BFI Groupe

What BFI Groupe does

BFI Groupe is a privately held Tunis-headquartered African software vendor and systems integrator founded in 1994 that builds and deploys the Carthago platform - an integrated financial software suite covering core banking, capital markets, treasury and trading-room operations, means of payment, regulatory reporting, IFRS accounting, risk management, process automation, omnichannel digital banking, supervision and central-information systems (credit registry, balance-sheet central, payment-incidents central) for African central banks, commercial banks, asset managers, microfinance institutions and public treasuries. The Carthago framework is built on a micro-services architecture with BPMN 2.0 process modelling, ISO 20022 / SWIFT connectivity, biometric identification, and modular components; it holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification (obtained 29 November 2024) and has been recognized as Chartis RiskTech Category Leader for Regulatory Reporting (2024) and Loan Origination Systems (2025).

The company earns revenue through a mix of one-time or perpetual software licensing for the Carthago suite, professional services delivered by its wholly-owned operating entities (BFI Technologie for product development, BFI Consulting for functional expertise, BFI Integration for deployment and data migration), and recurring managed services, maintenance and upgrade programming through BFI Experience Client. A significant share of large system-of-place implementations - such as the CEMAC tele-compensation platform (50 participants) and COBAC's Spectra/Spectra II banking supervision system - are financed by multilateral donors including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and USAID.

BFI delivers and supports its solutions through nine wholly-owned country subsidiaries (Tunisia HQ, Algeria, Morocco, Gabon, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Madagascar, Cameroon, France) covering more than 100 financial-institution clients across at least 18 African jurisdictions. Its go-to-market is enterprise field sales, executed via board-level relationships, multi-year roadmap co-development with central banks and tier-1 banking groups, and executive-level partnership ceremonies; lead generation is supported by a dedicated Marketing & Growth directorate running SEO, LinkedIn, email and event campaigns.

Name

BFI Groupe

Legal name

BFI

Website

https://bfigroupe.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1994

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

BFI Groupe is a Tunis-based, African-founded software vendor (since 1994) that builds and integrates the Carthago banking platform - covering core banking, payments, treasury, risk, regulatory reporting and digital channels - for central banks, commercial banks and asset managers across more than 18 African countries via nine wholly-owned subsidiaries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Tunis

HQ country

Tunisia

HQ region

Africa

Offices9 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Software licensing (one-time / perpetual): As a software publisher and integrator (éditeur et intégrateur), BFI Groupe sells perpetual or project-based licenses for the Carthago suite of financial software (Core Banking, Capital Markets, Treasury, Payments, Risk, IFRS, Regulatory Reporting, Budget, Interoperability, etc.) to banks and financial institutions in Africa.
2. Professional services - Consulting, Integration and Training: Revenue from BFI Consulting (functional expertise, roadmap definition, quality control) and BFI Integration (deployment methodology, project risk management, data migration, training and skills transfer), delivered on a project basis for each client implementation.
3. Managed services, Maintenance and Upgrade Programs: Recurring revenue from BFI Experience Client offering long-term accompaniment, customer support, maintenance, programming of upgrades and continuity of service across installed Carthago bases. This implies subscription-like recurring maintenance contracts in addition to licensing.
4. Donor-funded system-of-place projects: Implementation revenues tied to flagship projects financed by international funders (World Bank, African Development Bank, USAID) such as the CEMAC tele-compensation system, COBAC Spectra supervision platforms, and the WAMZ Payments System Development Project in The Gambia.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion4 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

BFI Groupe is a software vendor and integrator that sells the proprietary "Carthago" integrated financial software platform covering core banking, capital markets, treasury, means of payment, regulatory reporting, IFRS accounting, risk management, digital channels and interoperability to banks, central banks and financial institutions across Africa. The company complements the software with consulting (BFI Consulting), integration/deployment services (BFI Integration) and long-term customer experience/maintenance (BFI Experience Client) delivered through wholly-owned country subsidiaries.

