(Business in Cameroon) - Under its three-year economic program (2017-2019) with Cameroon, IMF envisages to restructure the public SME Bank which has been operating in the country for three years only.

“Staff urged the authorities to provide a timeline for their strategy to update the business model of the public SME Bank to ensure its viability and to evaluate the possibility to replace its direct financing by indirect financing”, a Cameroon-focused report published by IMF on January 16, 2018, reads.  

In the report, IMF explains that access to financial services remains elusive, for SMEs particularly; thus the need for this update. In the document, the Bretton Woods institution added that Cameroon “will also support the reinforcement of credit risk assessments by further implementing a regional financial information database”.  

SME Bank, opened in 2015, is one of the commercial banks in Cameroon that the government plans to recapitalize at CFA27.5 billion. In June 2017, the bank indicated that it has granted CFA11.5 billion of loans and nearly CFA40 billion flexible guarantee bonds to 1,600 individuals. The loans were not as profitable as expected, however.

S.A