How much capital does an e-money licence require across African markets?
Across the 19 African markets that publish a minimum-capital figure for an e-money licence, the floor is set by each market's own statute, in that market's own currency — some as a single amount, some tiered by the services the licence authorizes. Below is the record for each market, verbatim and source-linked. Amounts stay in the statute's own currency; Afriset reports the requirement, not a cross-currency comparison — there is no conversion or ranking here.
Regulators name this licence differently market by market: Instituição de moeda electrónica (Electronic money institution) in Mozambique, E-Money Issuer in Kenya, Établissement de paiement (Payment Institution) across the CEMAC (Communauté Économique et Monétaire de l'Afrique Centrale) union, Sociedade Prestadora de Serviços de Pagamentos (Payment service provider company) in Angola, plus 15 more in the table below. Operators ask about this licence in other words: mobile money, electronic money institution (EMI), stored value or e-wallet. Minimum capital is one requirement among several; what it takes in full, market by market, is linked below.
“E-money issuance” here is the normalized activity: Issue stored-value / electronic money redeemable at par and hold the customer float. The category of licence that lets a provider keep customers' money. The comparable axis is the minimum-capital floor its licence attaches — structure, tiers and denomination currency differ by market and are shown as published, not converted.
Activity id (as used by the Afriset MCP): fintech:EMONEY_ISSUE
Minimum capital, market by market
| Market | Licence category | Minimum capital (as published) | Source | Source date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angola | Sociedade Prestadora de Serviços de Pagamentos | Tiered by SPSP sub-class (Aviso 04/2024 art. 3): Principal Kz 70 000 000,00; Standard Classe 1 Kz 40 000 000,00; Standard Classe 2 Kz 25 000 000,00; Remessa de Valores Kz 70 000 000,00; Serviços de Iniciação de Pagamento Kz 25 000 000,00; Serviços de Informação sobre Contas Kz 20 000 000,00. Verbatim"devem ter o seu capital social integralmente realizado no valor mínimo de: a) Para as Sociedades Prestadoras de Serviços de Pagamento previstas nas alíneas a) e b) do n.º 2 do artigo 18.º do Aviso n.º 02/22, de 02 de Fevereiro: i. Principal – Kz 70 000 000,00 (setenta milhões de Kwanzas); ii. Standard Classe 1 – Kz 40 000 000,00 (quarenta milhões de Kwanzas); e, iii. Standard Classe 2 – Kz 25 000 000,00 (vinte e cinco milhões de Kwanzas). b) Para as Sociedades Prestadoras de Serviços de Pagamento que prestem os serviços previstos nas alíneas c), d) e e) do n.º 2 do artigo 18.º do Aviso n.º 02/2022, de 02 de Fevereiro: i. Remessa de Valores – Kz 70 000 000,00 (setenta milhões de Kwanzas); ii. Serviços de Iniciação de Pagamento – Kz 25 000 000,00 (vinte cinco milhões de Kwanzas); e, iii. Serviços de Informação sobre Contas – Kz 20 000 000,00 (vinte milhões de Kwanzas)." | Aviso n.º 04/2024, de 16 de Dezembro — Capital Social Mínimo das Instituições Financeiras Não Bancárias (revokes Aviso 05/23; the operative SPSP + casa-de-câmbio capital) | 2024-12-16 |
| Botswana | Electronic Money Issuance | P2 000 000 (BWP) minimum initial capital for Electronic Money Issuance, per Schedule 2 of the EPS Regulations 2019. Verbatim"These are P2 000 000 for Electronic Money Issuance; P1 000 000 for Account Based Payment Services and P100 000 for non-account-based services." | EPS Licensing Guidelines V1.0 (February 2022) — §5.2 (initial capital, citing reg 5(2)(c) + Schedule 2 of the EPS Regulations 2019), §5.6 (incorporation), §5.8 (safeguarding of funds), §5.13 (fees), §6.3 (decision timeline), §7.1 (annual renewal) | 2022-02 |
| Burundi | Établissement de paiement émetteur de monnaie électronique | 1 000 000 000 BIF (un milliard de francs Burundi) minimum share capital, fully subscribed and paid in cash before the agrément (Circulaire 001/SP/2024 art. 4). Verbatim"Le capital social minimum d'un établissement de paiement émetteur de monnaie électronique est d'un milliard (1 000 000 000 BIF) de francs Burundi." | Circulaire n° 001/SP/2024 relative aux activités des établissements de paiement émetteurs de monnaie électronique — art. 4 (capital), art. 5 (compte global), art. 8 (interdictions), art. 10 (siège social) | 2024 |
