Bank of Kigali (BK) received approval from the Capital Market Advisory Council (CMAC) to float 45 per cent of its shares to the public and as well to list its entire issued capital on the Rwanda Stock Exchange.

According to the bank’s Marketing Manager, Januario Mucyo, official clearance from CMAC to grant BK authority to carry out its Initial Public Offering (IPO) will have to wait until next week.

"BK will get official clearance, as required by law, after deciding the market cost of each share and completing a few other negotiations,” Mucyo told the Business Times yesterday.

The IPO is expected to commence on June 30, 2011, where local and international investors will participate by buying the bank’s shares.

BK’s success this year has enabled it to introduce new products on the market, such as the women entrepreneurship package, which targets to empower low income women and the youth entrepreneurship package.

So far, hundreds of women around the country have applied with the bank to benefit from the package, which gives soft loans to the tune of Rwf5 million with low interest rates as startup to businesses.

Within the first quarter of this year, its net profit increased to Rwf1.9 billion from Rwf849.9m durin the same period last year.

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