The recent liquidity offer reveals a significant gap between the amount provided (120 billion CFA francs) and the demand (511 billion CFA francs) expressed by the banks of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC). However, the liquidity injection operations carried out regularly by the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) have contributed to financing the economies of the CEMAC zone.
As part of the liquidity injection offer launched at the end of July by the BEAC, banks operating in the CEMAC zone (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad) requested the amount of 511 billion FCFA. Financial institutions only received the amount of 120 billion FCFA repayable in seven days with a weighted average rate of 6.76%, according to the results of the call for tenders communicated on August 1 by the Central Bank.
This is the same case observed during previous calls for tenders, for example, the results of the issue of July 23, 2024 show a significant gap of 309.7 billion, since compared to the 185 billion finally served to commercial banks, the amount requested will reach 494.7 billion FCFA. The same goes for the liquidity injection operation launched on July 9, which revealed a gap of 202 billion FCFA between the needs expressed (337 billion) and the amount served (135 billion FCFA).
The CEMAC zone money market has been revitalized since the beginning of July, with offers of liquidity injections into the community area by the Central Bank, after the restrictive monetary policy enacted in 2021. The Beac has intensified its operations to recover liquidity in banks thanks to the gradual increase in key rates aimed at tightening the conditions for refinancing banks at the Central Bank’s counters. The latter then suspended its operations to inject liquidity into the Cémac banking circuit from February 2023, and finally launched the issuance of BEAC bonds, which are instruments whose aim is also to dry up bank liquidity.
This austerity monetary policy was explained by the fact of fighting against the proportion of 20% of inflation that would be of monetary origin. However, thanks to the decline in inflationary tensions observed in CEMAC in recent months, the central bank has undertaken to loosen the grip on bank liquidity. To do this, it has decided, since June 11, to relaunch its liquidity injection operations in banks, with increasingly large volumes, going from 50, 65, 90, 165 or even 185 billion FCFA per operation.
