Cameroon’s Access to Africa-Wide Payments Awaits Wider Bank Rollout

Cameroon wants businesses to make greater use of Afreximbank’s Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) to support trade across the continent, but limited participation by local banks still stands between companies and the system’s promise of cheaper, faster cross-border payments.

In an Aug. 21 statement, Trade Minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana encouraged businesses and public institutions to adopt PAPSS. The system allows a Cameroonian company to pay an African supplier in CFA francs while the supplier receives the money in its local currency, without requiring the customer to first use dollars or euros.

PAPSS says payments can be processed within seconds, with participating central banks coordinating net settlement at the end of each day.

Bank Participation Remains the Missing Link

The Bank of Central African States (BEAC) joined PAPSS on July 9, 2026, providing the monetary and regulatory foundation for its use across the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). But that step does not automatically make the service available to every bank customer in the region.

Commercial banks, fintech companies and payment providers must still connect to the platform and offer customers channels through which they can initiate transactions.

BEAC Governor Yvon Sana Bangui has called on financial institutions to prepare to join the platform, with the goal of making cross-border payments faster, cheaper and more efficient.

That distinction matters when assessing PAPSS coverage. Following BEAC’s entry, the platform says its network connects 28 countries, more than 190 commercial banks and fintech companies, and 16 payment switches. It also says more than 250 additional institutions can be reached through partners.

Those figures do not mean every institution can already send and receive payments through the system.

In its June 2026 network map, the latest publicly available before BEAC joined, PAPSS still placed Cameroon in its extended network with receive-only access through one unidentified bank and one unidentified mobile wallet. Cameroon was not listed among markets with direct participants able to both send and receive payments.

As of Aug. 24, no newer public list identified which Cameroonian banks were fully operational on PAPSS, which payment corridors were available, or what fees and transaction limits applied. Those details will determine how useful the system is for businesses in practice.

A $5 Billion Payment Bottleneck

The economic issue extends beyond transaction speed. Payments between African countries often pass through hard currencies and correspondent banks outside the continent, adding intermediaries to cross-border transactions.

PAPSS estimates that this fragmented system costs Africa about $5 billion a year through fees, delays and opportunity costs, equivalent to roughly CFA2.8 trillion based on BEAC’s indicative Aug. 24, 2026 exchange rate.

The estimate applies to Africa as a whole and comes from PAPSS. It does not measure potential savings specifically for Cameroon or indicate what local banks will charge customers.

For a Cameroonian company buying goods from Ghana, Kenya or Nigeria, PAPSS is designed to allow payment in CFA francs directly through its bank, with currency conversion and settlement handled within the African network.

The system could reduce the number of intermediaries, shorten payment times and limit the operational need for third currencies. It does not remove bank compliance checks, commercial documentation requirements or CEMAC foreign-exchange rules.

Payments Alone Will Not Accelerate AfCFTA Trade

Cameroon has a relative head start in Central Africa on trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In a July 30, 2026 note, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa described Cameroon as the only country in the subregion to have already traded under AfCFTA preferential terms through the Guided Trade Initiative. Cameroon issued its first AfCFTA certificate of origin on Oct. 6, 2022, to GIC Afatex for a shipment of dried safou, dried pineapple and ginger tea to Ghana.

The extent of that early progress remains difficult to measure. Neither the Trade Ministry statement nor the public sources reviewed provide recent consolidated figures on the number of participating companies, the value of goods traded or customs duties saved under the preferential regime.

The UN Economic Commission for Africa has stressed that stronger continental trade requires more than payment infrastructure. Tariff offers, rules of origin, customs procedures, quality standards, access to information, logistics, financing and the removal of non-tariff barriers all play a role.

PAPSS can address one part of that chain by making payments easier once CEMAC banks are fully connected. Its practical impact in Cameroon will depend on which banks join, what they charge and which trade corridors customers can access.

Until those details are available, Cameroon’s call for businesses to adopt PAPSS remains an early step toward easier payments across a continental market of about 1.4 billion people rather than a service that is already widely available to local companies.

BRM