Covid-19 is currently thwarting experts' predictions about its reach in Africa, but the black
continent faces major economic challenges. A situation that will be followed in particular by the banks of the
CEMAC (Central African Economic and Monetary Community) and WAEMU (Economic and
Union West African monetary) is that of salaried workers who are beneficiaries of credits granted by
these financial institutions.
In both areas, central banks acted quickly by easing on the
refinancing of loans granted to companies. The flexibility introduced is the admission to refinancing
more guarantees given by private creditors. It is estimated at 1000 billion FCFA, the amount
additional thus available in WAEMU zone. In the CEMAC zone it is not yet very clear. The Bank
Central West African States (BCEAO) has authorized extensions of repayment deadlines
loans for companies while the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) has just formulated
recommendations to this effect.
If the constraint of restricting economic activities continues, this will quickly become a problem
for companies forced to reduce and reorganize their teams to avoid risks of
contamination among their employees. This creates a situation of partial leave, but which will be paid then
even that the turnover does not follow.
The access of companies to more facilities to bank credit will therefore not be of much use. They will just benefit from an exceptional cash flow in times of crisis that they will have to repay
when the tornado has passed. In the absence of concrete measures by the governments of both
sub-regions to provide support for private jobs, defaults on b share of this category of bank customers is likely to increase.
Investors targeting the 13 banks actively listed on the Regional Stock Exchange
Abidjan's securities (BRVM) also seem to have perceived this economic challenge among many others. Despite
the BCEAO's measures and the first fairly positive 2019 performance in the sector, the
financial companies of this stock market posted on April 3, 2020, a decline in performance of 13.5%
since the beginning of the year.