Open Banking in Tunisia: Where Things Stand in 2026

Open banking in Tunisia has been talked about for eight years but has not yet been written into law. As of October 2026, the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) has issued no rule obliging banks to share customer data or payment functions with licensed third parties through APIs. What exists instead is a patchwork of building blocks: a sandbox, a national mobile switch, remote onboarding rules and a growing number of bank-fintech partnerships.

What open banking means, and why it matters

Open banking lets a customer authorise a third party, such as a budgeting app or a payment startup, to access their bank data or initiate payments from their account through secure, standardised application programming interfaces (APIs). In the European Union, the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), in force since January 2018, made this mandatory for banks and created two new licensed roles: payment initiation providers and account information aggregators.

For Tunisian fintechs, the stakes are concrete. Without APIs, a startup that wants to show a user's balance, verify income for a loan or trigger a bank transfer must sign a bespoke agreement with each bank, or rely on workarounds. That raises costs and slows growth.

Open banking in Tunisia: a debate since 2018

The idea of a "Tunisified PSD2" was discussed as early as October 2018, at a conference held at UTICA and co-organised by the BCT, the professional banking association APTBEF and the National Digital Federation. According to CIO Mag's report, speakers called for a PSD2-inspired framework and urged Tunisia to adopt a single standard API from the start, citing the UK model, rather than letting each bank design its own.

The message from the regulator has been supportive in principle. At the Africa Banking Forum in Tunis in February 2025, BCT Vice-Governor Mourad Abdessalem described open banking as a fundamental lever for collaboration between banks and fintechs, able to deliver more personalised services and a better customer experience.

Yet no binding framework has followed. Independent trackers, including Open Banking Nigeria's country review (updated in mid-2026), describe Tunisia as having no open banking framework, consultation or published timeline.

What the latest payment rules do, and do not, cover

On 25 September 2026 the BCT published circular 2026-10 on payment institutions, replacing the 2018 framework. Press coverage by Managers, Challenges and Webdo details rules on governance, remote onboarding, fund segregation, cybersecurity audits and partnerships. None of these reports describes an obligation for banks to open APIs to third parties, and the circular applies to payment institutions, not banks. At least one headline presented the circular as covering "open APIs", but the article's own content did not support it. Until the full text is analysed, founders should not assume the circular creates open banking rights.

The building blocks already in place

Even without a formal regime, several pieces of infrastructure point in the right direction.

A national switch and interoperability

Société Monétique Tunisie (SMT) operates the national mobile payment switch on which interoperability between wallets rests. In May 2026, the BCT's Note 2026-132 created TUNPAY, a single label for mobile payment that all wallet issuers are asked to adopt. Interoperable payments are not open banking, but they create a shared rail that APIs could later plug into. See our guide to instant payments and national switching.

A regulatory sandbox

The BCT launched a fintech regulatory sandbox and selected its first cohort in January 2021: Kaoun, Sqoin & Coinsence, Instaclear and TLedger, working on remote identification, cross-border clearing and digital currency. A sandbox is the natural place to test data-sharing models before regulating them.

Remote onboarding and digital identity

A BCT circular of 28 February 2025 allows banks to onboard customers electronically, and circular 2026-10 does the same for payment institutions. The BCT has also announced plans to integrate the E-Houwiya digital identity into the Paysmart platform. Reliable digital identity is a precondition for consent-based data sharing.

The obstacles

• Data protection. Tunisia's personal data law dates from 2004 (Organic Law 2004-63) and predates API-based data sharing. A reform has been discussed for years. Our article on data protection for fintechs covers the state of play.
• Bank readiness. Many banks are still replacing core banking systems, and industry voices at the 2025 Africa Banking Forum said Tunisian banks lag behind several African peers on digital services.
• No standard. Without a common API specification, each bilateral integration is built from scratch.
• Licensing gaps. Tunisia has no licence category for account information or payment initiation services. A fintech wanting those roles must currently fit into an existing status, such as a payment institution.

What founders can do now

Until regulation arrives, open banking in Tunisia happens through contracts, not rights:

1. Partner bank by bank. Negotiate API or file-based access with one or two banks that already have modern core systems.
2. Use the sandbox to test data-sharing or payment-initiation models with regulatory oversight.
3. Design for consent and security from day one, so your product is ready if a framework is introduced.
4. Build on shared rails such as the SMT switch and TUNPAY where possible, rather than closed integrations.

The regulator's rhetoric is supportive, and the building blocks exist. What is missing is the rulebook that would turn bilateral deals into a market.