Stablecoin Regulation in WAEMU Needs to Catch Up

Stablecoins are no longer an imported abstraction in the West African Economic and Monetary Union. They already circulate as instruments for settlement, transfers and savings, most often denominated in dollars and accessible outside traditional banking channels. The question for the Union is no longer whether they will arrive. It is under what rules they may be issued, held and redeemed.

The potential utility is immediate. In the first quarter of 2025, sending $200 to sub-Saharan Africa cost an average of 8.78% of the amount transferred, compared with 6.49% globally. Digital-only operators did much better, at 3.55%. A settlement infrastructure open around the clock can reduce some intermediaries, but it does not eliminate the costs of conversion, compliance or last-mile access.

On 8 May 2026, the BCEAO made the institutional debate explicit. In Dakar, its international conference on crypto-assets addressed stablecoins, monetary stability and prudential supervision. The central bank also confirmed the creation of C‑CRYPTO, a committee tasked with developing a harmonised regulatory framework for crypto-assets in the Union. As of 15 August, no stablecoin-specific regime had been published.

A question of legal classification

BCEAO Instruction No. 008-05-2015 defines electronic money as monetary value representing a claim on its issuer, stored electronically, issued against receipt of funds and accepted by third parties. A centralised, fully backed stablecoin pegged to the CFA franc may appear to fit that definition.

The resemblance does not settle the matter. A conventional unit of electronic money circulates within a system maintained by an issuer and its distributor network. A token may circulate on a public blockchain, be held in a self-custodied wallet, trade on a secondary market and interact with an automated contract the issuer does not control. The legal claim to redemption may then become technically or economically separated from the token that represents it.

The nature of the reserve also matters. A token backed by CFA-franc deposits does not have the same risk profile as one backed by dollars, a basket of assets or other crypto-assets. An algorithmic mechanism with no direct claim on a liquid reserve is further still from electronic money. A single classification cannot honestly cover every instrument described as a stablecoin.

Payment law has advanced, but the token still has no status of its own

The regional legal foundation is not empty. Regulation No. 15/2002/CM/UEMOA organises payment systems. The 2015 Instruction governs electronic-money issuers. Since January 2024, Instruction No. 001-01-2024 has established the conditions for providing payment services, created the status of payment institution, and imposed licensing, segregation of customer funds and supervision by the BCEAO and the Banking Commission.

The 2024 text is technologically open: a licence application may describe the use of blockchain among the technologies supporting the proposed service. That is a useful signal. But recognising blockchain as infrastructure does not determine the legal nature of the token, the rights of its holder or the treatment of its reserve in insolvency.

This distinction matters. In February 2026, the BCEAO listed 31 licensed payment institutions across the Union. The authorisation regime therefore exists and functions. What is missing is an explicit bridge between that institutional regime and an asset that continues to circulate beyond the issuer's application.

What OHADA can — and cannot — resolve

A common misconception should be addressed first: there is no OHADA Uniform Act on payment systems. Payments, currency and prudential supervision fall primarily to the Union, its Council of Ministers, the BCEAO and the Banking Commission. The AMF‑UMOA may also become competent when a token provides a yield, a claim on a portfolio of assets or the characteristics of an investment.

OHADA nevertheless retains an essential, complementary role. Its law can clarify the legal life of the issuer, the enforceability of reserve segregation, the priority of holders in insolvency proceedings, security interests over digital assets and evidence of an obligation performed by a smart contract. These questions determine whether the promise that “one token equals one franc” remains enforceable when an issuer fails.

The right architecture is therefore not an OHADA Uniform Act that displaces the BCEAO. It is a common monetary and prudential regime for WAEMU, supplemented by coherent OHADA rules on companies, obligations and insolvency.

Lessons from MiCA and the GENIUS Act

The European Union distinguishes electronic-money tokens, which aim to maintain a stable value by reference to one official currency, from tokens that refer to one or more other assets or rights. Titles III and IV of the MiCA regulation have applied since June 2024. This taxonomy allows a straightforward monetary promise to be governed differently from a hybrid product.

In the United States, the GENIUS Act became Public Law 119‑27 on 18 July 2025. It limits the issuance of payment stablecoins to permitted issuers and requires, among other things, eligible reserves of at least one to one, a redemption policy and disclosure obligations. The American model cannot be imported directly into a monetary union of eight states, but its central principle can: the issuer, the reserve and the right of redemption must be identifiable before the instrument can be treated as payment money.

WAEMU need not adopt either model wholesale. It can build a taxonomy suited to its own currency: an XOF-pegged payment stablecoin, a token pegged to a foreign currency, a token referenced to multiple assets, a tokenised bank deposit and an algorithmic instrument. Each category presents a different risk to users, foreign-exchange reserves and the transmission of monetary policy.

Six minimum rules for an XOF stablecoin

1. An explicit classification. The rules must state when a token falls under electronic-money law, a new payment-stablecoin status or capital-markets law.
2. An accountable issuer. Licensing should require an identifiable legal person, a presence in the Union, governable operations and clear responsibility to the holder.
3. A simple, segregated reserve. Backing assets should be liquid, low-risk, ring-fenced and protected from the issuer's own creditors.
4. Redemption at par. The holder should have a direct, intelligible and enforceable right to redemption in CFA francs, with published timelines and fees.
5. Verifiable transparency. Reserve composition, tokens in circulation, independent attestations and operational incidents should be disclosed regularly.
6. Rules for crossing borders. The framework should connect anti-money-laundering rules, external financial relations, data protection, self-custodied wallets and cross-border circulation across all eight states.

Regulate before the market chooses for the Union

A general ban would not remove demand. It would shift activity towards dollar tokens issued elsewhere, with reserves, remedies and freezing decisions subject to foreign jurisdictions. Conversely, an overly quick assimilation into conventional electronic money would leave the risks particular to on-chain circulation unanswered.

C‑CRYPTO gives the BCEAO a vehicle for avoiding both mistakes. The first step can be narrow: a pilot regime for fully backed payment stablecoins, with a consultation mechanism involving the AMF‑UMOA, OHADA institutions and national authorities. More complex categories can remain prohibited or subject to special authorisation until their risks are understood.

The stakes extend beyond legal technique. A clear regional rule will determine whether the next layer of digital payments in WAEMU is local infrastructure, denominated in the Union's currency and accountable to its institutions, or an imported service whose terms are set elsewhere. The best time to write that rule is before a private actor reaches systemic scale.