Morocco’s central bank and competition regulator said reforms have ended the long-standing dominance of the Centre Monétique Interbancaire (CMI) in the country’s bank-card payment market, opening the sector to new operators and lowering costs for merchants.
Morocco has completed the transition from a market where CMI was the sole provider of merchant card-acquiring services to a system where multiple payment companies can compete for business, Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) and the Competition Council said in a joint statement.
For more than two decades, merchants wishing to accept card payments largely had to use CMI, which processed the overwhelming majority of electronic transactions in the country.
The lack of competition slowed innovation and kept costs relatively high, according to experts.
The overhaul began after a 2024 Competition Council decision requiring CMI and its shareholder banks to open the market to rivals.
The central bank also announced a further reduction in interchange fees, lowering the cap on domestic card-payment fees to 0.50% from 0.65% effective Oct. 1. A lower ceiling of 0.15% will apply to government payments and small neighborhood retailers.
