Cash shortage hurts mobile money agents in Côte d’Ivoire

In the Angré Château neighbourhood late one afternoon, the mobile money booth at a busy intersection has run out of cash. Customers arrive expecting to withdraw money, but find the service halted. Rosette, who came to take out 10,000 CFA francs (about 15 euros), shrugs it off: ‘When you arrive and they don’t have what you need, it just happens. You make do.’

Inside the yellow booth, cashier Nema asks clients to wait. ‘Some days there are many withdrawals and we run out of cash. We apologise and tell customers we are in deposit-only mode,’ she explains.

Some clients leave to find another outlet rather than queue. Affoué, the booth manager and a former accountant, knows that losing a client means lost commission. ‘You lose the customer and you lose the commission. So you have to take good care of clients so that commissions can increase and you can earn a net profit,’ she says.

Lost customers, lost profits

Mobile money operators such as Orange, Moov, MTN and Wave pay commissions to booth managers. For example, a 10,000 CFA franc transaction brings in between 20 and 60 CFA francs (3 to 9 euro cents). More transactions and larger sums mean higher revenue.

But the system breaks down when there is no cash or credit. Agents have to close their booths to restock from operators or banks. ‘They lose customers, they don’t earn enough commissions, it’s not profitable, and they are forced to shut down and go to distributors,’ Affoué adds.

Motorbike cash delivery for faster service

Gertrude Yapi, operations director of Leya, an Abidjan-based startup, has set up a motorbike cash delivery service to help mobile money points stay supplied. ‘We supply credit in less than four minutes, and send cash in under 30 minutes to satisfy customers. This allows points of sale to increase turnover by 50 per cent,’ she says. Leya now has more than 3,000 active clients in four cities: Abidjan, Bondoukou, Bouaké and Korhogo.

Economist Kassoum Timité stresses that uninterrupted service is vital for the wider economy. ‘Mobile money directly serves the informal sector, which represents the biggest share of economic activity in Côte d’Ivoire — about 40 per cent of GDP, according to the IMF. So a cash shortage will slow transactions and reduce overall economic activity,’ he says.

In 2024, more than 140 billion CFA francs (over 210 million euros) were exchanged daily via mobile money, according to the ivoirien agency for financial inclusion — nearly four times the figure for 2020.