Today in history, the sound of gunfire faded; the liberation army had triumphed over the genocidal forces but there was no jubilation for although they had won the battle, the real war had just begun to reunite the country for nation rebuilding; it would take longer to accomplish.

Beyond the loss of over a million lives, the war left the Rwandan economy in shambles with all key sectors including banking having come to a grinding halt; average economic growth between 1990 and 1994 was a double digit-negative number of 11.4 percent.

Poverty was deep rooted with 78 percent of the country’s population living in dire paucity; this was reflected in the wealthy of the nation whose GDP worth fell from US$3 billion in 1990 to less than US$2 billion in 1994.

With such a situation at hand, clearly, there was never going to be any honeymoon for the liberators; everything was broken and needed fixing; the economy needed saving but it would have to start with helping the people pick themselves up from the ground.

Impressive progress

"Today as we mark twenty two years since liberation, it is more of an opportunity for us to take stock of progress made than a celebration, because in the race to development, there is no finish line, we must keep running,” said Bank of Kigali CEO Dr. Diane Karusisi.

Dr. Karusisi says Bank of Kigali is one of the country’s leading symbols of the liberation’s success stories; as the Bank prepares to mark its 50th anniversary this December, it is worth noting that its most important growth has been recorded in the last two decades.

"The Bank owes its impressive growth in the last two decades to the peace and stability that has prevailed in the country since national liberation,” said Karusisi.

This year’s liberation theme, ‘together we proper’ is therefore not only relatable to individual success stories but also corporate growth and an institution like Bank of Kigali, that thrives to financially transform the lives of its customers, testifies to.

Lawson Naibo, Bank of Kigali’s Chief Operations Officer says that the Bank’s business growth over the last two decades couldn’t have been possible without the government’s enabling macro-economic policies.

"Thanks to this growth, Bank of Kigali is among the country’s largest tax payers and in terms of our core business, we account for over 30 percent of all lending to the country’s private sector,” said Naibo.

As a long term strategy to achieving middle income status, Rwanda wants to grow a private sector driven economy; this, according to Naibo requires facilitating the private sector to access credit and the Bank is doing a commendable job in that regard.

Indeed, the revival of the banking sector and its increased lending to the private investment has helped drive the Rwandan economy to recovery with; between 1995 and 2014 average growth was 9.8 percent with GDP surging to almost US$8 billion from less than US$2 billion in 1994.

Poverty levels have also significantly dropped from 44.9 percent in 2011 to 39.1 percent in 2014 and extreme poverty from 24.1 percent to 16.3 percent, according to the latest Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey. 

Enabling banking products

As Rwanda undergoes economic transformation with people’s incomes and lifestyles improving, Bank of Kigali aims at developing innovative products that best respond to the new needs of its clients such as electronic/internet banking services that foster mobile financial services.

"Our internet banking subscribers have grown from 176 in 2006 to almost 10000 subscribers and we now have over 300, 000 customers using mobile banking, thanks to deep mobile phone usage penetration,” said Yvon Nshimwe, BK’s Electronic Banking manager.

The Bank’s ATM network today stands at 89 facilities from just six in 2006 and in a bid to promote a cashless economy, the Bank has also deployed over 850 point of sale (POS) machines to enable Rwandans use their cards to pay for items at shopping centers.

Arnold Ndibo is BK’s Card Business manager; he says the Bank offers all internationally recognizable cards including MasterCard and Visa credit and debit cards.

"With these cards you don’t need to keep a wallet full of cash, all one does is swipe to make payments and it comes with benefits as you not only build a strong credit history but also earn loyalty points,” said Ndibo adding that the Bank is currently developing a corporate credit card.

Today, 89 percent of Rwanda’s adult population has access to financial services according to the latest FinScope survey against the government’s target of 80 percent set for 2017.

Robinson Mbae, BK’s Agency Banking manager says Bank of Kigali’s agents numbering over 1080 and a fleet of mobile banking vans, have played a key role in taking the bank’s financial services to Rwandans in hard to reach areas.

"The BK-Yacu network has made our services accessible anywhere in Rwanda; with BK Money, our customers can send money from their BK-account to any registered phone number. And through our BK-push-pull service, customers can make transfers between their bank accounts and mobile money wallets across all three networks,” said Mbae.

Beyond its core business of lending money, Bank of Kigali has a robust Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy through which the Bank gives back to the community.

"Our CSR strategy is anchored on four main pillars which are promoting education, health, fighting poverty as well as conserving the environment,” said Dr. Shivon Byamukama, BK’s head of Corporate Affairs and Company Secretary.