Bank of Kigali has emerged as the best Bank in Rwanda during this year's Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2021.

The award recognizes the efforts of every staff at Bank of Kigali to deliver world-class services to their clients, according to the bank's management.

Since 1992, Euromoney Awards for Excellence rewards financial institutions for their achievements, innovations and performance over the last 12 months.

A team of experts analyses profitability, the ability to demonstrate growth, relative outperformance compared with peers and the ability to adapt to changing market conditions.

Bank of Kigali Plc, also Rwanda's largest commercial bank retains about a third of the local banking market.

Despite challenging conditions brought about by COVID-19 pandemic, the financial institution’s deposits and loan book grew above the market average last year, serving 356,299 retail customers as and 26,054 corporate clients.

Consequently, BK's net profit grew of Frw 38billion ($37.8 million) in 2020, despite a high cost of risk.

"At Bank of Kigali, we work tirelessly to exceed our customers’ expectations. We are delighted to have received the Best Bank in Rwanda award by Euromoney, as a testimony of our commitment to provide superior service to the customers we serve” said Dr. Diane Karusisi, Bank of Kigali CEO.

BK's digital offering is also in the ascendant with the institution's IKOFI mobile wallet, registering over 1,800 agro-dealers/agents and over 258,000 farmers by the end of last year.

Client relief initiatives

To support the economic recovery after the unprecedented conditions wrought by the pandemic, Bank of Kigali assisted its customers through different initiatives.

A loan relief product was rolled out to support the bank’s retail customers to deal with effects arising from the pandemic’s outbreak.

Similarly, a grace period was provided to the bank’s borrowing customers including SME and corporate customers.

In 2020, Bank of Kigali launched Zamuka Mugore, a product designed for women in business that provides affordable loans and competitive interest rates.

In its effort to increase protection of the bank’s information assets against threats, BK was also awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 standard for Information Security Management System (ISMS) as a sign of compliance to international standards.

As part of the efforts to give back to local communities, last year the bank held its 4th cohort of the BK Urumuri Initiative, an annual entrepreneurship competition which aims at supporting small and medium enterprises to access interest-free loans and intensive business training.

Under the initiative, more than 100 businesses have completed the program, and have received more than 100 million Frw with 0% interest loans from Bank of Kigali.

This year, Euromoney received a record number of submissions from banks in the regional and country awards programme that covers more than 50 regional awards and best bank awards in 100 countries.