Cameroon -- Travel Rule Implementation Regulatory Overview

CEMAC does have a virtual-asset travel rule. Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 20 décembre 2024 (adopted in extraordinary session at Libreville) defines 'actif virtuel' and 'prestataire de services d'actifs virtuels' in art. 2, lists PSAV among the personnes assujetties in art. 6, and in art. 42 ('mesures spécifiques aux prestataires de services d'actifs virtuels') requires that, for a virtual-asset transfer, the originator's PSAV obtain and keep the required and accurate originator information and the required beneficiary information and transmit it to the beneficiary's PSAV — the FATF R.16 travel rule applied to virtual assets. Arts. 36–38 impose the parallel originator/beneficiary rules on virements électroniques by institutions financières. Being a CEMAC règlement, it is directly applicable in Cameroon without national transposition. The stated reason is also false: virtual-asset activity is not prohibited in Cameroon. Décision COBAC D-2022/071 du 6 mai 2022 binds only COBAC-supervised establishments (banks, établissements financiers, EMF, établissements de paiement, bureaux de change manuel); it is not a general public ban, and the COSUMAF Règlement Général du 23 mai 2023 positively creates a PSAN licensing regime. What is true is that no PSAN/PSAV agrément had been granted anywhere in CEMAC as of 29 June 2025, so the travel rule exists on paper with no licensed obligated entity to apply it.

No 'BEAC Communiqué No. 003/GR/2022' exists. The real May 2022 act is the Décision COBAC D-2022/071 du 6 mai 2022 relative à la détention, l'utilisation, l'échange et la conversion des cryptomonnaies ou cryptoactifs par les établissements assujettis à la COBAC. It was issued by COBAC (the CEMAC banking supervisor), not BEAC; it is an individual decision addressed to supervised establishments, not a règlement of general application; and it prohibits only those establishments from acquiring, holding, transferring, converting or booking crypto-assets, while requiring them to install internal controls to detect crypto operations and to inform COBAC and BEAC. It does not prohibit holding, buying or selling crypto by the general public, and it does not preclude legal VASP operation — the COSUMAF Règlement Général du 23 mai 2023 in fact provides for PSAN agrément. The six-member list of CEMAC states (Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon) is correct, as is BEAC's identification as the regional central bank.

The premise fails: virtual-asset activities are not banned in Cameroon, and legally recognised VASP status is provided for — the COSUMAF Règlement Général du 23 mai 2023 makes agrément mandatory for prestataires de services sur actifs numériques (purchase/sale against legal tender, third-party custody, trading platform operation, reception/transmission of orders, portfolio management, advice, placement). The travel rule does have an effective date: it enters CEMAC law with Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 20 décembre 2024, art. 42. The accurate statement is that no PSAN agrément had been issued as of 29 June 2025, so the regime is unoperationalised rather than inapplicable.

The substance is right, the attribution is wrong. There was no BEAC communiqué and no general ban: the May 2022 measure was Décision COBAC D-2022/071 du 6 mai 2022, binding only COBAC-supervised establishments. Its practical effect on retail crypto use in Cameroon was indeed limited, and use has continued to grow — Agence Ecofin (29 June 2025) reports an active unregulated parallel market in CEMAC and describes Cameroon, with its young connected population and large diaspora, as a priority market for operators such as Yellow Card, precisely because no PSAN agrément has yet been delivered.

Thresholds do exist and they are denominated in FCFA, not in USD or EUR. Under Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 20 décembre 2024: art. 42 provides that 'lorsque le seuil d'opérations occasionnelles dépasse 500 000 FCFA, les PSAV prennent des mesures de vigilance renforcées'; arts. 16 and 18 set a 5 000 000 FCFA threshold for cross-border physical transport of cash and for cash-transaction reporting to ANIF; and art. 36 requires full originator and beneficiary information for ALL virements électroniques with no de minimis. The 'USD/EUR 1,000' figure is imported FATF R.16 boilerplate and is a contamination tell in an XAF jurisdiction.

There is no BEAC ban. Décision COBAC D-2022/071 du 6 mai 2022 reaches only establishments subject to COBAC supervision — banks, établissements financiers, microfinance establishments, payment institutions and manual exchange bureaux — and not 'all entities and individuals'. It does not sweep in exchanges or custodians as such; those fall under the COSUMAF Règlement Général du 23 mai 2023, which requires an agrément rather than prohibiting the activity, and under art. 42 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM, which conditions professional PSAV activity on prior agrément or authorisation.

