Liberia’s financial sector is regulated by the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL), which oversees monetary policy, banking, and all financial institutions in the country. The sector is dominated by nine commercial banks that account for over 80% of total financial assets. Of these nine, only one, the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI), is domestically owned. The rest are foreign-owned subsidiaries of larger African and international banking groups including Ecobank, Access Bank, UBA, GTBank, and Afriland First Bank.
One of the most defining features of Liberia’s economy is its dual currency regime. Both the Liberian dollar and the US dollar are legal tender, and the country is one of the most dollarized economies in the world. IMF estimates have placed deposit dollarization at around 84% and credit dollarization at roughly 91%, meaning the vast majority of formal financial activity happens in US dollars. Smaller everyday transactions tend to take place in Liberian dollars, while larger commercial dealings, rent, and even parts of government spending have historically been settled in USD. This creates a persistent challenge for the Central Bank, which has limited control over the money supply because most of it circulates in a foreign currency.
The economy grew by around 4% in 2024, supported by the mining, agriculture, and services sectors. Inflation fell from 10.1% in 2023 to around 8.3% in 2024, supported by tight monetary policy. But Liberia remains one of the world’s poorest countries, still recovering from the effects of two civil wars that ended in 2003 and the Ebola crisis of 2014. More than 80% of Liberian firms have fewer than 20 employees, and the informal economy still absorbs a large share of economic activity.
For all its structural challenges, Liberia has made notable progress on financial inclusion, and mobile money is the main reason why.
In 2011, just 18.8% of Liberian adults had a financial account. By 2017, that figure had risen to 35.7%, and by 2024, it reached 52%, surpassing the national target of 50%. This jump has been driven almost entirely by mobile wallets. The country now has over 11 million registered mobile wallets and more than 3 million active mobile money subscribers. In 2024 alone, USD transactions via mobile money totalled $3.47 billion.
Two mobile money operators dominate the market: Lonestar Cell MTN Mobile Money and Orange Money Liberia. Until very recently, these two systems operated in silos. There was no interoperability between them, which meant Liberians who needed to transact across both networks had to carry two phones, one for each provider.
That changed in December 2025, when the CBL launched the Inclusive Instant Payment System (IIPS), a national mobile money interoperability platform that connects both networks under a single payment rail. The system was built on Mojaloop, an open-source payments platform, and developed in partnership with the Mojaloop Foundation, Singapore-based ThitsaWorks, and the AfricaNenda Foundation, with backing from the Gates Foundation and the World Bank. It was deployed in just 73 business days, making it the fastest Mojaloop implementation in the world and the first real-money deployment of Mojaloop version 17.
The IIPS currently supports person-to-person and government-to-person transactions, with plans to integrate people-to-government payments through the Liberia Revenue Authority. Salary processing, which previously took up to seven days, can now be completed in seconds. The platform is also designed to eventually integrate all nine commercial banks, the country’s Real-Time Gross Settlement system, the Automated Clearing House, and the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) into a single national electronic switch.
Alongside the IIPS, the CBL has taken other concrete steps to push digital finance forward. In August 2025, it introduced a standardized 2% cash-out fee for all mobile money withdrawals, aimed at creating fair pricing across the mobile money market and encouraging users to stay digital rather than cash out immediately. The CBL has also rolled out PAPSS to enable cross-border payments in local currencies and launched a nationwide financial education campaign.
Liberia has no open banking framework, and there are no regulations, guidelines, or API standards related to open banking in the country. The concept remains at a very early stage and is not currently part of the regulatory conversation.
This is not surprising given where the country is in its digital finance journey. The CBL’s immediate priorities are payments interoperability, financial inclusion, and building trust in digital systems. Open banking requires a level of digital and regulatory maturity that Liberia is still working toward.
Liberia currently has no comprehensive data protection law. There is no dedicated data protection authority, no legal definition of personal data under Liberian law, and no legislation specifically addressing online privacy. The closest existing framework is Section 5.15.1 of the National Information and Communications Technology Policy of 2019, which outlines basic principles for the lawful processing of personal data but has limited enforceability. The CBL’s E-Payment Regulation also includes provisions requiring local hosting of financial data and consumer data protection obligations for licensed institutions.
As a member of ECOWAS, Liberia is technically subject to the ECOWAS Supplementary Act on Personal Data Protection, which calls for the establishment of national data authorities. However, Liberia has not yet established one. It also has not ratified the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection.
There is movement, though. In 2024, a draft Personal Data Protection and Privacy Act was developed and validated by over 50 stakeholders in December 2024, including government officials, civil society, media, and the diplomatic community. The bill is expected to be submitted to the legislature, but as of early 2026, it has not yet been passed into law.
Several structural challenges stand in the way of deeper financial system development, let alone open banking adoption:
Liberia’s extreme dollarization limits the central bank’s monetary control and complicates the development of domestic financial products. The banking sector’s non-performing loan ratio was 21.56% as of September 2024, one of the highest in the region, reflecting weak credit quality and constrained lending. There is no formal credit rating system or agency, and banks rely on the CBL’s manual Credit Reference System for borrower information. High lending rates (averaging over 12%) and short loan durations make credit inaccessible for most Liberians, especially outside Monrovia.
Electricity access stands at about 34%, and poor road networks, limited connectivity, and unreliable communications make it difficult for banks and fintechs to serve populations beyond the capital. Financial literacy remains low, and the gender gap in financial inclusion persists, with women significantly less likely to hold an account or make digital payments.
The absence of a data protection law creates uncertainty for any future framework that would involve sharing customer financial data between institutions, which is the foundation of open banking.
Liberia’s Central Bank has been remarkably active over the past two years. The IIPS launch is a genuine achievement, and the broader roadmap, which includes integrating banks into the national switch, scaling PAPSS for cross-border trade, and digitizing government payments, signals serious intent.
But the country is rightly focused on the fundamentals: getting more people into the formal financial system, making digital payments easier and cheaper, and building trust in a population that has lived through decades of instability and financial disruption. Nearly half of Liberian adults still do not have a financial account.
Open banking is a conversation that will come for Liberia, but it is not the one the country needs to have right now. The focus on payments, interoperability, and inclusion is exactly where it should be. And if the pace of the past year is any indication, Liberia is not standing still.
Open Banking Nigeria (Open Technology Foundation) is a non-profit backed by a group of industry experts across banking, fintech, risk management, and more to drive and launch the open banking standard in Nigeria.
