Rwanda Bankers Association (RBS), a grouping of local bankers, plans to set up an institute that will help train practitioners in  different fields as a way of upgrading their working skills.

The association’s Executive Secretary, Jacky Mugwaneza, said on Tuesday that the institute will be operational within the next two years.

The association is building its own calendar for all sectors to be trained and also come up with a curriculum that can cover the whole financial sector, including Micro Finance institutions.

"We are planning to give the institute full capacity to also accommodate bankers from within the region,” Mugwaneza said at a two- day training workshop on trade finance and service programme.

"This is the first time we are conducting training on the trade finance programme and all banks in the country are represented.”

The training was facilitated by South Africa’s CITI bank.
Mugwaneza said the new development will help cut banks’ budgets on trainings.

"Some of the participants are new in the banking sector, some have been there but so many things have changed, where some systems used in 2010 have been dropped and two new systems have been introduced,” said one of the trainees, Simon Muntangana.

"We also come across a number of issues like e-documentation which, I think, is going to help us because we have got updated knowledge,” he added.

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