Tycoon Paul Fokam’s Afriland lifts bank capital to $188m

Cameroonian banking tycoon Paul Fokam’s Afriland First Bank has more than doubled its share capital to 110 billion CFA francs ($188 million), giving Cameroon’s largest lender a thicker cushion as it expands into neighboring countries.

The bank added 60 billion CFA francs ($102 million) to its capital by converting reserves, lifting it from 50 billion francs ($85 million). No new money came from shareholders. The move turns earnings the bank had kept on its books into share capital, which cannot be paid out to shareholders as dividends.

Shareholders approved the increase at a combined ordinary and extraordinary general meeting in Yaoundé on April 28, where they also voted to amend the bank’s bylaws. The increase needed the approval of the Commission Bancaire de l’Afrique Centrale, or COBAC, the regional banking supervisor, before it could take effect.

A bigger base for expansion

It is the bank’s second big capital increase in five years. In 2021, Afriland lifted its capital to 50 billion francs from 20 billion francs ($34 million). Before the latest increase, its capital stood at twice the regulatory minimum. The new increase comes as COBAC tightens prudential rules in the six countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, or CEMAC, and as Afriland opens branches beyond Cameroon.

COBAC authorized Afriland to open branches in Chad, the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic in 2025. The branch in Bangui, the Central African capital, started with an endowment of 2.15 billion francs ($3.7 million). The extra capital is meant to support those new branches and growth in lending to households and companies.

Afriland had total assets of close to 2,500 billion francs ($4.3 billion) at the end of October 2025, the most of any bank in Cameroon. It held 1,840 billion francs ($3.1 billion) in deposits and had 1,627 billion francs ($2.8 billion) in loans outstanding, and it runs 95 branches across Cameroon, the country’s densest banking network.

The banker behind Afriland

Fokam founded the bank in 1987 as the Caisse Commune d’Epargne et d’Investissement. It is now controlled by Afriland First Group, the Geneva-based holding company he heads, which operates in about a dozen countries in Africa, Europe and China.

The group has been moving into investment services in West Africa. Last month, Africa Diamond Invest, a Lomé brokerage set up by Afriland First Holding, won regulatory approval to trade shares on the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières, the regional stock exchange in Abidjan.

Figures were converted at 586 CFA francs to the dollar.