# QR Code CEMAC > Source: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/qr-code-cemac > research date 2026-10-20 · extracted at 2026-10-20 > Publisher: Barcoder — encyclopedia of QR, barcode and payment-code standards Specifications: - [GIMAC: Lancement officiel du QR Code Communautaire (7 Aug 2026)](https://gimac-afr.com/2026/08/07/lancement-officiel-du-qr-code-communautaire/) - [EMV QR Codes (EMVCo): the EMV QRCPS specifications the CEMAC norm builds on](https://www.emvco.com/emv-technologies/qr-codes/) ## Overview The **QR Code CEMAC**, also called the "QR Code communautaire" or the "QR Code de paiement interopérable de la CEMAC", is the common payment QR code of the six member states of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon [1][1], [4][4]. Its standards were made binding by **Regulation N°02/26/CEMAC/UMAC/CORENOFI of 8 April 2026**, and the governor of the regional central bank (BEAC) launched it in **Douala on 29 July 2026** [2][2], [3][3]. Payments made with it are routed and cleared through the platform of **GIMAC**, the regional interbank group [1][1]. The press describes it as built on EMVCo's QR payment specification (EMV QRCPS v1.1) and on ISO/IEC 18004 [2][2], [3][3]; the regulation's own text has not been published. ## History **2023, a first ministerial text.** At its ordinary session in Douala on 4 October 2023, the UMAC Ministerial Committee adopted a "Règlement relatif à l'homologation des normes du QR Code", according to the legal press [9][9]. The sources we read don't explain how that text relates to the 2026 regulation. **2025, the code's first deployment in Gabon.** GIMAC presented the national roll-out of the "QR Code GIMACPAY" at the BEAC in Libreville on 16 June 2025, with deployment planned over three months [11][11]. GIMAC's own timeline lists the "Lancement du QR Code CEMAC" in 2025, together with its deployment in Gabon under the MaDigiPaie initiative [10][10]. MaDigiPaie put GIMACPAY QR codes in Gabonese shops and public offices from 9 December 2025 [Gabon report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/GA). **April 2026, the regulation.** Meeting in N'Djamena on 6 April 2026, the BEAC's board of directors gave its binding opinion ("avis conforme") on the draft regulation on QR code standards [8][8]. Two days later the UMAC Ministerial Committee adopted **Regulation N°02/26/CEMAC/UMAC/CORENOFI of 8 April 2026**, "portant homologation des normes du QR Code, de la lettre de change automatisée et du prélèvement automatique dans la CEMAC" [2][2]. A legal analysis says the regulation gives binding force to specifications that had been each operator's internal technical choices, and that payment service providers, e-money institutions and commercial banks in the six states must follow one common framework [3][3]. **July 2026, the launch.** On 29 July 2026 in Douala the BEAC governor, who chairs the regional financial standards committee CORENOFI, launched the code [7][7], [4][4]. The COBAC secretary general, GIMAC's director general and the heads of the region's banks attended [1][1]. ## Technical specification | Property | Value | |---|---| | **Issuer** | CORENOFI (Comité régional de normalisation financière) under the BEAC; homologated by the UMAC Ministerial Committee [4][4], [2][2] | | **Legal basis** | Regulation N°02/26/CEMAC/UMAC/CORENOFI of 8 April 2026 [2][2] | | **Data format** | EMV QRCPS v1.1 structures, in TLV (tag-length-value) form [2][2], [3][3] | | **Symbology** | [QR Code](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/qr-code) (ISO 18004) [2][2], [7][7] | | **Modes** | Merchant-presented (the customer scans the merchant's code, the main mode) and consumer-presented (the merchant scans the customer's code, usually with an equipped terminal) [4][4], [5][5] | | **Security** | Alignment with EMVCo standards and PIN authentication, as listed by the BEAC [5][5] | | **Routing and clearing** | GIMAC platform [1][1] | The payload layout has not been published. Neither the regulation nor the CORENOFI norm appears on the BEAC's page of payment-system instructions, circulars and regulations [13][13] or among GIMAC's published documents, so the field-level description below comes from a third party and is unconfirmed. **The integrity check.