Episode Details

In Côte d'Ivoire, you can withdraw mobile money for free.

So who pays?

I spent months mapping digital payments in Côte d'Ivoire. Here is the simplest lesson: in mobile money, the fee never disappears. It moves.

→ The old model: the receiver often pays to cash out. → The Wave model: free deposits and withdrawals, a flat 1% for the sender. → The hidden payers: merchants (QR payments) and lenders (Wave raised €117m in debt in 2025 to strengthen working capital).

And the regional context: in WAEMU, cash-in, cash-out and person-to-person transfers were 71.2% of e-money transaction value in 2025 (Banking Commission, 2025 annual report).

Pricing is not a detail. Pricing is strategy. The company that decides who pays decides who wins.

🇫🇷 En bref : au mobile money, les frais ne disparaissent jamais, ils se déplacent — du receveur vers l'envoyeur, de l'utilisateur vers le marchand.