Product overview

BFI Groupe is an African-founded software vendor (since 1994) specialised in financial technologies for banks and financial institutions, offering the 'Carthago' platform, a unified technological framework shared by all its solutions. The Carthago platform is built on a Micro-Services architecture with built-in compliance, modern technologies, interoperability, modularity, integration, archiving, controls, traceability, monitoring, scalability, personalisation and ergonomics. BFI Groupe organises its offering into three main pillars plus the core technological framework: (1) Financial Platform, comprising Core Banking (Carthago Core Banking), Capital Markets (Carthago Marchés des Capitaux with Securities, Asset Management, Fixed Income sub-modules), Treasury & Banking Resources (Carthago Trésorerie & SDM), Means of Payment (Carthago Compensation-Centre, Carthago Compensation-Participants, Carthago Clearing), Regulatory Reporting (Carthago Réglementaire), Accounting & IFRS (Carthago IFRS), Budget & General Means (Carthago Budget & Moyens Généraux), Doubtful and Litigious Receivables (Carthago CDL), and Risk Management (Carthago Risques, including Analyse Financière, Scoring and ALM sub-modules); (2) Digital Platform, comprising Process Automation (Carthago Instruction), Customer Digital Package (Carthago Digital with Corporate and Retail sub-modules) and Interoperability (Carthago Interopérabilité); (3) Place Systems / Market Infrastructure, comprising Payment Systems (Carthago Compensation-Centre), Central Information (Carthago Centrale des Bilans CDB, Carthago Centrale des Risques CIR, Carthago Centrale des Incidents de Paiement CIP), Trading Room (Carthago Salle Des Marchés SDM) and Banking Supervision (Carthago Supervision Bancaire, including Spectra II deployed for COBAC). All these solutions are organised and interconnected around the Carthago technological framework, with overlapping modules (e.g., Fixed Income, Trésorerie and FOREX appear in both the Financial Platform and the Place Systems SDM offering) and consistent use of shared components such as regulatory balance generation, regulatory reporting and risk management capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Carthago: Carthago is BFI Groupe's proprietary financial software platform/framework that serves as the common technological foundation (Carthago framework) for all BFI solutions, including modules such as Carthago Core Banking, Carthago Instruction, Carthago Réglementaire, Carthago IFRS, Carthago Compensation, Carthago Clearing, Carthago CIP/CIR/CDB, Carthago Salle Des Marchés, Carthago Supervision Bancaire, Carthago Digital, and Carthago Interopérabilité.

