ABIDJAN/YAOUNDÉ, December 2, 2025 — The African Development Bank Group has approved a €25 million trade finance facility for Cameroon’s Crédit Communautaire d’Afrique-Bank (CCA-Bank), aimed at expanding support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and other businesses across key sectors of the economy.
The facility, cleared by the Bank’s Board of Directors at a session held on 1 December in Abidjan, will be deployed as a Transaction Guarantee, a risk-sharing instrument that provides cover to eligible African banks for their trade finance operations.
According to Lamin Drammeh, Head of the Bank Group’s Trade Finance Division, the guarantee will help unlock critical imports needed for Cameroon’s productive sectors.
“The facility will support Cameroon’s economy by facilitating imports of equipment for the industrial, agro-industrial and telecommunications sectors. It will also enable the African Development Bank to provide up to a 100 percent guarantee to confirming banks, to facilitate the confirmation of letters of credit and other similar trade finance instruments issued by CCA-Bank for the benefit of SMEs in Cameroon,” Drammeh explained.
Léandre Bassolé, Director General for the Bank’s Central Africa region, noted that the operation aligns with AfDB’s drive to deepen direct interventions in support of the private sector in Cameroon.
“It will strengthen CCA-Bank’s capacity to support the activities of SMEs, including those owned by women and young people, to boost the local productive sector, facilitate economic growth, and create and maintain thousands of jobs,” he said.
Welcoming what she described as a strategic milestone, CCA-Bank’s Managing Director, Marguerite Fonkwen Atanga, said the partnership would significantly enhance the bank’s ability to serve smaller businesses and emerging entrepreneurs.
“We would like to express our gratitude to the African Development Bank Group for this important trade finance facility. This strategic partnership marks a major milestone for our institution and will significantly strengthen our capacity to support small and medium-sized enterprises, women entrepreneurs and start-ups in Cameroon and Africa,” she stated.
Background: AfDB’s Transaction Guarantee
The Transaction Guarantee is a trade finance instrument introduced by the African Development Bank in 2021 to support commercial banks operating in Africa. It covers a range of trade-related instruments, including confirmed letters of credit, commercial loans, irrevocable repayment undertakings, endorsed drafts and promissory notes, among others.
The facility is available to banks registered and operating in Africa that have successfully passed the Bank’s due diligence process, helping them reduce perceived risk from international confirming banks and expand access to trade finance for their clients.
About the African Development Bank Group
The African Development Bank Group is Africa’s leading development finance institution, comprising the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). With representation in 41 African countries and a field office in Japan, the Bank supports economic development and social progress across its 54 regional member states.
Source Credit:
African Development Bank Group (AfDB) – press release distributed by APO Group, 2 December 2025.
