Ask any industry observer to name a Francophone company that has successfully established itself in Anglophone Africa, and the answer is almost always the same: Ecobank. The Togolese banking group, founded decades ago in Lom, has indeed built a solid pan-African network. But it's a legacy bank, not a company of the new digital economy, the exception that proves the rule rather than evidence of a broader trend.
Ask the reverse question, which Anglophone companies have successfully expanded into Francophone Africa, and the list grows quickly: GTBank, Zenith Bank and Access Bank on the banking side Flutterwave, NALA, BURN, Omni and Startbutton Africa in fintech and tech more broadly. South Africa's Peach Payments even acquired Senegal's PayDunya to gain a foothold in Francophone West Africa. In July 2025, Flutterwave secured a BCEAO licence allowing it to operate officially in Senegal. Moniepoint, for its part, has publicly named Cte d'Ivoire, Cameroon and Senegal as its next expansion markets.
This imbalance is no accident. It is the result of three structural gaps that have accumulated over decades: capital, product infrastructure, and the dominant narrative of African business.