** Two press accounts of the launch say integrity is checked by a cyclic redundancy check, "CRC-32" [2][2], [3][3]. **We could not check this against the regulation, because its text is not public.** It would be unusual: section 4.7.3.1 of EMV QRCPS, as quoted by the cemacqr library, computes the checksum "according to [ISO/IEC 13239] using the polynomial '1021' (hex) and initial value 'FFFF' (hex)", a 16-bit CRC carried as four hexadecimal characters in data object ID 63 [12][12] (see [EMVCo MPM](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/emvco-mpm)). An open-source library for the CEMAC code, cemacqr, says the CORENOFI norm *Spécifications du QR code pour l'acceptation des paiements interopérables dans la CEMAC* (v2.1, March 2025) prescribes that same EMVCo checksum, quoting it as "conformément à [ISO/CEI 13239] en utilisant le polynôme '1021' (hex) et la valeur initiale 'FFFF' (hex)", and that a payload built with CRC-32 would be rejected [12][12]. That claim rests on the library author's reading of the norm, which we have not seen. **CEMAC-specific rules, per the same library.** cemacqr reads the CORENOFI norm v2.1 as requiring currency `950` (the Central African CFA franc, XAF), a country code from CM, CF, CG, GA, GQ or TD, and a mandatory "CEMAC payment system" data object, ID 50, inside the Additional Data Field Template (ID 62) [12][12]. It flags two things it cannot settle: two different Globally Unique Identifiers for the Merchant Account Information template in different parts of the norm, and whether the text homologated in April 2026 differs from v2.1 [12][12]. ## Use cases - **Merchant payments.** The stated aim is that a merchant takes payment with one code whatever bank or mobile wallet the customer uses [6][6], for individuals, merchants and businesses across the zone [1][1]. - **Public payments in Gabon.** MaDigiPaie, run by Gabon's Ministry of the Digital Economy with the BEAC and GIMAC, put the codes in public offices as well as shops [Gabon report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/GA). - **Financial inclusion.** The BEAC presents it as a way to bring informal businesses into formal payment circuits and to support local fintechs [5][5]. **Scale.** In the Gabon pilot nearly 3 million wallets were already able to pay by QR and 2,000 codes were deployed; GIMAC aims for 20,000 codes by the end of 2026 and 120,000 by 2027, and 24 institutions in the region already used the technology [4][4]. Forbes Afrique also reports the 120,000-code plan [6][6]. ## Implementations - **[bryand410/cemacqr](https://github.com/bryand410/cemacqr)** (Python, Apache-2.0, 1 star, created October 2026, last commit October 2026) builds, parses and validates CEMAC payloads with no dependencies, and is published on PyPI as `cemacqr` 0.1.2 [12][12], [14][14]. It does not claim to be official or endorsed by the BEAC, CORENOFI or GIMAC, and reports "VALID, SUBJECT TO UNCHECKED RULES" because the homologated text is not readable [12][12]. It is listed despite its single star because no other CEMAC-specific library was found. - **Generic EMVCo libraries** such as [mvallim/emv-qrcode](https://github.com/mvallim/emv-qrcode) (Java, 136 stars, last commit May 2026) and [dongri/emv-qrcode](https://github.com/dongri/emv-qrcode) (Go, 60 stars, last commit September 2026) encode and parse EMV QRCPS payloads [16][16], [17][17], but carry no CEMAC profile. No decoder specific to the CEMAC code was found; any QR decoder reads the symbol, and the libraries above parse the TLV payload. ## Comparison **vs. [EMVCo MPM](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/emvco-mpm).** The CEMAC code is described as a regional profile of EMV QRCPS v1.1 [2][2], the version of both EMVCo QR specifications, merchant-presented and consumer-presented, published on 27 November 2020 [15][15]. Per cemacqr, what makes a well-formed EMVCo payload a CEMAC one is the fixed currency 950, the six permitted country codes and the mandatory ID 50 object inside template 62 [12][12]. **vs. Gabon's GIMACPAY QR.