• CCA Bank plans first expansion outside Cameroon with a new branch in Chad, following talks with the finance minister.
• The entry would make CCA the 11th commercial bank in Chad, where financial inclusion remains at just 5% of the population.
• New CEMAC single license rules ease regional expansion, boosting CCA Bank’s move into Chad’s competitive banking market.

Cameroon’s CCA Bank is preparing to enter the Chadian market, marking its first expansion outside its home base. A delegation of executives was received in N'Djamena on August 25 by Finance Minister Tahir Hamid Nguilin, who confirmed that discussions centered on the opening of a branch in Chad, according to a statement from the ministry.

No timeline has been given for the rollout. The entry would make CCA Bank the 11th commercial lender in Chad, where Ecobank and Commercial Bank Tchad dominate the banking sector. The lender will also face the challenge of operating in a country with one of the region’s lowest levels of financial inclusion—just 5% of the population held bank accounts in 2021, compared with a CEMAC average of 12%, according to the bloc’s 2025–2029 inclusion strategy.

CCA Bank follows in the footsteps of Afriland First Bank, Cameroon’s largest lender, which announced interest in the Chadian market in 2022 but has yet to move forward. At the time, Afriland’s CEO described Chad as a country with “enormous economic potential, a promising market, and a young, dynamic population.”

The project follows the Central African Banking Commission's (COBAC) introduction of a single license regime on January 1, 2025, which allows lenders licensed in one CEMAC country to open branches in others without requiring additional approvals—a move designed to deepen regional banking integration.

Founded in 1997 in Bafoussam, CCA Bank began as a cooperative credit institution before transitioning into a second-tier microfinance lender in 2001. It became a universal bank in 2018.

As of March 31, 2025, CCA ranked as Cameroon’s eighth-largest bank by loans with a 6.17% market share, and the fourth-largest by deposits with 8.05%. At the end of 2024, it reported total assets of CFA 837 billion ($1.36 billion), net banking income of CFA 53.6 billion, and net profit of CFA 19.1 billion, representing a 46.7% increase from the previous year.

Initially written in French by Brice Mbodiam

Adapted in English by Mouka Mezonlin