LIQUIDITY RECOVERY : Beac embarks on inflation regulation

These recovery operations are remunerated at 0.85 % over 7 days and at 1 % over a month. Since February 21, 2023, commercial banks have no longer had the opportunity to refinance with the monetary issuance institute following the suspension of the weekly liquidity injection operation the tightening of monetary policy which makes market conditions extremely rigid.

This measure aims to counter the inflationary surges in the Cemac zone, translates into a 4-fold and increase the main key interest rates since December 2021. All these factors make liquidity expensive for banks and justify the high costs applied to sovereign lenders. Cameroon has also been paying for it since the beginning of the year on the public securities market where the country is struggling to mobilize the financing it needs at lower costs. The Treasury Securities Specialists (SVT) seem less and less attracted by the quality of the borrower, which has never been in default on this market since 2011, but are more interested in the level of remuneration it offers.

By limiting itself to offering investors average interest rates of 4.7 % on its Assimilable Treasury Bills (Btas) and 5.8 % on its assimilable Treasury Bonds (OTAs), in the month of June 2023. The Cameroonian Public Treasury remains the country with the cheapest debt on the Beac public securities market. Cameroon has, for example, charged half the interest rates offered to investors by Chad and the CAR on OTAs. While these two countries have enticed investors with respective interest rates of 11.6 % and 11.4 % on long-maturity securities, Cameroon, on its part, offered only 5.8 % to investors, according to data from the Central Bank in its monthly Bulletin of Treasury securities market statistics of June 2023.

Sorelle Ninguem