Bank of Kigali, yesterday, donated 500 solar panels to poor households, and surprised customers with a ‘cake sharing’ ceremony as it officially launched yearlong activities to celebrate its 50th anniversary since incorporation.

Bank of Kigali got its current banking license in December 1966, and started operations in February 1967 making it the country’s second oldest financial institution after the former Banque Commerciale du Rwanda (BCR). It is Rwanda’s largest lender. 

The cake sharing ceremony took place at 10am in all Bank of Kigali’s 78 branches across the country, with the main event held at the Bank’s head office in Kigali 

BK employees, led by chief executive Diane Karusisi, and members of the bank’s board of directors, led by chairman Marc Holtzman, assembled in the main banking hall where they unveiled a giant colourful cake designed in the shape of the BK headquarters building in downtown Kigali.

Customers, most of whom were parents out to pay school fees for the new academic year, were served with a piece of the anniversary cake, which the bank explained was symbolic of the ‘sweet service’ that it aspires to offer to its customers.

The yearlong celebrations will be held under the theme, "Fifty years together; committed to do more,” said Dr Karusisi said in a brief statement during the cake sharing ceremony.

The activities will include launching new subsidiaries such as BK General Insurance, BK TecHouse, a national savings campaign, and a grand anniversary gala to be held at the end of March 2017, the bank said.

Addressing the media, Dr Karusisi thanked stakeholders that have been part of the BK’s growth story in the last fifty years, reserving her highest gratitude for the bank’s customers and shareholders whom she described as ‘the bedrock of our success.’

"We have been in business for half a century but our strongest growth has been recorded in the last two decades after our country’s liberation, which ushered in political stability, security and enabling policies for which we owe our success,” Karusisi added.

Holtzman said BK was celebrating 50 years at a time when the banking sector is undergoing profound changes driven by digital technologies, adding that experts believe that the sector will change more in the next ten years than in the previous three hundred years.

"For me, it is very exciting. The next fifty years will be about staying focused on the bank’s vision of being the leading provider of the most innovative financial services to businesses and individual customers.

"If we do that and if we continue to do that in 50, 100 years from now, I believe that we will be able to support Rwanda’s ambitious development agenda and at the same time have such a positive impact on the lives of our customers,” he said.

Giving back to community

Bank of Kigali’s golden anniversary activities will also see a number of charity interventions in areas of environmental conservation, education, health, and poverty alleviation, in line with its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy.

"In that regard, today we have donated 500 solar panels, which we project to benefit at least 2,500 members of needy households that currently don’t have electricity as a way of supporting government efforts to promote rural electrification in our country,” Dr Karusisi told journalists.

Vincent Munyeshyaka, the state minister for social economic development at the Ministry of Local Government, who received the solar panels on behalf of the Government, lauded Bank of Kigali’s intervention, saying it was a true act of corporate leadership.

"With this intervention and many others in the past, your success in the last 50 years will be felt in the lives of the people that will benefit from these solar panels. We thank you for your support and wish you a successful year of celebrations that you have started today,” he said.

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