Credit for ACEP Cameroon: Supporting microfinance in an underbanked country

ACEP Cameroon was set up in 1999 by the Government of Cameroon in the form of a project to finance microenterprises in urban areas, with financing from the European Union and Agence Française de Développement. In September 2005, it became a private microfinance institution registered with the Cameroonian Ministry of Finance. At the end of September 2016, ACEP Cameroon employed over 350 people and served over 30,000 clients viaa network of 23 branches. The outstanding savings amount stands at EUR 5.1m and the outstanding loan amount at EUR 32.6m.

The project involves the allocation of a credit line in CFA francs (XAF) equivalent to EUR 3m to Agence de Crédit pour l’Entreprise Privée au Cameroun S.A. (“ACEP Cameroon”), a member of the pan-African microfinance network ACEP International.

The strong points of this project are: i) the contribution to financial inclusion and to diversification in the financial sector in Cameroon, a country where the rate of use of the banking system only stands at 12%. The project will give some 29,000 new borrowers access to financial services and products; ii) the support for local employment. ACEP estimates that it will employ 411 people in 2017 and 434 by 2020; ii) the impacts on the private sector in Cameroon with the development of products for SMEs.