(Business in Cameroon) – 18 out of Cameroon’s 19 licensed banks collected a total of CFA7.92 trillion in deposits over the first half of this year. The figures were reported by BEAC’s Cerber system, designed to collect, analyze, and report financial data for the central bank and Cameroon’s National Economic and Financial Committee (CNEF).
Afriland First Bank (AFB), owned by Cameroonian billionaire Paul Kammogne Fokam, led the top five banks in deposits with CFA1.507 trillion gathered between December 2023 and June 2024. Following AFB, Société Générale Cameroun (SGC) reported CFA1.079 trillion in deposits during the same period.
Banque Atlantique Cameroun (BAC) came in third with CFA847.9 billion, with Société Commerciale de Banque (SCB) Cameroun in fourth at CFA689.2 billion. UBA Cameroon closed out the top five with CFA620 billion in customer deposits.
CCA Bank, BICEC, Ecobank, Citibank, and CBC also had strong showings, each collecting deposits totaling CFA587 billion, CFA564 billion, CFA394 billion, CFA390 billion, and CFA381 billion, respectively. The remaining eight banks — BGFI Bank, Standard Bank (STD BK), NFC-Bank, Access Bank, UBC, Bange Bank, La Régionale Bank, and BC-PME — together amassed over CFA860 billion in deposits.
According to the Cerber analysis, the deposit market saw a 2.58% increase in the first half of 2024. This growth was largely driven by the strong performances of Bange Bank, which saw a 171% increase, Access Bank (up 25.6%), BAC (up 16.37%), CCA Bank (up 13.7%), and UBC (up 12.28%).
AFB and SGC were the only two banks to collect over CFA1 trillion in deposits, jointly capturing nearly one-third of the nation’s total bank deposits. CCA Bank and Ecobank both moved up one spot in the rankings compared to the same period in 2023, now ranking sixth and eighth, respectively, while BICEC fell one place to seventh.