Products and services

• Carthago Core Banking Core banking module covering référentiel (master data), accounting, sight deposits and savings, branch operations and foreign trade, built on the shared Carthago technological framework for banks and financial institutions.
• Carthago Marchés des Capitaux Modular capital markets solution covering securities, asset management and fixed-income operations for Depositary, Intermediary, Registrar, Management Company and Primary Dealer actors, with full interaction with external market actors.
• Carthago Trésorerie & SDM Treasury and trading room solution providing front/middle/back-office management of treasury and capital markets activities for money markets, FX, fixed income, derivatives and commodities, with automated procedures and dynamic dashboards.
• Carthago Compensation-Centre Central clearing and settlement platform for inter and intra-bank payment exchanges with rapid (24 hours) and instant (24/7) settlement, supporting transfers, direct debits, card operations, effects and cheques, with connectors including File (XML, flat), SWIFT, API, Web (https), web services and mail/messaging.
• Carthago Compensation-Participants Pre-compensation solution installed at a participant's headquarters that dematerialises means of payment and automates exchanges with the central clearing system, using SWIFT ISO 20022, SGBDR, mail and messaging connectors.
• Carthago Clearing Solution allowing major remitters to operate cheque and effects remittances to the bank from their own premises, transferring the digitisation burden to the clients for simplicity, speed and security of processing.
• Carthago Règlementaire Regulatory reporting solution for credit, payment and microfinance institutions, generating regulatory and statistical declarations in line with supervisor requirements, with regulatory balance generation, parameterisable reporting and an audit trail.
• Carthago IFRS IFRS accounting solution providing data import (local accounts and business systems), reconciliation, IFRS restatements, impact on IFRS balance, generation of corrective entries, financial statements, explanatory notes and Impact Assessment for first-time adoption.
• Carthago Budget & Moyens Généraux Modular and integrated solution grouping Budget, Purchases & Stocks, Fixed Assets and Vehicle Fleet modules with inter-module automatic interaction and a supplier web portal that generates accounting and treasury flows to the bank's information system.
• Carthago CDL (Créances Douteuses et Litigieuses) Solution for classifying contracts by commitment and risk level with guarantee coverage breakdown, automating credit quality management and provision calculation in line with prudential rules and regulator requirements.
• Carthago Risques Credit and market risk management solution managing the main sources of risk in the financial system, covering credit risks (Analyse Financière and Scoring) and market risks (Carthago Risques & ALM).
• Carthago Process Automation (Instruction des dossiers de crédit) Systematic automation of design, analysis, execution, monitoring, control and optimisation of business processing flows using BPMN 2.0 modelling, rules engines, scoring systems, delegation schemes, hierarchical alerting and real-time dashboards; covers credit files, trade finance, KYC onboarding, claims, recovery, payment instrument requests and preferential pricing.
• Carthago Digital (Customer Digital Package) Global and modular omnichannel digital offering that centralises Corporate and Retail client relationships for financial institutions, with a modular architecture allowing tailored packaging (Corporate portal, Retail online/mobile banking, E-wallet, E-payment, transfers, clearing).
• Carthago Interopérabilité Secure platform connecting different institutions to create a fully integrated ecosystem, allowing financial and non-financial actors to interconnect and exchange securely via a catalog of deployed interfaces across central banks, financial institutions, government services, telcos, billers, insurance, universities and payment platforms.
• Carthago Salle Des Marchés (SDM) Central bank trading room solution providing front/middle/back-office management of foreign exchange, money markets, capital markets and commodities activities through Carthago FOREX, Carthago TRÉSORERIE, Carthago FIXED INCOME and Carthago COMMODITIES modules, with real-time pricing, simulation tools and dynamic dashboards.
• Carthago Supervision Bancaire Banking supervision solution for regulators covering prudential control, risk management and good governance for credit, microfinance, payment, electronic money, exchange and financial holding institutions, with administrative management, document-based control, on-site control (online and offline modes), risk profiling, ratings, recommendations and alerts.
• Carthago Centrale des Bilans (CDB) Central bank's balance-sheet centralisation solution collecting and processing corporate financial statements, structuring and harmonising data for micro/macro-economic statistics, with restated financial statements, financial analysis ratios, stress-tests, activity and credit ratings.
• Carthago Centrale des Risques (CIR) Risk centralisation solution for central banks, banks, microfinance and other financial institutions, managing micro and macro-prudential risks and their potential impact on financial stability, with granular data collection, declared matching, third-party management, risk data management and risk situation indicators.
• Carthago Centrale des Incidents de Paiement (CIP) Payment incidents management solution for central banks and financial institutions, reinforcing trust in payment instruments (cheques, bank cards, bills of exchange, promissory notes), centralising client unique identification (civil data, digital and facial biometric data), judicial decisions, irregular payment instruments and payment incidents, with multi-channel consultation (WEB, SMS, voice, mobile app).

Quantifiable outcome

• More than 50 Regulatory Reporting system deployments across Africa
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers19 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration18 records

AI capability3 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and moderate.

