Relational Financing and Cost of Credit for Cameroonian SMEs

Hélène Euphrasie ALOUANGA * Docteur en sciences économiques, Faculté des sciences économiques et de gestion (FSEG), Université de Yaoundé 2-Soa, Cameroun ; chercheure, Centre d'études et de recherche en économie et gestion (CEREG). Contact : justinalydie@yahoo.com.

Georges KOBOU ** Professeur titulaire des Universités ; chef du Département des techniques quantitatives, Faculté des sciences économiques et de gestion (FSEG), Université de Yaoundé 2-Soa, Cameroun. Contact : koge1@hotmail.com.

In Cameroon, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have a hard time gaining access to bank financing. This is due to the very high cost of credit. Relationship financing seems to be an important and effective strategy for reducing the cost of credit. The goal of this article is to analyze the effect of relationship financing on the cost of credit for Cameroonian SMEs. The study uses data from a survey of 600 Cameroonian SMEs in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé. To do this, we used the ordinary least squares (OLS) method. The results of our analyses show that relationship financing has a positive and significant effect on the cost of credit to Cameroonian SMEs as long as the banking relationship and trust last.