A market where cards are mainly used to withdraw cash
Bank Al-Maghrib’s card statistics distinguish two uses of a payment card: withdrawing cash at an ATM and paying a merchant. Morocco had 22.6 million payment cards in circulation at the end of 2024, 12% more than a year earlier (Bank Al-Maghrib, annual banking supervision report, 2024). The card base is growing quickly, while the split between the two uses is shifting slowly. Cash withdrawals accounted for 86% of transactions made with these cards in 2024, compared with 88% in 2023. Withdrawals still dominate card use.
| Transaction | Number | Amount | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATM withdrawals | 401M | MAD 403B | −0.3% by number, +1.1% by value |
| POS terminal payments | 153.3M | MAD 52.2B | +17 % |
| Online payments | 38.5M | MAD 11B | +20% by number, +11% by value |
| Total card payments | 192.5M | MAD 63B | +17 % / +11 % |
The banking penetration rate is the number of adults who hold an account divided by the country’s adult population. It reached 58% of adults at the end of 2024, up from 54% a year earlier, with 18.5 million individuals holding an account (Bank Al-Maghrib, banking supervision 2024). Part of the increase reflects a change in method: results of the 2024 general census replaced earlier population projections in the denominator. The distribution network is being reshaped at the same time. Bank branches fell to 5,692. Payment institutions’ access points, on the other hand, rose to 32,221, up 6,328 in 2024 alone.
Interbank rails: SRBM, SIMT, and instant credit transfers
The SRBM (Système des règlements bruts du Maroc, Morocco’s RTGS system) settles interbank transactions one by one, as they arrive, with no prior netting between them. That is what gross settlement means. Bank Al-Maghrib operates it. The SRBM is the only place where final settlement in central bank money takes place. It settles large-value transactions, monetary policy operations, and the net balances passed on by retail systems. The system processed MAD 25,262 billion in 2024, the equivalent of the country’s annual GDP every 16 operating days (Bank Al-Maghrib, 2024).
The SIMT (Système interbancaire marocain de télécompensation) is Morocco’s clearing system for retail payments. Banks’ mutual claims are netted there before settlement. It is operated by GSIMT, an economic interest grouping formed by Bank Al-Maghrib and the banking community. GSIMT processes non-card instruments: credit transfers, direct debits, checks, and bills of exchange. Cards are excluded. They go through a separate chain, card processing. In 2024, the SIMT exchanged 136.3 million transactions, up 16.1%, worth MAD 2,524 billion (Bank Al-Maghrib, 2024).
Infrastructure availability exceeded 99.8% in 2024, depending on the system (Bank Al-Maghrib). The limits of instant transfers therefore lie in how they can be used, not in their technical reliability. A rail capped at MAD 20,000, with no standardized merchant acceptance scheme, cannot yet replace cash at the point of sale. Checks and bills of exchange remain common instruments in Moroccan business-to-business trade. The SIMT clears them.
CMI: from sole acquirer to national processor
The Centre Monétique Interbancaire (CMI) is the entity through which Moroccan banks pooled card transaction processing. Nine banks set it up in 2001, and it went live in 2004. Its original mission combined two functions that most markets assign to separate players: interoperability of withdrawals and payments on one hand, and merchant acquiring on the other. Merchant acquiring covers signing the merchant agreement, setting the fee, and settling collected funds to the merchant. For 20 years, a Moroccan merchant that wanted to accept cards had only one possible contract: CMI’s.
The opening of the acquiring market began with a formal complaint. NAPS SA filed it with the Competition Council, challenging CMI’s practices on terminals and online payments. The Council made structural, behavioral, and pricing commitments binding. The shareholder banks must guarantee the legal and economic independence of their acquiring subsidiaries, and they must also run a competition-law compliance program. A joint committee of the Council and Bank Al-Maghrib monitors implementation, based on semiannual reports, for two years.
- What stays with CMI: the national technical platform, with fair, transparent, and nondiscriminatory access for all licensed institutions.
- What leaves CMI: signing up merchants, the merchant agreement, merchant pricing, and the legacy portfolio of terminals and merchant websites.
