Digital Banking in Tunisia: Where Banks Stand in 2026

Digital banking in Tunisia is growing fast from a low base. Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) data show mobile payments almost doubled in volume in 2025, yet fewer than four in ten adults have an account, and cash and cheques still dominate everyday life. For founders, the question is no longer whether banks will go digital, but how fast and on whose infrastructure.

Where digital banking in Tunisia stands

The clearest picture comes from the BCT's own payment statistics. According to the BCT's 2025 annual figures, as reported by La Presse:

• Mobile payments reached 8.4 million transactions in 2025, up 80.5%, for a total of about TND 1,769 million (up 58.6%).
• E-wallets in circulation rose 26.8% to 469,000.
• Online payments totalled TND 1,375 million, up 31%.
• Card payments reached 164.9 million transactions (up 8.9%) worth TND 29.5 billion (up 12.3%).
• Transfers grew to 38.5 million operations worth TND 79.6 billion, now close to 60% of the value cleared.

The growth rates are high, but the absolute numbers are modest. Mobile payments are still a small slice of total electronic payment volume, and card use grows much more slowly than mobile.

Mid-year figures for 2025 published by the BCT show the same pattern. At the end of June 2025 Tunisia had 5.78 million bank cards (up 5.3% year on year), 40,600 payment terminals and 3,289 ATMs. The ATM network shrank slightly (down 0.5%), which the BCT linked to banks optimising their branch networks and shifting customers to digital channels.

Access is still the bottleneck

Digital channels can only reach people who have an account. The World Bank's Global Findex 2025, based on 2024 survey data, puts account ownership at 37.8% of Tunisian adults, barely changed from 36.9% in 2017. That stagnation is the main reason regulators now talk about digitalisation and financial inclusion in the same breath.

At the 16th Africa Banking Forum in Tunis in February 2025, BCT Vice-Governor Mourad Abdessalem described digitalisation as strategic for inclusion and urged banks to embrace open banking and closer work with fintechs. Industry voices at the same event were blunter: Proxym Group founder Wassel Berrayana said Tunisian institutions lag behind several African peers in digital banking services.

The regulatory push: e-KYC, cheques and TUNPAY

Three recent regulatory moves are reshaping how Tunisians bank.

Remote onboarding

A BCT circular dated 28 February 2025 sets minimum requirements for the electronic onboarding of bank customers. Banks may now collect, verify and store identification data digitally, provided the process is at least as robust as in-person verification under circular 2017-08 and due diligence is proportionate to each client's risk. In practice, this opens the door to fully remote account opening. Our guide to e-KYC and AML rules covers the details.

The cheque reform

The amended cheque law, described by the head of the interbank clearing company as the most important reform since the 1959 Commercial Code, comes with a new platform, Tunichèque, which lets payees check a cheque's validity and funding by scanning a QR code. When the platform was presented in February 2025, banks pointed customers without chequebooks towards cards, deferred-payment cards and mobile payments.

A single mobile payment brand

On 5 May 2026 the BCT issued Note 2026-132 creating TUNPAY, a single national label for mobile payment. Wallet issuers (banks, La Poste Tunisienne and payment institutions) are asked to adopt it, and merchants and agents to display it. The scheme runs on the national switch operated by Société Monétique Tunisie (SMT). See our overview of mobile payments in Tunisia.

Banks rebuild their core systems

Digital front-ends depend on modern back-ends. Several Tunisian banks are replacing ageing core banking systems; Arab Tunisian Bank, for example, has migrated to Temenos T24. Public banks face a harder path: commentators inside the sector point to old information systems, weak asset quality and limited investment capacity as constraints on how fast they can modernise.

The BCT has also announced infrastructure projects that matter for every bank: an overhaul of the national clearing system, migration to SWIFT MX standards and integration of the E-Houwiya digital identity into the Paysmart platform.

Non-banks are moving in

Banks are no longer the only providers of digital accounts. Payment institutions licensed by the BCT offer wallets with tiered balance caps, and in February 2026 Ooredoo Fintech Tunisie received BCT authorisation to launch walletii. A new circular on payment institutions (2026-10, published 25 September 2026) tightens rules on governance, remote onboarding and cybersecurity, with a three-month compliance window.

This competition is healthy, but it also explains why banks are partnering with fintechs rather than building everything in-house.

What it means for founders and users

• For fintech founders, banks need help with onboarding, credit scoring, payments acceptance and customer apps. Remote KYC rules and the TUNPAY label lower some barriers to scale.
• For users, the practical gains are remote account opening, cheaper transfers and QR-based payments, but acceptance outside large cities remains uneven.
• For investors, growth rates are strong but from a small base; the real upside depends on converting the roughly six in ten adults without an account.

Whether Tunisia's banking system catches up will depend less on apps than on infrastructure, regulation and trust. The question of whether a fully digital bank can launch here is explored in our piece on neobanks in Tunisia.