| CEMAC CameroonCentral African RepublicChadCongo-BrazzavilleEquatorial GuineaGabon | Établissement de paiement | XAF 500,000,000, fully paid-up (the minimum released share capital of a payment institution) Verbatim"Le capital social minimum libéré des établissements de paiement est fixé à cinq cent millions de FCFA." | COBAC R-2019/02 relatif aux normes prudentielles applicables aux établissements de paiement (capital, own funds) | 2019-09-23 |
| Djibouti | Établissement de monnaie électronique | 100 000 000 FDJ (cent millions de francs Djibouti) minimum share capital, fully subscribed and paid in cash in an account at the Central Bank before the agrément (Instruction n° 2017-01 art. 7). Verbatim"Le capital social minimum d'un établissement de monnaie électronique est de cent millions FDJ. Il doit être intégralement souscrit et libéré en numéraire dans un compte logé à la Banque Centrale, avant l'octroi de l'agrément." | Instruction n° 2017-01 relative aux conditions et modalités d'exercice des activités des émetteurs de monnaie électronique — art. 4 (forme juridique), art. 6 (siège social), art. 7 (capital), art. 9 (délai de deux mois), arts. 32–33 (capitaux propres), arts. 48/50 (plafonds) | 2017 |
| DR Congo | Établissement de monnaie électronique | USD 2,500,000, a released share capital fully paid up in cash, stated as the CDF-equivalent (a USD-denominated floor in a CDF-law economy — the dual-currency reality is in the instrument itself; Rule 1: a statutory amount, not a rate). Verbatim"Les établissements de monnaie électronique doivent disposer d'un capital minimum social libéré en numéraire équivalent en francs congolais (CDF) à USD 2.500.000 (dollars américains deux millions cinq cent mille)." | Instruction n° 24 relative à l'émission de la monnaie électronique (the EME capital/agrément frame) | 2011 |
| Eswatini | Mobile Money Service Provider | Not published. The Practice Note officially states that for a non-supervised mobile money service provider there is no capital requirement (capital requirements apply only to institutions supervised by the Bank under the Financial Institutions Act, unless directed otherwise). A rare officially-stated structural absence — the answer is "no capital requirement". | Practice Note for Mobile Money Service Providers (No. 1/2019/NPSS) — art. 6 (documentation / place of business), art. 9 (trust account), art. 11 (decision on licence, 90-day window; annual renewal), Capital Requirements section, art. 12 (fees) | 2019-03 |
| Ethiopia | Payment Instrument Issuer | Birr 50,000,000 (fifty million birr) paid-up, contributed in cash and deposited in a blocked account with a bank in the name of the issuer under formation; a foreign national pays it in foreign currency. Verbatim"A minimum paid-up capital of Birr 50,000,000 (fifty million birr) or equivalent in foreign currency shall be contributed in cash and the amount shall be deposited in a blocked account with a bank in the name of the payment instrument issuer under formation." | Licensing and Authorization of Payment Instrument Issuers Directive No. ONPS/09/2023 (operative PII base; repeals ONPS/01/2020, 03/2021, 06/2022) | 2023-10-06 |
| Ghana | Dedicated Electronic Money Issuer | GHS 20,000,000. Act 987 sets no number (s.17 defers to BoG); the figure is in the BoG licensing schedule. Verbatim"… Capital (GHS Million) … Dedicated Electronic Money Issuer 20 … … A payment service provider shall ensure that while in operation, it maintains in the country a minimum paid-up capital … as determined by the Bank of Ghana." | BoG FinTech & Innovation — Licensing Requirements for DEMIs, PSPs and PFTSPs (the official capital + fee schedule) | not dated |
| Kenya | E-Money Issuer | KES 20,000,000 (core capital) Verbatim"20,000,000.00 … A payment service provider… shall at the time of authorisation and at all times, hold a core capital as set out in the First Schedule." | National Payment System Regulations, 2014 (Legal Notice 109 of 2014) | 2022-12-31 |
| Kenya | Small E-Money Issuer | KES 1,000,000 (core capital) Verbatim"1,000,000.00" | National Payment System Regulations, 2014 (Legal Notice 109 of 2014) | 2022-12-31 |
| Lesotho | Mobile Money Issuers | M 500,000 (five hundred thousand Maloti / LSL) core capital, to be held at the time of licensing and at all times (reg 16, Schedule 2). Verbatim"Electronic Payment Instrument Issuer M 500,000 … hold a core capital as set out in Schedule 2" | Payment Systems (Issuers of Electronic Payments Instruments) Regulations, 2017 (LN No. 30 of 2017) — reg 7 (application/form), reg 13 (validity/fees), reg 16 + Schedule 2 (core capital), Schedule 3 (fees), Schedule 4 (trust account) | 2017-03-31 |
