(Business in Cameroon) - Since the launch of factoring activities in 2009, the International Savings and Credit Bank of Cameroon (BICEC – Banque Internationale du Cameroun pour l’Economie et le Crédit), local subsidiary of the French group Banque Populaire (BCPE), has already financed SMEs and SMIs to the tune of FCfa 50 billion. The information was revealed on 7 April 2016 in Douala by François Mai Sango, Manager of SME-SMI markets at BICEC. This was during a meeting between the bank and SME-SMI managers on the opportunities offered by factoring.

According to Hugues Olivier Bangneki, Director for Central and Western Africa at Coface (Compagnie Française d’Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur – French Insurance Company for External Trade), the technical partner of BICEC on factoring; this financing mechanism consists in transferring the accounts receivable of a company to a bank or any other factoring institution, who would then immediately finance them.

This method, he stressed, enables the company to have some “immediate treasury”, to be able to “cover its charges, speed up its development by winning new clients and new markets”. Moreover, François Mai Sango from BICEC added, “factoring helps to have three times more financing” than what would be received through more classic mechanisms such as bank overdrafts, for example.

In order to promote and monitor this activity in the country, the Cameroonian Parliament adopted the first Act governing factoring in March 2014. Defending the government project before the parliamentarians, the Cameroonian Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey, mostly put forward the fact that factoring would help diversify financing mechanisms for companies in the country.

Moreover, though presented as an excellent recourse for companies facing financial difficulties, as noted by experts, factoring can however not take care of accounts receivable on individuals, and is only for business to business trade.

BRM