The National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) has said that journey towards a cashless economy 2024 was on track with the strengthening the e-payment system.

The claim was made by the Deputy Governor of the bank, Monique Nsanzabaganwa, while presenting the bank’s 2017-2018 report to the Senatorial Standing Committee on Economic Development.

"We are 30 per cent complete towards a cashless economy and we continue to transform the country by securing, providing accessible and reliable services,” she said.

The committee particularly raised the issue in the e-payment system especially in the use of ATM cards.

Senator Evariste Bizimana said that during the National Leadership Retreat, leaders agreed to promote a cashless economy but that there were challenges that prevented people from adopting the e-payment.

"Banks have various charges for their ATM which is quite expensive for some customers, problems with networks where ATMs fail to dispense money yet the transaction has been completed. It requires one to go through a long process of filling forms in order to be reimbursed,” he complained.

"Sometimes the cards only work locally and cannot be used outside the country”.

The Director-General of the Department of ICT in BNR, Justin Rurazi, aid that they were aware of the problem and were addressing them.

"We have talked to RURA on the issue of network problems that affect ATM and it is in the process of being resolved. Meanwhile, we have set standards for ATM cards and we evaluate them to check what causes problems when using them,” he said.

"Whether it is a technical issue to be addressed by refunding the customer in a short period of time or hackers, there are minimum days set for investigations to be done.

But we cannot impose banks to use international cards although we will discuss the issue of high charges with the banks”.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com