** The GIMACPAY codes of MaDigiPaie came first, in Gabon from 2025, and GIMAC's timeline treats that roll-out as the CEMAC code's first deployment [10][10], [11][11]. The regulation extends one binding standard to all six states and to banks, payment institutions and e-money issuers alike [3][3]. **vs. [SOMQR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/somqr).** Like Somalia's national QR, the CEMAC code is an EMVCo-based standard set by a central bank whose specification is not public; it differs in being regional, covering six countries and one currency. ## Fun facts - According to cemacqr, the worked example in Annex 4 of the CORENOFI norm encodes currency `952`, the code of the West African CFA franc (XOF), although the norm's own table requires `950` for the Central African franc. The library enforces the table and reproduces the example's checksum, `3FD3`, with the EMVCo 16-bit CRC [12][12]. - The same regulation that homologates the QR code also homologates the automated bill of exchange and automatic direct debit [2][2]. ## Status **Active, early roll-out.** Launched on 29 July 2026 and binding under the April 2026 regulation [1][1], [3][3]. Outside Gabon's pilot, the country reports found no bank or wallet issuing the code in Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, Chad, the Central African Republic or Equatorial Guinea as of 20 October 2026 [Cameroon report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CM), [Congo report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CG), [Chad report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/TD), [Central African Republic report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CF), [Equatorial Guinea report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/GQ). The legal press notes that liability for technical failure or fraud across several providers "n'est pas explicitée dans les éléments communiqués à ce stade" [3][3]. ## Sources [cm-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CM [cg-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CG [ga-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/GA [td-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/TD [cf-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CF [gq-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/GQ [1]: https://gimac-afr.com/2026/08/07/lancement-officiel-du-qr-code-communautaire/ "Lancement officiel du QR Code Communautaire — GIMAC, 7 Aug 2026" [2]: https://www.digitalbusiness.africa/cemac-les-gains-de-lintroduction-du-qr-code-de-paiement-interoperable-selon-la-beac/ "CEMAC : Les gains de l'introduction du QR Code de paiement interopérable selon la BEAC — Digital Business Africa, 31 Jul 2026" [3]: https://droitmediasfinance.com/index.php/actualites/droit-tech-fintech/1345-cemac-paiements-digitaux-un-qr-code-de-paiement-communautaire-homolgue-sur-la-base-du-reglement-du-8-avril-2026-portant-homologation-des-normes-du-qr-code-de-la-lettre-de-change-automatisee-et-du-prelevement-automatique "CEMAC | Paiements digitaux : un QR code de paiement communautaire homologué sur la base du Règlement du 8 avril 2026 — Droit & Médias Finance, 31 Jul 2026" [4]: https://ecomatin.net/la-cemac-unifie-ses-paiements-electroniques-avec-un-qr-code-regional-unique "La CEMAC unifie ses paiements électroniques avec un QR Code régional unique — EcoMatin, 30 Jul 2026" [5]: https://www.gabonreview.com/cemac-moins-de-cash-plus-de-numerique-la-beac-deploie-le-qr-code-interoperable/ "Cemac : moins de cash, plus de numérique, la BEAC déploie le QR Code interopérable — Gabonreview, 30 Jul 2026" [6]: https://forbesafrique.com/la-beac-mise-sur-un-code-qr-unique-pour-accelerer-les-paiements-numeriques-dans-la-zone-cemac/ "La BEAC mise sur un code QR unique pour accélérer les paiements numériques dans la zone CEMAC — Forbes Afrique, 1 Aug 2026" [7]: https://cameroon-tribune.cm/article.html/79285/fr.html/integration-financiere-en-afrique-centrale-le-qr-code-interoperable-en-vigueur "Intégration financière en Afrique centrale : le QR code interopérable en vigueur — Cameroon Tribune, 31 Jul 2026" [8]: