Bank of Kigali has announced a series of tariff changes on its digital services and products, which according to the bank are aimed at making it easier for Rwandans to transact digitally and consequently promote a cashless economy.
The bank has, among other things, revised transaction fees on mobile and online banking, card payments as well as ATM operations.
In some areas, the bank has put in place tariffs to discourage the use of cash and in others, removed or reduced tariffs to boost electronic and digital transactions.
There is good news for those with SMS alerts for any transactions. The Bank would charge Rwf 50 for any alert but this service will now be offered free of charge to boost mobile banking.
The bank has also slashed account transfer fees, bringing the cost down to only Rwf 100 from Rwf 300 per transaction when using mobile banking or the mobile Application.
Other changes include removing charges for issuing or renewal of expired debit cards. The cost of renewal for the debit cards was Rwf7,500 and Rwf6,780 for Visa or MasterCard respectively.
If you had a BK card and were using a BK ATM to withdraw, there was no charge. That has changed as the bank has also introduced a fee of Rwf200 per transaction.
However, the bank has increased the ATM daily withdraw limit from Rwf200,000 to Rwf400,000.
Nathalie Mpaka, BK’s chief financial officer said that they are continually looking into how best to encourage Rwandans to acquire and use cards.
"Since we started investing in digital products, the uptake of cards has never been great. People are still using chequebooks and still queue to make transactions at the counter, despite having online platforms,” Mpaka said.
"We are saying if the cost of transacting using these digital platforms are high, let us now invest in the acquisition of these cards, and let’s charge a small fee because we still argue that customer experience is much better on a digital platform,” she added.
With the group’s plan to list on Nairobi Stock Exchange, the bank hopes to raise between $10m and $20m part of which will be used in the digitalisation strategy.
The bank official also highlighted that they are investing in sensitising their clients on the benefits of digital services and products.
editorial@newtimes.co.rw