The panorama of banks published by the National Credit Council (CNC) reveals a fluctuating market where Cameroonian, Pan-African banks and Western multinationals overlap. Over this period, which runs from February 2020 to February 2021, the fifteen banks operating in Cameroon have varying fortunes.
In terms of customer deposits, four banks control over 50% of banking activity. At the head of the pack, is Afriland First Bank (AFB) consolidates its first place with 1005.7 billion FCFA collected this year against 930.3 billion a year ago, which means that this bank holds 18.52 % of market share. During the period indicated, the Société Générale du Cameroun (SGC) collected 810.7 billion, or 14.93% of the market share, while the International Bank of Cameroon for Savings and Credit (BICEC) was able to mobilize 603.1 billion, which represents 11.11% of the market share. In this top quartet is a continental bank, in this case, the Atlantic Bank, which made 424.7 billion deposits, or 7.82% of the market share.
The other ten banks barely share a 48% market share, with in descending order the Société commerciale du Cameroun (SCB) 9.09, the Union bank of Cameroon (UBA) 7.17%, Ecobank, 6 66%, Commercial bank Cameroon (CBC) 5.98%, Crédit communautaire d’Afrique (CCA-bank) 5.58% and BGFIBank 5.48%. After these banks in the middle of the table, come Standard Chartered Bank with 3.82% and Citibank 2.35% which should be specified that they are investment banks and not commercial banks. At the bottom of the scale are the Cameroonian Bank of Small and Medium Enterprises (BC-PME) credited with 0.15%, just before Union bank of Cameroon (UBC) 1.07% and National finance Cameroon (NFC) 2, 02% who recently escaped liquidation following state support, while they were in the crosshairs of the Central African Banking Commission (COBAC).
On the basis of updated figures from the National Credit Council, it is clear that Western banks on which once relied on bank financing and national savings are losing ground to the benefit of national and continental banks whose growing power has revealed new paradigms in this sector, in particular the relative relaxation of the conditions for granting credit.
