Morocco’s Crédit du Maroc is set to receive a proposed risk-sharing facility of up to 125 million Moroccan dirhams ($13.5 million) from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to expand lending to small and medium-sized enterprises in the country’s agricultural sector and rural areas.
The proposed investment consists of an unfunded Risk Sharing Facility package under which IFC will guarantee up to 50% of Crédit du Maroc’s credit risk on a target portfolio of loans to eligible SMEs, according to project documents seen by CrowdFund Insider.
The target loan portfolio will total up to 250 million dirhams ($27 million), with the financing aimed at SMEs operating in the agricultural sector and rural areas in Morocco.
The project aims to support Crédit du Maroc in expanding its SME lending operations in partnership with agri-technology companies to enhance financial inclusion and improve the productivity of eligible SMEs.
It is supported by the Global Small and Medium Enterprises Financing programme.
The project is a follow-up to an IFC upstream programme, under which the bank would partner with IFC and an agri-technology company to support the financial inclusion of eligible SMEs.
IFC will also provide advisory services to Crédit du Maroc for capacity building and to help scale up SME agri-financing and productivity in Morocco’s agricultural sector.
The most significant expected project-level outcome is increased access to financing for agricultural SMEs in Morocco.
IFC also expects the project to strengthen the resilience of agricultural supply and value chains in Africa by scaling agricultural sector lending and demonstrating the commercial viability of lending to the sector.
The project has a total cost of up to $30 million, with the level of concessionality, or subsidy, estimated at about 2.4% of the total project cost.
Crédit du Maroc is a universal bank headquartered in Casablanca. It began operations in 1929 as Crédit Lyonnais, became Crédit du Maroc in 1966 and has been listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange since 1976.
As of December 2024, it was Morocco’s seventh-largest privately owned bank by total assets.
Its largest shareholder is Holmarcom Group, which holds a 67.4% stake through Holmarcom Finance Company and insurer AtlantaSanad.
