trails behind at 10.85%: nine out of ten accounts there lie dormant.

The three largest markets account for most of the user base. Côte d'Ivoire alone counts 109.6 million opened accounts, or 38.51% of the regional total, of which 33.3 million are active. Senegal has 59.7 million, representing 21% of the total, with 17.1 million active, and Benin has 40.7 million, or 14.4% of the total, with 11.7 million active.

Usage, However, Is Growing Rapidly

The paradox is that money is circulating more and more. The volume of transactions increased from 11.9 billion operations in 2024 to 16.4 billion in 2025, an increase of 37.3%, for a value rising from 156,889 to 219,151 billion CFA francs, up 39.7%. The distribution network followed suit: nearly 1.45 million active service points, compared to 962,411 a year earlier, representing a growth of 50.8%.

The BCEAO does not explain the origin of this massive inactivity, nor whether the growth in payments comes from already opened accounts or new users, Ecofin Agency notes.

Why It Matters

For the past fifteen years, opening a mobile account has served as the flagship indicator of financial inclusion in West Africa. These figures are a reminder that an opened account is not a useful account: multiple accounts held by the same user across several operators, pushy registrations during marketing campaigns, fees considered too high, or a lack of income to circulate can all explain the gap. Measuring financial inclusion by actual usage, rather than the number of registrations, reframes the narrative surrounding the heralded success of West African mobile money.