Includes how foreign exchange is managed and implications for U.S. business.
Last Published: 8/6/2019

In late 2016, CEMAC countries began working with the IMF to respond to BEAC’s dwindling reserves and a balance of payments crisis caused by the fall in oil receipts.  In July 2017, Cameroon entered a $666 million Extended Credit Facility with the IMF.  A January 2019 IMF report lauded BEAC for its new foreign exchange regulations.  BEAC now requires banks to surrender all foreign currency remittances to the Central Bank and to consolidate their customers’ forex requests into one application, in hard copy, to the national BEAC office.  The BEAC office then clears and forwards the request to the regional office, based in Yaoundé, for final approval. 

In practice, many banks continued to turn currency around without sending it to BEAC, processing payments for imported goods or services as soon as they receive foreign currency.  BEAC recently reprimanded seven local bank general managers for failing to comply with the remittance requirements, denied any delays in their own procedures, and threatened more reprimands for banks that criticize the policy.  Banks, including Ecobank, Standard Chartered, and Citi, and the business community are complaining that the process, which is supposed to provide the foreign currency required for outside transactions within 48 hours, takes anywhere from several days to several weeks.  The IMF reported a denial rate of 30 percent, which BEAC blamed on non-compliance, although some banks consider the reasons for refusal opaque.

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