What a day’s conference says about a sector in full transformation – Kinshasa, March 26, 2026
On March 26, we brought together in Kinshasa leaders of financial institutions, microfinance directors and private sector actors around a simple question: how do you approach digital transformation — really, concretely, in our own realities?
The day was rich. The conversations, honest. And what emerged goes well beyond the slides we had prepared.
A moment that is no coincidence
This conference would not have had the same meaning five years ago. It happened now because the Congolese context demands it.
The Congolese government has set an ambitious target: to raise the financial inclusion rate from 38.5% to 65% by 2028. That is a colossal undertaking, and financial institutions, banks and MFIs alike, are on the front line.
At the same time, the DRC launched its National Digital Plan 2026-2030 in October 2025, with a projected budget of $1.5 billion, aiming to make the country a regional digital hub. And on the ground, Mobile Money has become for a growing share of the Congolese population the primary entry point into financial services, which fundamentally redefines what is at stake for every institution.
The sector is moving. Fast.
The TRANSFORME project: a telling context
One of the most concrete signals of this dynamic is the TRANSFORME project, in which I am personally involved, mandated by PCES, on the financial inclusion and banking sector structuring components.
Backed by $300 million from the World Bank, TRANSFORME aims to catalyse inclusive economic development by supporting the empowerment of women entrepreneurs and the modernisation of SMEs across the DRC. What concerns me directly is the financial component: how to connect these businesses and entrepreneurs to institutions capable of financing them sustainably, and how those institutions need to evolve to get there.
In this context, 10,000 electronic payment terminals have been allocated to MFIs and savings and credit cooperatives, enabling them to connect to the national payment system of the Central Bank of Congo. This is not cosmetic digitalisation. It is a structural overhaul of access to financing for tens of thousands of Congolese entrepreneurs.
It is precisely this ground-level reality, lived from the inside, that informed much of what I shared during the conference.
Christophe Bretagnolle
Digitalization Expert
With more than 20 years of experience, supporting financial institution with their digitalization projects and strategies, Christophe Bretagnolle is a recognized expert of the banking sector in developing countries, particularly in Africa. His wide knowledge of the solutions and requirements for financial institutions to navigate the evolving and shifting digital landscape give him a unique and critical view of the present and future of information technologies within the development finance sector.
What we put on the table
The day was built around a conviction I have carried for twenty years of work on the digitalisation of the African financial sector: technology is never the real problem. The real problem is the method, the human support, and clarity about what you are trying to transform.
We opened with a distinction that sounds simple but changes everything in practice: the difference between digitisation and digitalisation. Digitising means going paperless. Digitalising means rethinking the way an institution works, decides, and serves its clients. Many institutions have done the first. Few have done the second, and confusing the two has cost many projects dearly.
We talked about method: how to listen before investing, how to let the business define priorities rather than letting technology impose them, how to move in measurable steps rather than trying to transform everything at once.
We talked about choosing a technology partner, a decision many underestimates. A large international vendor is not necessarily the right partner for an institution in the DRC. What matters is field knowledge, proximity to BCC regulatory realities, and above all: the ability to still be there eighteen months after go-live.
And we talked about what happens after deployment, often the most overlooked phase, and yet the one that determines whether the investment holds over time.
Why PCES invests in this knowledge sharing
At PCES, we have been present in the DRC for over twenty years. We have supported the country’s first core banking migrations, deployed mobile solutions, worked with institutions of all sizes, from local cooperatives to commercial banks.
This is not a marketing posture. It is a field reality, built project by project, often under difficult conditions, always with a long-term commitment.
Organising this conference was a way to put twenty years of accumulated experience on the continent to good use. Not just delivering systems but contributing to raising the level of the conversation about digital transformation in the Congolese financial sector. Because we believe that institutions that truly understand what they are doing and why, are more successful in their transformations. And that what is being built here, in Kinshasa, carries weight well beyond the borders of the DRC.
What comes next?
The day ended not with definitive answers, but with questions that each participant takes back to ask within their own institution. That is exactly what we wanted.
See you at the next edition.
Author: Christophe Bretagnolle