| Malawi | E-Money Issuer | K50,000,000.00 (fifty million Malawi Kwacha / MWK) minimum paid-up capital for a non-bank e-money service provider (reg 6(1)(a); a minimum core capital of 100% of paid-up or 2% of outstanding e-money liabilities, whichever is higher, also applies under reg 6(1)(b)). Verbatim"a minimum paid up capital of fifty million Kwacha (K50,000,000.00)" | Payment Systems (E-Money) Regulations, 2019 (GN 13/2019; under s.43 of the Payment Systems Act 2016) — reg 5 (provision of e-money services), reg 6 (capital), reg 7 (trust account) | 2019-05-03 |
| Morocco | Établissement de paiement offrant des produits et services de paiement | MAD 10,000,000 (dix millions de dirhams) — the minimum paid-up capital or fully-versed endowment of a payment institution licensed to offer the loi 103-12 Art. 16 payment services. Verbatim"2- 10.000.000,00 DH (dix millions de dirhams) pour les sociétés agréées pour offrir les services de paiement prévus à l'article 16 de la loi n° 103-12 relative aux établissements de crédit et organismes assimilés." | Circulaire du Wali de Bank Al-Maghrib n° 8/W/2016 (10 juin 2016) inserting Art. 2 bis (établissement de paiement minimum capital) into circ. 20/G/2006, as homologated (BO n° 6666 du 19-4-2018) | 2016-06-10 |
| Mozambique | Instituição de moeda electrónica | Not published. Decreto 50/2024 fixes no metical minimum-capital amount for an e-money institution; the pre-2024 figures are in the revoked Decreto 99/2019 and no operative published figure was located this build. | Decreto n.º 50/2024, de 11 de Julho — Regulamento da Lei das Instituições de Crédito e Sociedades Financeiras (LICSF); the EPSP regime lives in arts. 51–59 (revokes Decretos 56/2004, 57/2004, 31/2006, 30/2014 and 99/2019, the EPSP decree) | 2024-07-11 |
| Namibia | Electronic Money (E-Money) participant | Not published. The initial capital amount is set by the Bank in the "Payment System Notice", which is not published on the public web — the requirement is delegated to a separate instrument the regulator does not host (PSD-1 10.6.1; PSD-3 8.4/11.1.1 delegate identically). No official figure is published. | Determination PSD-1 — Licensing and Authorisation of Payment Service Providers in Namibia (Payment System Management Act, 2023; GG No. 8822, GN No. 1, effective on publication; repeals the 2024 PSD-1) — para 7 (application/authorisation), 8.6 (categories), 10.6 (capital), 12.2 (safeguarding) | 2026-01-06 |
| Nigeria | Mobile Money Operator Licence Category | ₦2,000,000,000 shareholders' funds unimpaired by losses + refundable escrow of ₦2bn Verbatim"N2,000,000,000.00 (shareholders' funds unimpaired by losses) … Escrow of refundable N2bn into CBN PSP Share Capital Deposit Account No. 1000014009" | CBN, Approved New Licence Categorization Requirements (Consolidated – 2021) — the per-category eligibility/capital/fee sheets giving effect to the circular "New Licence Categorizations for the Nigerian Payments System" (ref BPSD, issued 9 Dec 2020). | 2020-12-09 |
| Rwanda | E-Money Issuer | FRW 300,000,000 (Reg 74/2023 Category I) Verbatim"An applicant wishing to be licensed under payment services category I, must have a minimum initial capital of not less FRW 300,000,000." | Regulation N° 74/2023 of 18/09/2023 governing payment service providers (Official Gazette n° 38 Bis of 25/09/2023) | 2023-09-25 |
| Seychelles | Electronic money issuer | An electronic money issuer holds unimpaired initial capital of not less than SCR 1,000,000 (NPS (Electronic Money) Regulations 2022, reg 5(1)). Verbatim"An electronic money issuer shall hold unimpaired initial capital of not less than SCR1,000,000.00." | NPS (Electronic Money) Regulations 2022 (SI 128/2022) — reg 5 (SCR 1,000,000 initial capital; 2% ongoing float), reg 6 (liquidity) | 2022-12-15 |
| Sierra Leone | Mobile money operator | Not published. No minimum-capital figure is published: the National Payment Systems Act 2022 requires capital adequacy « at levels specified by the Central Bank » (s.6(2)) and the Guidelines for Mobile Money Services fix no capital amount. No official figure is published. | National Payment Systems Act, 2022 (Act 8 of 2022) — s.6 (requirement for a licence: no payment service without a BSL licence; capital adequacy at levels specified by the Central Bank) | 2022-06-23 |