- Fatourati, the bill payment platform operated by CMI, extends its role as infrastructure: more than 70 collection channels and 32 connected financial institutions (CMI, 2025).
- Switching and clearing left CMI for HPS back in 2016, so the separation between merchant acquiring and interbank processing predates the market opening by eight years.
Accepting payments in Morocco: what you need
Providing payment services in Morocco requires a license from Bank Al-Maghrib, granted under Law No. 103-12. No passporting mechanism opens the Moroccan market to holders of a license issued abroad, so cross-border acquiring has no equivalent there. A foreign merchant that wants to accept payments locally therefore sets up a Moroccan entity, opens a bank account in dirhams, and signs a merchant agreement with a licensed acquirer. The merchant is also paid out in dirhams.
| Type of provider | Basis for authorization | What it brings | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank acquiring subsidiary | Dedicated subsidiary; legal and economic independence required by Decision No. 152/D/2024 | Bank backing, terminal fleet financing, business checking account relationship | Actual independence from the parent company and no tie-in to a bank account |
| Licensed payment institution | Bank Al-Maghrib license (Law No. 103-12) | Flexible pricing, dense physical network, appetite for small retailers | The exact scope of the license and the operational robustness of processing |
| CMI | National technical platform | Processing, authorization, card clearing, Fatourati | Has not signed up new merchants since November 1, 2024 |
| E-commerce gateway | Contractual, backed by a licensed acquirer | Checkout flow, 3-D Secure, multicurrency support | The acquirer that actually holds the contract behind the gateway |
The acceptance network is the full set of electronic payment terminals installed at merchants. Relative to Morocco’s retail landscape, it remains narrow. It numbered 94,387 terminals at the end of 2024, up 13%, of which about 72% were active (Bank Al-Maghrib, banking supervision 2024). A terminal counts as active when it records transactions during the period observed. About a quarter of the installed base falls outside that count. The sector breakdown partly explains this. Large retailers hold 23% of the installed base, ahead of healthcare at 14%, clothing at 13%, tourism at 11%, and restaurants at 8%. Neighborhood stores, where most everyday spending takes place, remain largely outside the network.
- Identify who holds the contract after the portfolio transfers; the name on the terminal is no longer enough to tell.
- Distinguish the merchant service charge from interchange: the regulatory cap applies only to interchange.
- Set the settlement currency in the contract from the start: accepting payments in Morocco means being credited in dirhams, with the foreign exchange consequences covered below.
- Check online authentication: CMI, Maroc Telecommerce, and the banks have made 3-D Secure authentication standard for domestic e-commerce payments.
- Plan for foreign cards: they fall outside the domestic interchange cap and cost significantly more to accept.
Capped interchange, and what the cap does not cover
Interchange is the share of the fee charged to the merchant that goes to the banks and payment institutions that issued the card. Bank Al-Maghrib capped it for domestic card payments through Regulatory Decision No. 244/W/2024 of September 20, 2024. The cap is set at 0.65% of the transaction value, effective October 1, 2024. Its scope is narrow. It covers only domestic payments, meaning those made with cards issued in Morocco.
Regulatory Decision No. 265/W/2026 of July 6, 2026, lowers this cap to 0.50% as of October 1, 2026. It introduces a reduced cap of 0.15% for payments to government agencies and neighborhood stores. This reduced cap targets segments with thin per-transaction margins, such as water bills, electricity bills, and grocery stores. These segments could not absorb a 0.65% fee on every transaction, and acceptance there was stalling.
| Period | General cap | Reduced cap | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before October 1, 2024 | No regulatory cap | – | – |
| October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2026 | 0,65 % | – | Decision No. 244/W/2024 of September 20, 2024 |
| From October 1, 2026 | 0,50 % | 0.15% (government agencies, neighborhood stores) | Decision No. 265/W/2026 of July 6, 2026 |
Payments made in Morocco with foreign-issued cards bring foreign currency into the country and are a cost for hotels, restaurants, and tourist-facing retail. These transactions fall outside the domestic cap, which applies only to cards issued in Morocco. A business in Marrakech or Agadir whose customers are mostly foreign therefore does not benefit from the October 2026 cut on most of its volume. What it can still negotiate is the acquirer’s margin, the network fees passed through, and the terms of dynamic currency conversion (DCC), which lets a foreign cardholder pay in the card’s currency.
