Bank of Kigali has selected Temenos, a banking software company based in Geneva, Switzerland, to power its digital transformation journey as it continues to expand regionally and realize its financial inclusion objectives.

With the services of the Swiss firm, Bank of Kigali aims to gain business agility and dramatically lower the cost of deployment.

With the new system, the bank could deliver innovative products and services specifically to underserved segments of the economy and key population demographics like the youth and the unbanked.

Bank of Kigali plans to grow the number of customers to one million by 2021, from the over 400,000 the bank currently has, according to the lender’s projections

The bank is the biggest commercial bank in the country by total assets.

The new system has capabilities and functions such as advanced analytics, reporting, risk and compliance modules among others provided by the Temenos Payments product.

Bank of Kigali is currently looking to drive its transactional growth revenue through both retail and insurance and brokerage business.

Temenos banking software could help the bank simplify and automate its processes, significantly grow its digital banking customer base and provide a 360-degree customer view through a single digital banking platform.

By implementing Temenos’ software, the bank will be in position to introduce innovative products and services more quickly to support its growth ambitions and continue to pursue its vision of becoming the financial institution of choice.

The bank will leverage Temenos' global expertise and 25 years of banking software experience as well as the firm’s commitment to invest 20 per cent of revenues into research and development every year.

Dr. Diane Karusisi, Chief Executive of Bank of Kigali said that the development will form the foundation to drive their three-year digital transformation strategy.

"Temenos' cloud-native and cloud-agnostic banking software will help reduce deployment costs and drive simplicity and efficiency of operations. The new open digital banking platform will enable us to gain a deeper understanding of our customers’ needs and allow us to provide the best-in-class customer experience,” she said.

Jean-Paul Mergeai, the Managing Director Middle East and Africa at Temenos, said: "We believe that financial institutions can only become truly digital when they transform their end-to-end operations and we are the best provider to help them realize their digital vision,” Mergeai said.

He added that the system functionality and cloud technology will place the lender in an ideal position to drastically reduce time to market and cost and at the same time expand its digital customer base and promote financial inclusion both in Rwanda and throughout the region.

Temenos has a longstanding presence with over clients in the East African providing real-time and scalable banking software.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com