Algeria’s First Fintech Law: Who Got a PSP License and What Actually Changed

When the Bank of Algeria published Instruction No. 06–2025 on August 17, 2025, it formally ended a decade of regulatory ambiguity. For the first time, non-bank companies had a clear legal pathway to offer digital payment services in Algeria. The regulation generated immediate headlines. Six months later, the more interesting question is what it actually produced: which companies moved, what products reached the market, and whether the payment landscape has measurably shifted.

The Licensing Timeline: Slower Than the Headlines Suggested

The Bank of Algeria has not published an official list of approved PSPs as of early 2026, which is the first important reality check. Instruction 06-2025 established the rules, but the authorization process — filing a comprehensive dossier with the Monetary and Banking Council, waiting for review, receiving authorization to establish, then seeking the Governor’s approval to operate — takes months. Companies that moved immediately in August or September 2025 may still be in the review pipeline.

This means the market has not yet seen a wave of newly licensed PSPs launching branded wallets. What it has seen is a clarification of rules that allows companies already operating informally or at the edge of the regulatory framework to seek formal status, and signals to international fintechs considering Algeria that there is now a legal framework to enter.

The minimum capital requirement of 160 million DZD (approximately $1.2 million) filters out the smallest operators. The structural requirement — that applicants be registered companies, not individuals — eliminates informal payment aggregators. These thresholds mean the PSP market will be shaped by a relatively small number of capitalized players, not an open-entry fintech bazaar.

The Players Already in the Field

While the formal PSP licensing roster builds, several companies have been operating payment products in the Algerian market with varying degrees of regulatory coverage. Their approaches reveal what the post-Instruction-06-2025 landscape will look like.

ESREF Pay was among the first Algerian startups to identify the digital payment gap and build for it. Founded by Samir Mohammedi, a 33-year-old International Commerce graduate, ESREF Pay built a QR code-based payment system targeting merchants who sell online. Buyers scan a QR code to pay; the merchant receives a digital settlement. The platform positions itself as the first Algerian e-wallet genuinely designed for e-commerce — not just for person-to-person transfers. ESREF Pay’s formal status under Instruction 06-2025 is a key pending development; whether it becomes a licensed PSP or positions as a payment gateway operating under a PSP’s license will determine its market architecture.

Yassir — Algeria’s most-funded startup at $193 million raised, including a $150 million Series B — occupies a uniquely powerful position in the payment ecosystem without being a payment company. The super-app processes payments for ride-hailing, food delivery, and grocery delivery for 8 million users across Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, powering an estimated 3 out of 5 on-demand digital transactions in Algeria. Yassir is pursuing formal payment institution authorization and has indicated plans to expand into savings and lending products. When Yassir launches a regulated financial services layer, it will enter with a built-in active user base that no standalone PSP startup can match in the short term.

DFA (Digital Finance Algeria) operates as an open banking platform, targeting the API-layer infrastructure that enables banks and PSPs to connect. In markets where the PSP ecosystem is nascent, the infrastructure play can be as valuable as the consumer-facing wallet — DFA’s bet is that every PSP that emerges will need payment rail connectivity, and DFA wants to be the plumbing.

Banxy, launched in 2018 by Natixis Algeria (the French banking group’s Algerian subsidiary), is Algeria’s first mobile bank. It operates as a fully licensed bank product, not a PSP — offering VISA cards, savings accounts, currency accounts, and real-time P2P transfers via a mobile-only interface. Banxy targeted younger demographics who were underserved by traditional branch banking. Its user base is not publicly disclosed, but it represents the bank-backed digital banking model rather than the independent fintech PSP model.

The Three-Tier Wallet in Practice

Instruction 06-2025’s three-tier wallet architecture reflects a deliberate risk management approach. The tiers are calibrated to balance financial inclusion (low barriers to entry for the Level 1 wallet) against anti-money laundering controls (stricter KYC at Level 3).

Level 1 — balance up to approximately $740, basic identification only — is designed for mass market adoption. A person needs only a national identity card to open a Level 1 wallet. This is the tier that should onboard the approximately 43% of Algerian adults who remain outside the formal banking system. The trade-off is a balance limit that constrains high-value use cases.

Level 2 — up to ~$3,700, with proof of income and official ID — is the tier most useful for small business owners, freelancers, and salary-receiving workers who want more functionality than a basic wallet but face barriers to traditional bank accounts.

Level 3 — up to ~$7,400, requiring a video interview — is positioned for serious financial services users who want a near-bank alternative. The video interview requirement is notable: it signals the Bank of Algeria’s intention that Level 3 wallets will undergo scrutiny equivalent to bank account opening, just digitally delivered.

In practice, the Level 1 tier will drive adoption metrics. Most early PSP marketing will focus on the frictionless onboarding of Level 1 wallets, using cash-in/cash-out agent networks to bridge the gap between the informal cash economy and digital accounts.