https://droitmediasfinance.com/index.php/actualites/droit-bancaire/1234-cemac-le-conseil-dadministration-de-la-beac-donne-le-feu-vert-pour-les-reglements-sur-les-qr-code-les-lettres-de-change-relevees-et-la-centrale-des-risques "CEMAC : le Conseil d'administration de la BEAC donne le feu vert pour les règlements sur les QR Code, les lettres de change relevées et la centrale des risques — Droit & Médias Finance, April 2026" [9]: https://droitmediasfinance.com/index.php/actualites/droit-tech-fintech/624-cemac-un-reglement-sur-le-qr-code-de-paiement-et-un-appel-a-la-notation-des-valeurs-des-tresors "CEMAC : Un Règlement sur le QR code « de paiement » et un appel à la notation des valeurs des Trésors — Droit & Médias Finance, October 2023" [10]: https://gimac-afr.com/a-propos-du-gimac/ "À propos du GIMAC (timeline) — GIMAC" [11]: https://gimac-afr.com/2025/06/18/qr-code-gimacpay-le-gabon-passe-a-laction/ "QR Code GIMACPAY : le Gabon passe à l'action — GIMAC, 18 Jun 2025" [12]: https://github.com/bryand410/cemacqr "cemacqr — build, read and check the CEMAC common QR code (README and docs/2026-10-emvco-crc.md) — GitHub" [13]: https://www.beac.int/systemes-paiement/instructions-circulaires-reglements/ "Systèmes de paiement : instructions, circulaires, règlements — BEAC" [14]: https://pypi.org/project/cemacqr/ "cemacqr 0.1.2 — PyPI, 12 Oct 2026" [15]: https://www.emvco.com/emv-technologies/qr-codes/ "EMV QR Codes — EMVCo" [16]: https://github.com/mvallim/emv-qrcode "mvallim/emv-qrcode — GitHub" [17]: https://github.com/dongri/emv-qrcode "dongri/emv-qrcode — GitHub" - [1] [Lancement officiel du QR Code Communautaire][1] — GIMAC, 2026, accessed 2026 - [2] [CEMAC : Les gains de l'introduction du QR Code de paiement interopérable selon la BEAC][2] — Digital Business Africa, 2026, accessed 2026 - [3] [CEMAC | Paiements digitaux : un QR code de paiement communautaire homologué sur la base du Règlement du 8 avril 2026][3] — Droit & Médias Finance, 2026 (the page shows "Juil 31" without a year), accessed 2026 - [4] [La CEMAC unifie ses paiements électroniques avec un QR Code régional unique][4] — EcoMatin, 2026, accessed 2026 - [5] [Cemac : moins de cash, plus de numérique, la BEAC déploie le QR Code interopérable][5] — Gabonreview, 2026, accessed 2026 - [6] [La BEAC mise sur un code QR unique pour accélérer les paiements numériques dans la zone CEMAC][6] — Forbes Afrique, 2026, accessed 2026 - [7] [Intégration financière en Afrique centrale : le QR code interopérable en vigueur][7] — Cameroon Tribune, 2026 (paywalled after the introduction), accessed 2026 - [8] [CEMAC : le Conseil d'administration de la BEAC donne le feu vert pour les règlements sur les QR Code][8] — Droit & Médias Finance, 2026 (the page shows "Avr 11" without a year; the meeting it reports was on 6 April 2026), accessed 2026 - [9] [CEMAC : Un Règlement sur le QR code « de paiement »][9] — Droit & Médias Finance, 2023 (the page shows "Oct 10" without a year; the session it reports was on 4 October 2023), accessed 2026 - [10] [À propos du GIMAC][10] — GIMAC, accessed 2026 - [11] [QR Code GIMACPAY : le Gabon passe à l'action][11] — GIMAC, 2025, accessed 2026 - [12] [bryand410/cemacqr][12] — GitHub (third-party, unofficial), 2026, accessed 2026 - [13] [Systèmes de paiement : instructions, circulaires, règlements][13] — BEAC, accessed 2026 - [14] [cemacqr on PyPI][14] — PyPI, 2026, accessed 2026 - [15] [EMV QR Codes][15] — EMVCo, accessed 2026 - [16] [mvallim/emv-qrcode][16] — GitHub, accessed 2026 - [17] [dongri/emv-qrcode][17] — GitHub, accessed 2026 ## Deployments Found in the following country reports (grep across `reports/countries/`): - **CF** — [CF-central-african-republic.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CF) - **CG** — [CG-congo-brazzaville.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CG) - **CM** — [CM-cameroon.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CM) - **GA** — [GA-gabon.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/GA) - **GQ** — [GQ-equatorial-guinea.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/GQ) - **TD** — [TD-chad.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/TD)