Fintech unicorn Wave has made a major strategic foray into Central Africa’s cutthroat mobile money market with its official entry into the Cameroonian market.
The company named Joël Bertrand Ndjodo, a seasoned mobile money specialist with over ten years of experience at MTN Cameroon, as its new country manager.
This move indicates that Wave intends to use local knowledge to take on well-established competitors like MTN and Orange.
Partnership with CBC enables Wave’s entry into Cameroon
Wave’s entry is enabled by a collaboration with Commercial Bank Cameroun (CBC), which possesses the required e-money license.
This partnership allows Wave to provide a comprehensive range of services, such as deposits, withdrawals, transfers, and bill payments, under the bank’s authorisation, which was granted by the regional banking commission COBAC in June 2025.
The business is well known for its innovative pricing strategy, which includes free cash withdrawals and a flat one per cent transfer fee.
In other markets, such as Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, this tactic has worked well and caused rivals to reduce costs.
A pricing war is on the horizon, as Orange Cameroon has already reacted by lowering its withdrawal fees in a proactive move.
Rapid expansion of mobile money market in Cameroon
The mobile money market in Cameroon is expanding rapidly; between 2019 and 2023, transaction volumes increased by 162 per cent to $43 billion.
In the six-nation CEMAC bloc, the nation is responsible for more than 70 per cent of all mobile money activity.
However, Wave’s entry is not risk-free, as it has to deal with a 0.2 per cent mobile money transaction tax and a fiercely devoted user base of rivals.
A newly obtained $136 million (€ 117 million) debt facility supports the expansion, giving Wave the funds it needs to scale its business and handle early market pressures swiftly. By focusing on a local-first strategy and a tested business model, the company hopes to learn from the mistakes of previous endeavours, like Société Générale’s YUP.
Wave Mobile Money’s $136 million (€117 117million) is fueling African expansion
Last month, Techpression reported that Wave Mobile Money secured $136 million in debt financing to expedite its expansion of mobile money services throughout Africa.
This funding round was led by Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), alongside development finance institutions such as British International Investment, Finnfund, and Norfund.
Since its founding in 2018, Wave has rapidly grown to serve over 20 million monthly active users across eight African countries, mainly in West Africa.
The company operates through a network of more than 150,000 agents and employs over 3,000 people continent-wide.