Agent Networks: Building the Cash Bridge

Algeria’s cash-to-digital transition cannot happen without a physical agent infrastructure. The informal retail economy — the hanut (corner shop), the tabagie, the pharmacie, the épicerie — represents the last-mile cash interface that PSPs must integrate to achieve real adoption.

Instruction 06-2025 explicitly permits PSPs to appoint payment service agents, authorizing fintechs to use existing small businesses as cash-in/cash-out points. The practical challenge is building and managing an agent network at national scale: recruiting agents, providing training and terminals, managing float liquidity, and ensuring consistent service quality.

Algeria Post’s BaridiMob, powered by the Algérie Poste network of 4,000+ post offices and the 20 million CCP account holders, has a structural advantage no fintech PSP can replicate in the near term. Baridi Pay — the QR code mobile payment layer launched by Algérie Poste in June 2025 — brings contactless payment capability to a network already embedded in neighborhoods that banks have never reached.

PSP startups building agent networks will have to do so from scratch, or partner with existing infrastructure providers (fuel stations, telecom retailers, pharmacy chains) to reach geographic coverage comparable to the postal network.

What’s Actually Changed for Consumers

For a person living in a mid-size Algerian city in early 2026, the practical impact of Instruction 06-2025 is still limited. BaridiMob remains the dominant mobile payment tool. Bank mobile apps serve the banked 57%. The CIB interbank card network covers physical POS payments at merchants who have terminals.

What has changed is the pipeline of products approaching launch. Companies that have been building in anticipation of the regulatory framework now have a licensing pathway. The next 12 months should see the first formally licensed PSP wallets launch to the market — and the competition will immediately reveal which user experience and agent network assumptions were correct.

The merchant acceptance problem remains largely unresolved. Algerian retail merchants, particularly in the informal sector, accept cash by default and have limited incentive to install payment terminals or train staff on QR payment workflows. PSPs will need to subsidize merchant onboarding heavily to build acceptance networks.

Competitive Dynamics: A Layered Market

The payment market is not winner-take-all — it is segmented by use case and user type:

• BaridiMob dominates: Mass market wallet users, postal customers, government payment recipients, low-income households. State-backed, near-ubiquitous distribution, zero CAC for its 20M CCP account base.
• Yassir Pay (emerging): App-economy users, urban millennials, online shoppers, delivery service customers. Strong brand, embedded in daily use cases, 8M active users.
• Bank mobile apps (Banxy, BNA Direct, BEA Mobile, etc.): Formally banked customers who want digital convenience but remain anchored to their bank relationship.
• PSP wallets (ESREF Pay, and incoming licensed players): The underbanked/unbanked population, micro-merchants, online commerce participants who need an account that isn’t a bank account.

The blank space in this map is the SME and micro-business segment. A merchant with DZD 5–50 million in annual revenue who operates largely in cash needs invoicing, payroll, supplier payment, and tax payment infrastructure — not just a consumer wallet. The PSP that builds merchant tools rather than consumer wallets will find less competition and higher revenue per customer.

What’s Still Missing

Even with Instruction 06-2025 in place, significant gaps remain:

Interoperability. A Yassir Pay wallet holder cannot currently pay to a BaridiMob merchant without SATIM intermediation. A PSP wallet holder cannot easily receive payments from a bank account user. True digital payment ecosystems require interoperability standards that Algeria’s SATIM-based infrastructure is not yet configured to deliver at the PSP-to-PSP and PSP-to-bank layer.

International transactions. The restriction to DZD-only transactions means PSPs cannot serve freelancers, importers, or diaspora remittance flows — precisely the use cases that have driven fintech growth in Ghana, Kenya, and Morocco. Until foreign exchange controls are relaxed, PSPs are confined to the domestic payments market.

Credit infrastructure. None of the PSP-tier players can legally offer credit under Instruction 06-2025 — that requires a separate banking license. The eventual integration of wallet data (transaction history, income patterns) into credit scoring models is a medium-term opportunity but not yet legal for PSPs.

Sources & Further Reading

• Algeria Launches First Fintech Regulation for PSPs — Startup Researcher
• Algeria Opens for Fintech: New PSP Rules Create a Playbook for Payments Startups — Launch Base Africa
• Algerian Super App Yassir Raises $150 Million in Series B Funding — Fintech News Africa
• ESREF Pay: Nouvelle Solution de Paiement en Algérie — Startup In Algeria
• French Bank Natixis Launched Banxy, Algeria’s First Mobile Bank — IBS Intelligence
• Algérie Poste Launches Baridi Pay Mobile Payment Service — DzairTube
• From Oil to Algorithms: Algeria’s Fintech Path in 2024 — The Fintech Times
• Algeria’s Payment Rails & How They Work — Transfi
• The Banque d’Algérie Regulates Service Providers — Algeria Invest
• Reviving Simplicity: Proposing USSD Payments in Algeria After the PSP Law — Medium