| Somalia | Mobile Money Service Provider | USD 2,000,000 minimum capital, held at the time of application and at all times (Mobile Money Regulations 2020, reg 11(1); USD-denominated). Verbatim"A mobile money service provider shall at the time of application for a license and at all times, hold minimum capital of USD 2,000, 000." | Central Bank of Somalia — Mobile Money Regulations, 2020 (amended 2021) — reg 6 (fees), reg 7 (timeline/term), reg 11 (capital), reg 12 (float) | 2020 |
| Tanzania | Electronic Money Issuer | TZS 500,000,000 ("Five Hundred Million"), maintained at all times Verbatim"An electronic money issuer shall maintain at all times a minimum capital as set out in the First Schedule … Electronic money issuer … Minimum Capital: Five Hundred Million … Five Hundred Million" | The Electronic Money Regulations, 2015 (GN under the NPS Act 2015; made under s.56) | not dated |
| The Gambia | Mobile money operator | Not published. No official e-money-issuer capital figure is published: the Mobile Money Regulation 2011 expressly excludes « an authorised e-money issuer » from its D10M core-capital floor and refers such an issuer to the E-Money Regulation, an instrument referenced in the Mobile Money Regulation's own definitions but not published on cbg.gm (gate flag 1). | Regulation for the Provision of Mobile Money Services, 2011 — §4.1/4.2 (authorisation process, 30-day decision, LLC-in-Gambia, D10k fee), §4.5 (12-month renewal), §5.1/5.2 (D10M core capital + D5M security deposit), definitions (retail-transfer D10k cap; e-money issuer carve-out) | 2011-10-15 |
| Uganda | Electronic Money Issuer | Tiered by trust-account value: large (trust > UGX 200bn) = UGX 10,000,000,000; medium (> UGX 500m, ≤ 200bn) = UGX 5,000,000,000; small (≤ UGX 500m) = UGX 250,000,000 Verbatim"Payment service provider (a) electronic money issuer (i) large electronic money issuer whose total trust account value exceeds two hundred billion shillings. … 10,000,000,000/= (ii) medium electronic money issuer whose total trust account value exceeds five hundred million but does not exceed two hundred billion shillings. … 5,000,000,000/= (iii) small electronic money issuer whose total trust account value does not exceed five hundred million shillings. … 250,000,000/=" | National Payment Systems Regulations, 2021 (S.I. 2021 No. 18) | 2021-02-26 |
| WAEMU BeninBurkina FasoCôte d'IvoireGuinea-BissauMaliNigerSenegalTogo | Établissement de monnaie électronique | XOF 300,000,000, fully subscribed and paid up in cash before the agrément is granted (Art 11) Verbatim"Le capital social minimum d'un établissement de monnaie électronique est de trois cents millions FCFA. Il doit être intégralement souscrit et totalement libéré en numéraire, avant l'octroi de l'agrément." | BCEAO, Instruction n°008-05-2015 régissant les émetteurs de monnaie électronique dans l'UMOA | 2015-05-21 |
| Zambia | Electronic Money Institution | Not published. Initial capital: no published number — "as prescribed by the Bank." Continuing capital ≥ 2% of the float. | BoZ, National Payment Systems Directives on Electronic Money Issuance, 2018 — Gov Gazette No. 6661, Notice 394 of 2018, 27 Apr 2018 | 2018-04-27 |
| Zimbabwe | Mobile Financial Services (mobile money) | Not published. No minimum paid-up capital is prescribed for a mobile-money / money-transmission provider: SI 80 of 2020 sets application and annual fees, licensing conditions and civil penalties, but carries no capital floor. | Banking (Money Transmission, Mobile Banking and Mobile Money Interoperability) Regulations, 2020 — Statutory Instrument 80 of 2020 (the mobile-money / money-transmission licence frame under the National Payment Systems Act [Chapter 24:23]) | 2020-03-27 |
Each figure is the minimum capital as published in the cited instrument, in the statute's own currency — not legal or compliance advice, and not converted or ranked across currencies. A tiered floor is shown in full, never reduced to one tier. Where a figure is located but not yet verified, we show that it exists without publishing it. Verify current requirements with the regulator. Rules, not rates: amounts are the published requirement, never an exchange rate.
Maintained: this official source is re-checked on a weekly schedule — last checked 2026-08-04 · unchanged since the previous check.
Related
What it takes, market by market
AngolaBeninBotswanaBurkina FasoBurundiCameroonCentral African RepublicChadCongo-BrazzavilleCôte d'IvoireDjiboutiDR CongoEquatorial GuineaEswatiniEthiopiaGabonGhanaGuinea-BissauKenyaLesothoMalawiMaliMoroccoMozambiqueNamibiaNigerNigeriaRwandaSenegalSeychellesSierra LeoneSomaliaTanzaniaThe GambiaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabwe