MC2: A microfinance network overseen by Afriland First Bank

Made up of 105 entities, they are displaced in secondary cities as well as in rural areas of Cameroon.

Mutuelles communautaires de croissance (MC2), is a network of micro-banks sponsored by Afriland First Bank, a banking group with mainly Cameroonian capital classified as 2nd Bank in Central Africa behind the Gabonese BGFI.

Developed by the Cameroonian industrialist Paul Kammogne Fokam in his doctoral thesis in economics, and then implemented about two decades ago, the MC2 has already helped to inject approximately 145 billion Cfa francs (221 million euros) in the Cameroonian economy, especially in rural areas, we learn from «Reussite», a television magazine recently aired on paid TV channel Canal plus.

Indeed, shriveled by conditions of access to the extremely harsh credits in conventional banks, small farmers, breeders, keepers of flows of beverages and other stalls, and more economic operators found in the MC2 an excellent palliative to the difficulties of access to credit in the country.

This thanks to interest rates that do not exceed 15%, where some institutions of the same type practice virtually usurious rates, according to a report of the Central Africa Banking Commission (Cobac).

Deposits for Afriland collectors

But, according to its designers, the MC2 should further their success in their creation and operation model. It is indeed a solidarity and self-managed system in which it is the community that is the capital, manages the micro-bank and only its members with an account in the books of the MC2 are allowed to receive credits.

The model turns out to be even more efficient in rural areas deemed poor, some MC2 claim rates for reimbursement of credits in the order of 85%, we learn. In the event of reduction of their capacity for intervention, these microfinance institutions have the possibility of recourse to the refinancing of their parent bank is Afriland First Bank.

Thanks to the funding from the rural economy, argues Paul Kammogne Fokam, the promoter of the MC2, this network of microfinance institutions had already help directly bring out a million Cameroonians from poverty, and more than 4 million people indirectly.

At the same time, according to reliable indiscretions, the MC2 network allows you to gather approximately 40% of Afriland First Bank deposits, since each MC2 has an account in the books of the parent bank, and a formal ban to keep more than 5 million Cfa francs in its own coffers.