• BGFI Holding Corporation / BGFIBankflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 24 May 2023Strategic, multi-year partnership consolidated during an official visit to Libreville in May 2023 between Habib Ben Hariz (CEO of BFI Groupe) and Henri-Claude Oyima (CEO of BGFI Holding). Both groups have been partners for 10+ years, working on the modernization of BGFIBank's information system and the consolidation of their respective activities through aligned roadmaps.
• Société Générale Group (incl. Société Générale Cameroun, SG Capital Securities Central Africa, SG Capital Asset Management Central Africa)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 24 May 2023BFI Groupe is the preferred partner of Société Générale in Africa for Capital Markets solutions. Carthago Titres Conservateur deployed at Société Générale Cameroun; Carthago Securities Intermédiaire at SG Capital Securities Central Africa; Carthago Asset Management (go-live announcement in 2023) at SG Capital Asset Management Central Africa, enabling the launch of the first mutual fund FCP SOGEFIRST in the CEMAC zone. Solutions also live in Tunisia, Morocco, Ivory Coast and Ghana.
• Commission Bancaire de l'Afrique Centrale (COBAC)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2018First project "Spectra" operational since January 2018, financed by the World Bank, for the supervision of CEMAC credit institutions. Followed by the upgraded "Spectra II" platform covering credit, payment and microfinance establishments in the CEMAC zone. Visited by Habib Ben Hariz in Gabon with COBAC's Secrétaire Général and Secrétaire Général Adjoint.
• Orange, Moov, MTN, TELMOB, Expresso, TOGOCOM, Airtel (Telcos)coreTechnology or IntegrationTelecoms operators integrated via the Carthago Interoperability platform to enable mobile-money, payments, bill payments and related services between financial institutions and end customers across Africa.
• BCEAO, GIM UEMOA, GIMAC (regional payment-system operators)flagshipTechnology or IntegrationRegional payment-system operators in West and Central Africa are integrated via deployed interfaces in the Carthago Interoperability platform, enabling inter-bank and cross-border payment flows.
• Chartis ResearchmoderateOthersIndependent analyst firm (part of Infopro Digital) that has twice classified BFI Groupe as a Category Leader - in its 2024 RiskTech Quadrant for Regulatory Reporting and in its 2025 RiskTech Quadrant for Loan Origination Systems. The Chartis recognition is used by BFI as a third-party endorsement of the Carthago platform.
• AFAQ AFNOR INTERNATIONALmoderateImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerCertification body that conducted the audit and awarded BFI Groupe the ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification on 29 November 2024 for the group's Information Security Management System covering integration of the Carthago platform.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Temenos: Swiss-listed global leader in core banking software with deep African footprint (over 150 African bank clients). Competes head-to-head with BFI's Carthago Core Banking, Regulatory Reporting and Loan Origination modules for the same central-bank and tier-1 commercial bank RFPs across the continent.

Emerging players

• Mambu: Berlin-based cloud-native core banking platform targeting digital and challenger banks, including in emerging markets. Overlaps with Carthago Digital and parts of Carthago Core Banking as African incumbents weigh SaaS alternatives to traditional vendors.
• Thought Machine: UK cloud-native core banking vendor (Vault) increasingly targeting tier-1 and challenger banks. Represents a long-term competitive threat to BFI's on-premise core banking model as African banks evaluate cloud-first roadmaps.
• 10x Banking: UK cloud-native core banking platform sold to incumbent banks. Targets the same tier-1 retail and commercial banks BFI serves, with a SaaS delivery model that pressures traditional perpetual-license economics.

Broad incumbents

• Finastra: Global banking software provider formed from the merger of Misys and D+H, offering core, payments, lending and risk suites. Competes with BFI's unified Carthago stack in African tier-1 and central-bank accounts where breadth and global references matter.
• Oracle Financial Services Software: Oracle's banking-analytics and core-banking suite (formerly iFlex) has significant presence in African and EMEA banks. Competes with BFI in regulatory reporting, risk management and core banking at large tier-1 institutions and central banks.
• SAP Banking (SAP S/4HANA for Financial Products Subledger): SAP's banking and financial-products suite competes with Carthago IFRS, Budget and parts of Core Banking, particularly in African banking groups that have standardised on SAP for ERP and finance.

Regional players

• ICS Financial Systems: Dubai-headquartered vendor of Islamic and conventional banking software with a strong Middle East and Africa footprint. Most direct regional competitor to BFI in regulatory reporting, core banking and Islamic finance across MEA banks.
• Path Solutions: Kuwait-headquartered vendor of Islamic and conventional banking software serving Middle East and North African banks. Overlaps with BFI in core banking, regulatory reporting and risk management, particularly for Islamic-finance requirements.

Others

• Appian: Low-code process automation and BPM platform. Competes with Carthago Instruction (BPMN 2.0 loan-origination) and broader workflow/risk automation use cases at banks looking for horizontal automation outside the core-banking stack.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/BfiGroupe

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Subsidiaries13 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about BFI Groupe