The West African CFA franc

Who prints and issues the franc

The Banque centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, the BCEAO, has issued the union's coins since 1959 and took over its paper money that same year. Its seat is in Dakar. The notes themselves come from Chamalières in France, where the Bank of France has printed them since the currency began in 1945.

Nearly every BCEAO note carries a letter for the country that put it into circulation: A for Côte d'Ivoire, B for Benin, C for Burkina Faso, D for Mali, H for Niger, K for Senegal, S for Guinea-Bissau and T for Togo. The central bank reads those letters to follow cash as it moves between members and to send notes back to the country they came from. The coins carry no such mark.

How the franc's peg passed to the euro

At its creation one CFA franc was worth 1.70 French francs. France devalued its own currency on 17 October 1948, and the rate became two French francs. The new French franc of 1 January 1960 turned that into 0.02. On 12 January 1994 the CFA franc was devalued by half, to 0.01 French francs, and on 1 January 1999 it passed to the euro at 655.957 francs to one euro. The French Treasury guaranteed its convertibility into French francs, and payments move freely within the franc zone.

The name has shifted with the politics. In 1945 CFA meant the French colonies of Africa. Among the West African members it came to mean the African Financial Community, the Communauté financière africaine.

Which states left and which came in

The franc replaced the French West African franc in 1945 across the colonies of the region. Mali, then French Sudan, dropped it in 1961 for its own franc at par and came back in 1984, giving two Malian francs for each CFA franc. Mauritania left in 1973 for the ouguiya at five francs to one ouguiya. Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, joined in 1997 and swapped its peso at 65 to the franc.

What the notes and coins show

A stylised sawfish, the BCEAO's emblem, runs through the current series. On 15 December 2003 the bank released new 5,000 and 1,000 franc notes, the third and final phase of a renewal of its notes; the green 5,000 shows a banana plantation on the front and antelopes on the back, the red 1,000 dromedaries in the Sahel. Bicolour 500 and 200 franc coins followed on 24 December 2003 and replaced the smaller notes. The 500 has a yellow outer ring and a white centre, and its back shows groundnuts, cocoa, coffee and cotton.

Why the arrangement is argued over

Supporters credit the French guarantee with keeping the currency stable. Critics read it as a limit on the members' economic independence, since the guarantee has been tied to the member central banks keeping at least half of their foreign reserves in the French Treasury. Some policymakers have proposed pegging the franc to a basket of currencies instead of the euro alone.

In December 2019 the members announced a reform that would rename the currency the eco and reduce France's role in it. The wider Economic Community of West African States has adopted the same name for a common currency of its own and set July 2027 as its fifth target date for launching it.