The first Board of Directors meeting of the “Société Commerciale de Banque du Cameroun”, SCB Cameroun Bank held last Thursday, May 12, at the Yaounde Hilton Hotel and made official the takeover of the bank from French-owned Crédit Agricole Bank

by the Moroccan-owned Attijariwafa Bank Group that now owns 51 per cent of the share capital, while the Cameroonian government owns 49 percent.

In the press conference that followed the Board meeting, the Board Chair of Attijariwafa Bank Group, Mohamed El Kettani presented the five strategic points of the bank’s ambitious plan for Cameroon. The five points, he said, include increasing the bank deposit rate, financing private initiative, participating in the implementation of the state’s key major infrastructure projects, modernising the capital market and integrating SCB Cameroun into an intra-regional synergy to participate in Africa’s development.

To increase the bank deposit rate and widen the customer base with proximity services, Mohamed El Kettani disclosed that SCB Cameroun will launch an aggressive extension plan that will involve recruiting more staff, doubling the number of SCB Cameroun branches from 17 to 35 by the end of 2013, and offering a wide range of banking services to all categories of clients, especially households with housing and other customer-friendly loans. “Cameroon’s bank deposit rate is 7 per cent while in Morocco we have attained 40 per cent,” he said.

Furthermore, Mohamed El Kettani said the Morrocan bank’s long experience in supporting small businesses will be shared with Cameroon to pull small businesses out of the informal sector to the formal sector, expressing regret that banks in Africa have for long focused their services on the African upper class and big businesses than on the middle class and poor masses. Regarding major infrastructure projects, he said Attijariwafa Bank wishes to see SCB Cameroun use Attijariwafa’s available expertise and funds to accompany government’s infrastructure projects such as ports, airports, roads, railway, bridges, buildings etc. “Attijariwafa Group, through its branches, subscribed for up to FCFA 35 billion in Cameroon’s December 2010 public placement bond issue,” he disclosed. With these strategic points, the Attijariwafa Boss concluded, SCB Cameroun could move up from the fourth position it presently occupies to the first.

The Attijariwafa Bank is multinational pan-African banking and financial group operating in 22 countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. With over 4,6 million clients, Attijarifawa Bank is said to rank seventh in top African bank classifications.