A local commercial bank hailed as a market leader within the mobile banking sector has enlisted 80,000 new clients after a one-week promotional campaign targeting rural dwellers.

Salma Ingabire, the mobile banking product manager Banque Populaire Du Rwanda-BPR the leader in the mobile banking said that the bank registered 80,000 clients in one week most of them drawn from rural areas.

"The numbers have been extremely picking up due to promotion campaigns and BPR’s network automation project,”  she said, adding that many of the new clients are from rural areas who are now increasingly being brought into the formal banking segment.

Ingabire further said that such clients stand to enjoy additional services such as the ability  to transfer money to non account holders through what is known as Automated Teller Machine(ATM) cash out service.

"The system generates security codes sent to both the initiator’s and the recipient’s mobile devices. The recipient can walk to any BPR ATM and withdraw the cash using the security codes”, she told Business Times on Saturday.

Ingabire notes the ATM cash out service which is the first of its kind in the Rwandan market, mobile banking users will also be able  to transfer cash to non account holders and withdrawal from an ATM via a card less system.

Paul Van Apeldoorn, BPR’s Chief Commercial Officer said that farmers will access markets, price information and financial opportunities direct from  their mobile phones in bid likely  to boost the agricultural sector.

Ingabire is hopeful that the bank’s ATM network when combined with mobile banking services can be used to boost banking penetration in the rural areas.

"I expect that with more of such channels being adopted, there is room in the future for  providing for more options that will ultimately lead to bringing these people closer to financial institutions”, she said.

Francois Munyaneza, a farmer in Ngoma District said he is optimistic that mobile banking will boost his farming activities as he stands to be paid much more easily unlike before through mobile money.

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