The political economy of remittance corridors
Why France-Senegal stays expensive while France-Morocco quietly improved: a story about banks, bilateral agreements, and what regulators choose to measure.
In 2015, sending €200 from Paris to Dakar cost a sender approximately 8.4% in combined fees and FX spread. In 2025, the same transfer costs 6.1%. Over the same decade, France-Morocco fell from 7.1% to 3.4%. Both corridors share a sender market, a regulatory framework, and roughly comparable transfer volumes. They diverged because Morocco's central bank made interoperability a measured KPI, and the BCEAO did not.
What gets measured
Bank Al-Maghrib publishes quarterly corridor cost data, broken down by operator. The BCEAO publishes annual aggregates. Public scrutiny follows the data — and so does competitive pressure.
“Transparency is not a policy. It is the precondition for any policy that aims to lower prices.”
Twelve years working on financial inclusion policy across West and North Africa. Recently published with IMF Working Papers on diaspora flows.