Cameroonian microfinance institutions, in the wake of COBAC, are integrating umbrella organizations such as RAINBOW or the Cameroon Credit Union League (CAMCULL), which are microfinance networks that harmonize their management processes and offer services to microfinance institutions (MFIs).
Among the services offered, is the leveling of management systems whose current trend is towards empowerment in the absence of digitalization. More specifically, the acquisition of centralized or decentralized core banking is rapidly becoming an imperative.
Except that this transition from a traditional or manual management system to an automated or digitalized system, called migration, is a complex equation highlighting the transparency and regularity of the bookkeeping, the calculation of accounting and financial aggregates, and the vision of the decision-making bodies, in particular the board of directors and the general management.
Take the case of the transition to a decentralized core banking system, for example. This is done on the basis of computer templates that bring together key information such as member numbers, names of members and their balances, credit numbers and types of credit, etc. In order for the migration to be successful, it is important that this information is correctly filled in. Thus, if the members are not identifiable or the account numbers do not respect the standard format, the migration will result in a structural and accounting disorder leading to erroneous aggregate calculations.
However, in order to fill in the templates correctly, it is necessary to have rigorous accounting and financial management. This is not always the case for many MFIs, which have operated in a less rigorous regulatory environment that leaves room for a lot of permeability and financial opacity.
It must also be said that these microfinance institutions, which are intended to be closer to the population, face many obstacles such as illiteracy, the lack of legal means of identification, the desire for confidentiality of financial status, etc. This trend towards financial inclusion is a source of feverishness in accounting and financial management insofar as management processes are becoming more flexible, thus losing rigor.
Migration is therefore the stage in which the microfinance enterprise is obliged to regulate its internal management practices as necessary and to stimulate managerial policies to align with the normative rules imposed by the supervisory bodies.