Cameroonian billionaire Paul Fokam's Afriland enters Islamic finance and sukuk

Paul Kammogne Fokam's Afriland First Group has announced the expansion of its Islamic finance operations into West Africa, launching financial advisory services and sukuk issuance capabilities across the region through its Togo-based Afriland First Holding subsidiary, the latest in a series of moves that are positioning the Cameroonian banking billionaire's group as one of the leading Islamic finance providers in francophone Africa.

The announcement, reported by Cameroonian financial publication EcoMatin, marks a significant geographic extension of Afriland First Group's Islamic finance mandate beyond its established base in Cameroon and Central Africa. The group has operated an Islamic finance window at Afriland First Bank since 2012, becoming the pioneer of alternative, ethical and socially responsible finance in the CEMAC zone. That window has since disbursed hundreds of millions of euros in Islamic finance lines of credit in partnership with the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, the private sector arm of the Islamic Development Bank Group, and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa.

The West Africa push arrives at a moment of rapidly accelerating interest in sukuk and Islamic finance instruments across the continent. African governments issued more than $580 million in sukuk in 2026 alone, largely driven by Benin's $500 million debut sovereign sukuk which attracted combined orders of more than $7 billion, far exceeding its proposed issuance size. The success of Benin's offering, described by its advisers as a turning point for African sovereign borrowers seeking to diversify their investor base into Gulf capital, has prompted governments across Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana and other African states to explore both local and international sukuk issuance. Nigeria, which has issued local-currency sukuk previously, is exploring dollar-denominated Islamic finance, with President Bola Tinubu seeking legislative approval for an inaugural international sukuk.

Fokam's move into West African Islamic finance advisory and sukuk structuring positions Afriland First Group to serve both corporate and sovereign clients in this growing market. The group's Togo subsidiary, Afriland First Holding, led by Christian Fogaing Kammogne, Fokam's son, is already home to Africa Diamond Invest, the newly licensed securities firm the group established in Togo in June 2026. The addition of Islamic finance advisory and sukuk services extends the financial services portfolio of the Lomé-based holding into a product line with rapidly growing demand from West Africa's Muslim majority populations, who represent more than 55 percent of the region's 400 million people.

Fokam has consistently described Islamic finance as philosophically aligned with his group's founding mission. Afriland First Bank was established in Yaoundé in 1987 under the name Caisse Commune d'Epargne et d'Investissement with an explicit mandate to make finance socially useful and to serve populations excluded from conventional banking. Islamic finance, with its prohibition of interest and its emphasis on asset-backed, risk-sharing financing structures, aligns with that original vision of banking as a development tool rather than purely a profit mechanism. The group launched its first Islamic finance window in Cameroon in 2012, expanded to three windows by 2018 and has since issued CFA 200 billion in conventional bonds alongside its Islamic finance activities.

Afriland First Bank crossed CFA 2 trillion ($3.6 billion) in total assets in 2024, the first time the institution has crossed that threshold, operating 87 branches, 218 ATMs and serving more than 705,000 customers across nine African countries. The group's broader ambition, stated at various points by Fokam, is to build the continent's leading African-owned bancassurance platform. The West Africa Islamic finance move, layered onto the Africa Diamond Invest securities launch in Togo announced earlier this month, suggests that ambition is being pursued through a deliberate sequence of product launches designed to make the Lomé holding structure the group's primary vehicle for regional expansion into new financial services territory.