IFC to launch credit office in Cameroon

The Cameroonian Government, BEAC and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) are currently in discussions on the establishment of a credit bureau system, in order to facilitate local SMEs access to bank financing in Cameroon.

The information was disclosed by Henri Rabarijohn, the resident representative of the IFC at the end of his stay in the country following a hearing with the Minister of finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey.

Structures that revolve around a system for sharing information on commitments and financial history of operators with credit institutions, credit bureau, we learned, can be a kind of individual rating firms and economic operators, in terms of solvency, credibility which can enable banks to have maximum visibility on the profile of the borrowers before engaging in a credit relationship.

According to the IFC, the availability of such information is not only likely to reduce interest rates on loans to the economic operators, especially SMEs generally little structured, but also substantially increase the overall amount of loans disbursed by the banks to finance the economy.