Bank of Algeria Regulation No. 25-02, 14 April 2025, sets authorisation and licensing requirements for payment-service providers. It concerns entry into regulated payment activity, connecting the provider's status and services with the central bank's domestic supervisory framework.
TL;DR:
- Sets formation, licensing and operating conditions for defined Algerian PSP activities.
- Bank of Algeria authorisation follows the legal entity and proposed services.
- Separate 2025 instructions detail applications and operations; PSP permission is not a banking licence.
Summary
A dedicated payment-service-provider framework
Regulation No. 25-02 of 14 April 2025 implements the Monetary and Banking Law's framework for payment-service providers, or PSPs. Its stated subject is the conditions for authorisation to establish such a provider, the granting of approval and the exercise of its activities. The Bank of Algeria publishes the regulation in its financial-institution authorisation materials. It should be distinguished from the separate regulation for digital banks or from a licence issued to a specific applicant.
Formation and approval are distinct stages
The title and operative purpose distinguish permission to constitute a provider from the approval needed to conduct its regulated business. This makes the applicant's legal form, proposed activity and supporting application part of the institutional assessment. A company can have payment-related technology or a planned product without that fact alone establishing that all regulatory stages are complete. The relevant central-bank decision and approved activity scope remain important.
The implementing instructions published in 2025
The Bank of Algeria lists Instruction No. 03-25 of 27 May 2025 on conditions for authorising the constitution and approval of PSPs. It also lists Instruction No. 06-2025 of 17 August 2025 on the activity and operation of payment-service providers. Those instruments develop different parts of the framework. An application or operating assessment therefore needs the regulation and the applicable instructions, rather than relying only on the regulation's headline title.
The boundary with banking and other activities
A PSP's authorisation concerns the payment activities permitted under its own framework. The same central-bank materials separately identify banking, financial-institution and digital-bank regimes. The service's legal entity and actual handling of payments determine the relevant category, even where the customer uses a similar mobile interface. A business’s applicable capital requirements, permitted payment services and licence status depend on its regulatory category and the relevant authorisation; a shared mobile interface does not resolve those questions.
Keywords
- Algeria PSPs
- Regulation 25-02
- formation requirements
- Bank authorisation
- operating conditions
- licensing applications
- 2025 instructions
- legal entities
- permitted activities
- market entry