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Afriland First Bank, founded by Cameroonian billionaire Paul Fokam, has become the first Cameroonian lender to open in Central African Republic, targeting a largely unbanked market.
Paul Fokam Kammogne left Cameroon Bank in 1979, earned a PhD in Bordeaux, and built Afriland First Bank into a $3.6 billion institution to prove Africa could finance its own development without foreign banks.
Afriland First Bank's Congo unit has $116.9 million in negative equity and its Cameroonian owner says the state took the bank without paying for it.
Cameroonian businessman Paul Fokam’s Afriland First Bank passes $3.6 billion in assets, cementing its lead in Central Africa.
Cameroonian businessman Paul Fokam’s Afriland First Bank gets Cobac approval to expand into Congo, CAR, and Chad, boosting regional banking reach.
The move is designed to help close the funding gap faced by local businesses, especially those led by women, and support private-sector growth in the country.
The bank further solidified its position as a national market leader with a 19.2-percent market share in deposit collection and a 21.5-percent market share in credit at the close of 2022.
Minority and majority shareholders of the bank’s DRC subsidiary are having it out.
Fokam is one of Africa’s richest men, with a fortune assessed at more than $800 million in 2020.
Fokam is one of the richest men in Africa.
Publicly available data shows that the DRC already lost $1.95 billion between 2003 and 2021.
PwC notified Afriland First Bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo of a potential sanctions evasion.