Mobile payments: a decade of rules, and still no takeoff
Mobile payments in Morocco rely on the electronic wallet, a payment account accessible from a phone and funded with e-money. The legal framework came before the products, the reverse of what happened in most African markets. Law No. 103-12 created the payment institution category in 2014: a nonbank entity authorized to hold payment accounts and issue e-money. It can neither take demand deposits nor extend credit. The first licenses were granted in January 2018 to Wafacash, Maroc Traitement de Transaction (M2T), Cash Plus, and NAPS. A dedicated mobile switch later made the wallets interoperable with one another.
| Indicator | Payment institutions | Bank offerings |
|---|---|---|
| Share of transactions by number | 93 % | 7 % |
| Share of transactions by value | 86 % | 14 % |
| Number of wallet offerings | 12 | 9 |
| Main use | Bill payments: 65% of transactions | Not published separately |
Two factors explain the growth in 2024. Paying social benefits directly into payment accounts opened wallets and gave their holders a first reason to use them. Acceptance is no longer an obstacle, since 93% of the terminal base accepts mobile wallets. The remaining limit is user behavior. When a social benefit credited to a wallet is withdrawn in full as cash the next day, the wallet serves as a channel for distributing the payment, without replacing cash at the moment of purchase.
Wallet activity levels determine the role wallets can play in a merchant payment flow. In Morocco in 2026, a flow built on mobile wallets alone does not reach a large enough base of active users. Wallets therefore play a complementary role, for recurring bills, money transfers, and neighborhood payments, alongside cards and cash on delivery rather than in their place.
E-commerce: cash on delivery still dominates
Cash on delivery (COD) means paying for an online order in cash, to the courier, when the package is delivered. It remains the most common payment method among Moroccan online shoppers, even as online card payments grow. Online card payments totaled 38.5 million transactions worth MAD 11 billion in 2024, up 20% by number and 11% by value (Bank Al-Maghrib, 2024). The 2024–2025 information technology survey by the ANRT, Morocco’s telecom regulator, finds that 83.8% of Moroccan online shoppers say they pay cash on delivery.
| Criterion | Cash on delivery | Online card payment |
|---|---|---|
| Collection | On delivery of the package, in cash, to the courier | At authorization, before shipping |
| Time to funds | Remitted by the delivery company after collection and reconciliation | Settled by the acquirer in dirhams, per the contract |
| Failed sale | Refused at the door: the package comes back, and shipping is paid twice | Authorization declined, known before any logistics |
| Visible cost | Delivery company collection fees, cash handling, returns | Merchant service charge, with domestic interchange capped |
| Challenge | Ordinary commercial dispute | Chargeback under network rules |
| Reconciliation | Three sources to match: order, delivery slip, cash remittance | Two sources: card batch and acquirer payout |
The cost of cash on delivery does not take the form of a merchant service charge. It is spread across the delivery chain and the merchant’s cash flow. Refusals at the door and inventory tied up during delivery rounds contribute to it. Double shipping on refused packages and the delay before collected cash is remitted add to it. The nature of fraud risk also differs. Payment fraud risk disappears, replaced by the risk of buyers refusing their orders. Switching to cards therefore swaps one cost for another, with the difference that the merchant service charge can be measured and negotiated.
- Make the card safer than the doorstep: 3-D Secure authentication, now standard for domestic online payments, removes the argument of perceived insecurity.
- Handle foreign customers separately: CMI has launched a multicurrency payment service with Global Blue for Moroccan merchant sites, with settlement in euros, US dollars, pounds sterling, yen, Canadian dollars, and Swiss francs.
- Broaden network acceptance: acceptance of JCB cards was extended to payment institutions in November 2025 (CMI), which matters for tourist flows from Asia.
