Ownership Forms and Costs of Operations of Microfinance Institutions in Cameroon

Abstract

This paper investigates on the relative costs of operations of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Cameroon with regard to their ownership forms. We extracted data from MIX Market which included 31 MFIs over the period 2001-2017. On processing data though a multinomial logistic regression, we found out that affiliated Credit Unions were the most cost-efficient organisational form, but the portfolio efficiency was nearly the same all across ownership patterns. Affiliated Credit Unions underwent the lowest operating expenses whereas Microbanks significantly reported the highest financial expenses. Also, we did not find any significant differences between personnel productivity across ownership forms.