How Do You Say ‘Money’ in French?

Hey, Sheriff here 👋 

Today, we’re telling a tale of two Africas. One speaks French, and the other speaks English.

But they both deal with money. So, we’re exploring how money works on the French side.

Before we begin, we have an announcement…

Now, on to this week’s story….

Africa can be divided along many lines. 

One of them is language.

And with language, there are largely two kinds of Africa.

One side speaks French, and the other speaks English.

But they’re different in more than just language. 

They have different cultures, music, and relationships with money.

While Nigeria has seen an explosion of fintechs—Opay, Carbon, FairMoney, Moniepoint, Payhippo—the French-speaking half of the continent is only just catching up.

• DR Congo has over 100 million people in it, and only 26% of people have formal bank accounts

• In Cameroon, it’s 23%,

• And in Senegal, it’s 28%

Here’s the ugly truth: the gap is anything but accidental.

Let’s blame it on the French

Francophone Africa has some of the strangest financial rules on the planet.

Let’s start with the currency.

Fourteen countries use the CFA Franc, which comes in two flavours — XOF for West Africa, XAF for Central Africa.

Both are pegged to the Euro. Both are called the CFA Franc.

But somehow, you can’t spend one where the other is accepted.

To spend your West African francs in Central Africa, you have to convert them, like trading USD for pounds.

And that’s just the beginning.

Each region has its central bank.

Both enforce laws in a strict, top-down manner that makes building financial services painfully slow.

Add in decades of poverty and low literacy, and the region’s financial exclusion starts to make sense.

One major culprit? French Colonialism.

After independence, many of these countries inherited France’s civil law system—a rigid, paperwork-heavy framework.

In this system, signing contracts, building a bank, or giving out a loan were slow, tedious and risky.

Compare that to Anglophone Africa, where British common law leaves more room for interpretation, innovation, and speed.

It’s no surprise fintech in French-speaking Africa is playing catch-up.

But while formal finance has lagged, Francophone Africa has had one thing in abundance: phones.

A bank in your pocket

In most of Francophone Africa, your mobile phone is your bank.

You might not have a debit card or a formal bank account.

But as long as you have a phone, you can use mobile money networks like Orange Money, MTN MoMo, or Wave.

These networks treat mobile numbers like bank accounts, letting you save, spend, and send money from them.

It’s cheap, fast, and it works.

In Francophone Africa, this has become the real financial system.

In countries like Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon, mobile money accounts outnumber bank accounts by more than 3 to 1.

But while mobile money is helping people move cash around, there’s one thing it hasn’t quite cracked yet: lending.

Credit Where None is Due

Only around 10% of adults in French West African countries have access to formal credit.

The reasons are both structural and cultural:

• No credit history.
  Since most people don’t use banks or get bank loans, there’s little to no data to assess borrowers.
  

• Manual KYC.
  Many rural folks have no formal ID, no smartphone, and no address.
  

• Debt aversion.
  In many communities, debt is a last resort, not a tool for growth.
  

All these make banks averse to lending money.

And even when they lend money, the laws make it difficult to get their money back.

Regulation doesn’t help either.

The BCEAO and BEAC are both known for slow-moving licensing, limited sandboxes, and a general suspicion of fast-moving fintechs.

So for a long time, credit remained a black hole.

Enter: Yabx

Here’s the thing. Mobile money generates data. Lots of it.

• Airtime purchases
  

• Mobile money patterns
  

• Device usage
  

• Bill payments
  

All of these are digital breadcrumbs.

And when analysed properly, they paint a picture of creditworthiness.

How you live, what you earn, and how likely you are to repay a loan.

This is where Yabx comes in.

Instead of waiting for someone to build a formal credit history, Yabx analyses people’s mobile money usage data using AI.

Then they use that to build a credit score.

And lastly, they connect users to digital lenders who can offer loans, no bank history needed.

Today, Yabx processes over 100 billion data points each month.

And it’s built credit scores for more than 50 million Africans.

So, you don’t need a bank account to be trusted. 

Just a SIM card and a pattern that AI can read.

And this is shifting the paradigm in Francophone Africa.

Trust now, pay later

Across the world, credit fuels demand.

It lets people consume more, invest in the future, and grow businesses faster.

Most big economies aren’t cash economies — they’re credit economies.

Let’s look around:

• United States: Over $17 trillion in consumer credit powers mortgages, student loans, credit cards, and business lines. This fuels economic activity across every sector — from housing to retail.
  

• China: The rise of consumer credit via Alipay and WeChat Pay unlocked a domestic spending boom. In the 2010s, household debt rose, and so did GDP.
  

• Brazil: With policies expanding credit access in the 2000s, Brazil’s GDP nearly doubled, driven by rising middle-class consumption.
  

• India: The explosion of digital credit via UPI-linked platforms like Paytm and LazyPay has increased SME lending and retail spending, lifting GDP by boosting the informal economy.

The pattern is clear:

Credit → Spending & Investment → Growth.

It gives people confidence to spend more. 

And it helps businesses expand faster, invest more, and employ people.

But it all starts with trust.

With Yabx, Francophone Africa’s credit economy could finally take off.

And when this happens, more interesting products can be built. 

Like Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), SME Loans and many more.

In many ways, Francophone Africa is…

The Final Fintech Frontier

This week in Abidjan, we sat with Yabx, regulators, and fintechs to talk about fintech.

Specifically, how to unlock credit in Francophone Africa.

And there’s good reason for the optimism.

• Mobile penetration is rising fast
  

• Smartphone costs are dropping
  

• Fintech adoption is growing, especially among youth
  

• And the need is massive: from SME loans to farming credit to school fees
  

Startups like Djamo, Julaya, and CinetPay are already building this future.

And Yabx can help them offer credit to way more people, by letting them lend based on behaviour.

And just like that, a whole region that was invisible to the financial system becomes bankable.

Francophone Africa isn’t late to the fintech party.

It’s just doing it differently — and maybe, more sustainably.

Do you think Yabx can help unlock credit in Francophone Africa?

Reply and let us know.

That’s it for this week. See you on [……….] for a breakdown on  […………….].

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

PS. refer five readers and you’ll get access to our private community. 👇🏾

Wow, still here?

You must really like the newsletter. Come hang out. 👇🏾