Grace Ashiru
Green Pay, an Ivorian fintech that provides electronic payment terminals for merchants, has secured an equity investment from Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations de Côte d’Ivoire (CDC-CI), bringing the state-backed financial institution onto its cap table alongside Orange Côte d’Ivoire Participations, a subsidiary of the Orange Group.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
The transaction marks a further step in CDC-CI’s growing presence in financial technology, aligning with its broader mandate to support financial inclusion and the modernization of Côte d’Ivoire’s financial ecosystem. For Green Pay, the new investor adds policy-aligned, long-term capital to an existing strategic shareholder base as the company looks beyond its domestic market.
Founded in 2020 by Anouar Traboulsi, Green Pay supplies payment terminals that enable merchants to accept both card payments and mobile money across networks—an increasingly important capability in West Africa, where consumers often shift between cash, mobile wallets, and bank cards depending on context and availability.
Green Pay’s infrastructure thesis gained an early regional dimension in 2021, when a partnership with GIM-UEMOA connected the company to more than 140 financial institutions across the West African economic and monetary bloc. That integration positioned Green Pay as a potential enabler of broader interoperability—one of the persistent challenges in scaling digital payments across borders and across providers.
By combining Orange’s distribution footprint with CDC-CI’s institutional backing, Green Pay is now better positioned to expand merchant acceptance and deepen usage in Côte d’Ivoire while laying groundwork for regional growth. Orange’s presence provides commercial reach and operational scale, while CDC-CI’s involvement signals public-sector confidence in payments infrastructure as a lever for formalization and inclusion.
The investment comes amid rising competition in West Africa’s payments space, where fintechs and telecom operators are racing to build the rails that connect merchants, consumers, banks, and mobile money systems. Merchant acquiring—enabling businesses to accept a wide range of electronic payments—has become a strategic battleground as governments and regulators push for digital traceability, improved tax efficiency, and reduced reliance on cash.
For Côte d’Ivoire, often viewed as a regional economic anchor, investments in interoperable payments infrastructure can have outsized impact: wider merchant acceptance increases everyday utility for digital wallets and cards, potentially accelerating the shift from person-to-person transfers into routine commerce.
Green Pay’s positioning as an “infrastructure” player, rather than a single-wallet consumer brand, may also help it navigate a fragmented market. Terminals that support multiple payment methods can reduce the burden on merchants—who otherwise may need to manage several QR codes, wallet providers, or settlement processes—and can increase transaction success rates by offering customers multiple ways to pay.
While Green Pay has not disclosed timelines or target markets for its next phase, the company has pointed to regional expansion, and the new capital structure suggests a blend of strategic execution and long-horizon funding designed to support that ambition.
As digital payments continue to move from “nice-to-have” to “essential utility,” the entry of CDC-CI into Green Pay’s shareholder base underscores a broader trend: public finance institutions are increasingly treating payments infrastructure as critical economic plumbing—on par with other foundational systems required to scale commerce, extend financial access, and support small business growth.
