Careers

Banking and microfinance client adviser

Opening an account, building a loan file, explaining an instalment, collecting with tact: the client adviser holds a branch's most sensitive relationship. They combine commercial sense, risk discipline and knowledge of the ground.

One branch, one day

The front desk opens the day: account openings, identity checks, explaining products. Then come the credit interviews, where you listen to a business before looking at a figure — a corner shop, a workshop, a farm. Origination follows: repayment capacity, guarantees, a realistic schedule. Afternoons mix portfolio follow-up and amicable collection, played out by phone and on visits, with the same rule: understand before you ask.

Open an account and run the regulatory identity check
Conduct a credit interview and assess repayment capacity
Build a file, secure guarantees, design a repayment schedule
Follow a portfolio and run amicable collection

The West African financial network

Commercial banks and their urban and regional branch networks
Microfinance institutions and local mutual savings bodies
Electronic money institutions and approved distributors
Insurance companies and insurance intermediaries
Cooperatives and groups holding dedicated credit lines

What you know before committing

The catalogue publishes these four values for every programme, and it publishes them before any application. A candidate knows what they are buying, an employer knows what they are funding, a panel knows what it is assessing. One set of figures travels through the whole file, which makes every step predictable.

qualification level: 4
months of programme: 6
taught hours: 400 h
credits: 40
competency blocks: 5

The detail of the assessed skills

Assessment covers these blocks, one by one, and nothing else. Each has its taught hours, its exercise and its validation criterion. That transparency has a direct effect on preparation: you work on what will be assessed, in the proportions in which it will be, and you measure your progress block after block.

Financial products and services: 110 (28 %)
Reception, advice and selling: 110 (28 %)
Assessing a credit application: 110 (28 %)
Compliance and know your customer: 50 (13 %)
Professional conduct and employability: 20 (5 %)

Total: 400 taught hours

Financial products and services · 110 h — Accounts, savings, credit, payment methods, mobile money
Reception, advice and selling · 110 h — Uncovering needs, making the case, handling objections, closing
Assessing a credit application · 110 h — Repayment capacity, guarantees, structuring, decision
Compliance and know your customer · 50 h — Identification, documents, thresholds, vigilance, banking secrecy
Professional conduct and employability · 20 h — Ethics, handling difficult conversations, job search

Preparing for branch professions

Here are the paths open to this occupation, with their real cost and duration. A long programme installs the full base; a certificate targets a precise function and can be taken while keeping your job. Both strategies work, and the table gives what you need to choose between them.

Programme	Duration	Credits	Taught hours	Fees
Business Management programme — Bac+3 level · Bachelor's degree	3 years	180	1800 h	4 800 000 GNF per year
Certificate in OHADA Finance and Compliance · Professional certification	6 months	18	180 h	4 200 000 GNF in total

Answers to the most frequent questions

Is compliance part of the role?

It is a growing part of it: identity verification, source of funds, vigilance on unusual transactions. The framework devotes a block to it, and the OHADA finance and compliance certificate deepens it for anyone wishing to specialise on that side of the job.

Is the job a sales job?

It is as commercial as it is technical. You carry deposit and lending targets, but portfolio quality weighs just as much: a file well built today avoids an arrear in six months. The framework works both sides together.

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