The gesture could hardly be simpler. A phone unlocked, a QR code scanned, a payment made. This is no gimmick at a supermarket on the outskirts of Nouakchott. It is a significant leap into the 21st century. Across Mauritania, the digitalisation of financial services is quietly rewriting everyday life.

In the capital, Mohamedou Limam recalls the frustrations of the old system well.

"Supply issues would pile up, payments would fall behind, and the penalties would follow," says Limam, who runs Limam et Frères, a construction and civil engineering firm.

Before 2023, paying a supplier outside the capital could take two to five days. Getting emergency materials to a remote site was an ordeal: phone calls, long waits, couriers, bureaucratic loops, and if a single document went astray, the entire process had to begin again. Late payment penalties were merciless.

Today, the moment a need arises at his site in Néma, roughly 1,000 km east of Nouakchott, Limam settles it on the spot. The work does not stop -- a symbol, perhaps, of a Mauritania moving at full steam.

Behind this transformation is a $4.78 million initiative called "The Financial Infrastructure Modernisation Project" - known by its French acronym, PAMIF -- financed by the African Development Fund, the concessional lending arm of the African Development Bank Group. Through PAMIF, Mauritania has built financial infrastructure that meets international standards and has more than doubled its financial inclusion rate, from 21 percent to over 50 percent.

The roads of digitalisation

To grasp what the project has changed, picture a vast territory where the only way to get around is on foot or on horseback. Owning a car would not be enough, you would still need roads, bridges, and signage. Until November 2023, that is exactly what Mauritania's financial sector resembled. Interbank transfers took days. Clearing was done by hand: bank staff travelled physically between retail branches and the Central Bank of Mauritania, envelopes tucked under their arms. Data entry errors ran close to 40%. For a customer at a branch in Néma or Zouerate, 740 km north of Nouakchott, depositing a cheque could take two weeks, simply because it had to be physically carried to the capital to be processed.

PAMIF did not merely finance new roads. It also funded railways, the trains, the airports and the cycle lanes, all at once, deploying several financial infrastructure components simultaneously in partnership with the Central Bank of Mauritania.

• The first of these is one that Salha Diallo, Head of Payment Systems at the Mauritanian Bank for International Commerce (BMCI), sees in action every day: a remote cheque clearing system, télécompensation, that has put an end to the physical back-and-forth. Staff now scan cheques directly at the branch.

"We went from manual clearing to electronic clearing. A cheque deposited between 8 a.m. and noon is settled the same day by 3 p.m.," says Diallo.

Gone are the off-system spreadsheets, paper ledgers and envelopes dispatched to the Central Bank with all the attendant risk of loss. Every transfer is now traceable and fully documented. The results are striking; BMCI processed 5,000 transfers in 2023; in the second half of 2025 alone, it processed 94,000.

• For large sums, corporate transfers and interbank operations, a separate system runs in real time.

"You send a transfer, and within five minutes the client can use their funds," says Diallo.

The waiting is over - and so is the uncertainty.

• The third component is the least visible and perhaps the most consequential. Previously, banks were reluctant to park their excess liquidity with the Central Bank, fearing they be unable to retrieve it when needed. Mohamed Ahmed Memoune, Director General of Capital Markets at the Central Bank of Mauritania, describes what changed:

"One click, and you have liquidity equal to the value of the government securities you hold."

This automated refinancing facility has given the central bank the tools for a coherent monetary policy -- where before, it was navigating largely blind.

The tools put in place under PAMIF have allowed the central bank to run a precise monetary policy: liquidity injections and withdrawals, steered in real time. The results speak for themselves. Inflation, once in double digits, has fallen below 2 percent, and a bond market that barely existed three years ago now offers maturities of up to ten years.

A foundation for what comes next

Behind the faster transactions lie infrastructure that is invisible but decisive. The country's financial inclusion rate has climbed from 21 percent in 2019-2020 to 55 percent in 2026.

"That number is not just a figure," insists Lalla Elghoth, PAMIF Project Coordinator. "Behind it are men and women whose daily lives now include access to the financial system."

For Mohamedou Limam's employees, the change arrives at the end of every month. Each of his workers now has a bank account and receives their wages on a fixed date, by transfer.

"Same day, every month, everyone's salary is there in their account," he says.

The first phase of PAMIF has laid the groundwork. A second phase, now in the pipeline, is set to open a new chapter: deeper financial inclusion and the emergence of a Mauritanian fintech ecosystem, with rural financial services and green and social finance firmly in its sights.

"Our country is ready to develop financial innovation and move its citizens forward," says Elghoth.

For Mohamedou Limam's employees, salaries are now paid on time each, directly into their bank accounts See project details