There is no 'BEAC Cryptocurrency Ban'. Operating a virtual-asset business in Cameroon is not per se a violation of any BEAC communiqué. The relevant exposure is different: (a) a COBAC-supervised establishment that deals in crypto breaches Décision COBAC D-2022/071 du 6 mai 2022 and faces COBAC disciplinary sanctions; (b) anyone providing PSAN services without the COSUMAF agrément required by the Règlement Général du 23 mai 2023 acts unlawfully; and (c) art. 42 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 20 décembre 2024 conditions professional PSAV activity on prior agrément or authorisation. Ordinary individuals transacting in crypto are not caught by any of these.

The conclusion holds but the premise does not. Virtual assets are not illegal in Cameroon. Money laundering and terrorist financing carried out through virtual assets are indeed caught, and more directly than the record supposes: Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 20 décembre 2024 — directly applicable in Cameroon without national transposition — defines 'actif virtuel' (art. 2), makes PSAV personnes assujetties (art. 6), imposes PSAV-specific vigilance and the travel rule (art. 42) and 10-year record retention (art. 39), with suspicious-transaction reporting to ANIF. Cameroon has no dedicated national AML/CFT statute of its own; the CEMAC règlement is the framework.

No Cameroonian 'Loi n° 2018/002 du 11 janvier 2018' on money laundering and terrorist financing could be found in any register, and Cameroon has no dedicated national AML/CFT statute at all. Its framework is the directly applicable CEMAC chain — Règlement n° 01/03-CEMAC-UMAC du 4 avril 2003, replaced by Règlement n° 01/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 11 avril 2016, in turn replaced by Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 20 décembre 2024 — supplemented nationally by Décret n° 2005/187 du 31 mai 2005 creating ANIF and by Loi n° 97/019 du 7 août 1997 (narcotics and mutual legal assistance). Cameroonian laws numbered 2018/0xx that do exist are dated 11 July 2018 and concern public-finance transparency, the state financial regime and sport.

The CEMAC AML/CFT framework is not a directive and does not carry that number. The 2003 instrument is Règlement n° 01/03-CEMAC-UMAC du 4 avril 2003 portant prévention et répression du blanchiment d'argent en Afrique Centrale; it was replaced by Règlement n° 01/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 11 avril 2016 and then by Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 20 décembre 2024. The number '01/03-UEAC-092-CM-07' does not appear in CEMAC's own index of règlements et directives, in GABAC's register of textes organiques, or in the Congolese SGG's CEMAC collection. The legal characterisation is also wrong: a CEMAC règlement is directly applicable in member states, so Cameroon is not merely 'expected to implement' it as it would a directive.

BEAC Communiqué No. 003/GR/2022 does not exist. The core document for May 2022 is Décision COBAC D-2022/071 du 6 mai 2022, issued by COBAC and publicised through an official COBAC press release relayed by CEMAC member-state finance ministries. The record's own excuse — that 'a direct, stable public URL from the BEAC website can be elusive' and that existence rests on 'widely reported' secondary coverage — is the standard tell of a fabricated citation, and here it is exactly that.

Cameroon has never been assessed by the FATF. It is a GABAC member. Its mutual evaluation is the GABAC 2nd-round Rapport d'évaluation mutuelle du Cameroun, adopted by the 15th plenary of the GABAC Technical Commission on 21 October 2021 in Douala and published in 2022. There is no 2024 Cameroon MER. That report rates Recommendation 15 (new technologies / virtual assets) 'NC' and finds 'VASPs are not regulated on AML/CFT obligations and due diligence', with a priority action to 'Legislate on virtual assets and designate a competent authority responsible for the licensing and oversight of VASPs'.

Cameroon has been on the FATF list of Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring ('grey list') since June 2023 and remains listed as of August 2026 — that half is correct. But the GABAC mutual evaluation of Cameroon was adopted on 21 October 2021 and published in 2022, not 2023; and there is no CEMAC-wide mutual evaluation report at all, so the contrast drawn against a 'CEMAC MER' is against a document that does not exist.