The Paradigmatic Shift of Credit Union Mission in Bamenda, Cameroon, 1968-2013

Financing the indigenous economy has always been one of the main preoccupations of the formation and functioning of Micro-Finance Institutions (MFI) like credit unions. This is more so because of the difficulties of weak income earners in gaining access to funding from mainline commercial banks. This was the underpinnings of the introduction of credit unions in Bamenda which put in place strategies from the base to tackle financial exclusion. Although premised on this vision, the economic and banking crisis of the 1980s and 1990s in Cameroon like in most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, triggered austerity measures which led to impoverishment of the indigenous population. The paper maintains that in a bid to adjust to the shocks of the economic and financial crisis, credit unions drifted from their financial inclusiveness policy to financial exclusiveness which was principally based on a scheme of profit maximization. This paper attempts to demonstrate how the shift to profit motivation led the credit unions in Bamenda to lose credibility. The study has been constituted from primary and secondary sources that were analyzed following the qualitative approach and presented thematically.