Why Central Africa

Cameroon, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and the Central African Republic share a central bank, the BEAC, and a single currency, the Central African CFA franc. For an investor that means one currency risk rather than six, and a legible monetary policy framework.

In April 2026 the Monetary Policy Committee held its rates unchanged, with the tender rate at 4.75%. Inflation remains contained below the 3% community norm, and foreign reserves cover a little over four months of imports.

That relative stability is the foundation on which a capital market can be built. It does not remove sovereign risk, which remains real and differs materially between states.

Since 2019 COSUMAF has been the sole securities regulator for the six CEMAC states, formed by merging the national commissions. In the same reform, BVMAC absorbed the Douala Stock Exchange and the BEAC was designated regional central securities depository.

In practice: one licence opens access to six markets. A Cameroonian issuer can raise from Gabonese or Congolese investors under a single prudential regime, without stacking national authorisations.

Purpose Capital operates under COSUMAF licence as a brokerage firm, subject to the prudential ratios, transaction controls and client-asset segregation obligations that come with it.

This is currently the region's most active segment. Government securities outstanding rose 16% in 2024 to roughly FCFA 7,437bn, or close to 9.6% of CEMAC GDP.

National treasuries' indicative programmes for 2026 total around FCFA 3,907bn, issued through treasury bills (BTA) and treasury bonds (OTA). Average yields observed in 2024 were near 6.7% on bills and 8.7% on bonds.

For a regional institutional investor this offers a risk-return profile rarely available elsewhere in the franc zone. In exchange it demands diversification across sovereign names: debt levels differ significantly between states.

The BVMAC equity segment remains very shallow: six listed companies and capitalisation of roughly FCFA 478bn at 31 December 2025, of which around FCFA 70bn is free float. The bond segment stood at roughly FCFA 1,305bn outstanding on the same date.

Two recent developments are worth attention. The first listing of BGFI Holding Corporation, in May 2026, involved an operation of roughly FCFA 126bn — an order of magnitude capable of changing the market's depth. In parallel, BVMAC launched a programme to prepare companies for listing and has stated a target of 100,000 securities accounts.

We do not present this market as mature. It is illiquid, concentrated in sovereign debt, and equity culture is still being built. That is the work.

The regional economy is still shaped by hydrocarbons, but recent growth has come from elsewhere. The BEAC attributes the resilience of activity to the non-oil sector — subsistence and cash-crop agriculture, mining, manufacturing and services.

BEAC projections describe a medium-term consolidation, with real GDP growth strengthening gradually through 2028. Near-term forecasts vary by vintage: the April 2026 Monetary Policy Committee used 2.9% for the year, against 3.3% in the monetary policy report.

That diversification is precisely what creates demand for market financing: growing non-oil companies that cannot all fund themselves through bank credit alone.

The CEMAC zone has more than fifty-five million inhabitants, and its urban population is growing markedly faster than its total population. Douala, Yaoundé, Libreville, Brazzaville and N'Djamena concentrate a rising share of economic activity, consumption and formal savings.

That concentration bears directly on our work: it creates demand for housing, infrastructure, financial services and energy, and therefore long-term financing needs that bank credit alone does not cover.

It also creates the pool of savings that could meet them. Connecting the two is precisely what a capital market is for.

Central Africa has largely bypassed traditional retail banking. For much of the population, mobile payment has become the first financial instrument genuinely in use.

For a capital market, the question is access. BVMAC has set a target of one hundred thousand securities accounts by the end of 2026 and is working to bring subscription closer to the digital channels people already use. A securities account opened from a phone changes the nature of the market.

That is the trajectory we are preparing for: intermediation whose client due diligence, order placement and reporting processes are built for digital, conceding nothing on regulatory obligations.

The Congo Basin is the world's second-largest tropical forest and the planet's foremost net forest carbon sink. That ecological reality is also a financial asset, and one that remains very lightly structured.

The instruments exist elsewhere: green bonds, sustainability-linked bonds, financing backed by carbon credits. Transposing them to the CEMAC zone requires a credible certification framework, governance of proceeds, and issuers prepared to accept the reporting obligations that come with them.

We regard this segment as structurally promising over the medium term, and we would rather say so carefully: it still has to be built.