- Don’t confuse collecting payments with repatriating funds: collecting foreign currency on a Moroccan site does not waive any obligation toward the Office des Changes.
The Office des Changes: the constraint that decides the model
The dirham is not freely convertible. Transfers of funds between Morocco and other countries therefore require an allowance or a regulatory authorization. This constraint applies to any cross-border payment activity involving Morocco. The Office des Changes, Morocco’s foreign exchange regulator, sets the rules for foreign exchange transactions in the General Instruction on Foreign Exchange Operations (IGOC). The IGOC 2026 version took effect on January 1, 2026. The text is organized by type of transaction and by user profile, and each combination has its own allowance or authorization procedure.
| Recipient | Annual cap | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Resident individual, including Moroccans living abroad | MAD 20,000 | International payment card linked to the dirham account |
| Innovative startup certified by the Digital Development Agency | MAD 2,000,000 | International payment card |
| Categorized economic operator | MAD 1,000,000 | International payment card |
| Moroccan entity with no foreign currency or convertible dirham account | MAD 200,000 | International payment card |
| Newly created or exempt company | MAD 50,000 | International payment card |
| Holder of a foreign currency or convertible dirham account | Up to the account’s available balance | Convertible account |
Other foreign exchange operations fall under separate regimes. For businesses, the main obligation is repatriating export earnings, within 150 days for goods and 90 days for services (Office des Changes). IGOC 2026 relaxes the offset granted to service exporters, who can fund their foreign currency or convertible dirham account in line with the funds repatriated, up to 15% of the total contract value. The basic allowance for personal travel is MAD 100,000. A supplement equal to 30% of the income tax paid is added, subject to an overall cap of MAD 500,000 per calendar year.
The exchange rate regime itself is based on a central rate for the dirham, weighted 60% to the euro and 40% to the US dollar. The fluctuation band was widened from ±2.5% to ±5% on March 9, 2020 (Ministry of Economy and Finance, on the advice of Bank Al-Maghrib), as the second phase of a reform begun in January 2018. An acquirer therefore pays the merchant in dirhams. It cannot commit to settlement in a foreign currency. Currency is handled before funds are collected, through a foreign currency or convertible dirham account when the beneficiary is entitled to one.
Bank Al-Maghrib: licensing, oversight, and open projects
Bank Al-Maghrib is the bank of issue of the Kingdom of Morocco. It combines three roles that other jurisdictions split among several authorities: central bank, banking supervisor under Law No. 103-12, and overseer of payment systems and instruments. In that capacity, it grants licenses, conducts inspections, and sets economic parameters such as the interchange cap by regulatory decision. The country had 18 licensed payment institutions at the end of 2024 (Bank Al-Maghrib).
- What a payment institution can do: hold payment accounts, execute payment transactions, issue e-money, carry out money transfers, and, since May 2025, acquire merchants.
- What it cannot do: take demand deposits from the public, extend credit, or provide investment services.
- What remains banking business: issuing cards linked to a deposit account, lending, and account keeping as defined in the banking law.
- What supervision requires next: prudential reporting, safeguarding of customer funds, on-site thematic inspections, and a customer file remediation that payment institutions were asked to complete by December 31, 2025.
Coordination with the Competition Council is the institutional novelty of the period. The two authorities issued a joint press release and set up a joint committee to monitor the opening of the card payments market. Each acts in its own domain. The sector regulator sets the interchange price cap, and the competition authority dismantles the entrenched position in merchant acquiring. Together, they monitor compliance with the commitments.
Regulation of crypto-assets is following a similar path, from prohibition toward a regulatory framework. A joint press release from the Ministry of Finance and Bank Al-Maghrib on November 21, 2017, declared cryptocurrency transactions illegal. A preliminary draft of Bill No. 42-25 on crypto-assets, dated August 5, 2025, was drawn up by the Ministry of Economy and Finance with Bank Al-Maghrib and the AMMC, Morocco’s capital markets authority. It divides supervision between those two authorities. Bank Al-Maghrib would oversee currency and stablecoins, and the AMMC markets and service providers.