Bank of Kigali (BK), Rwanda’s leading bank by profit, on Tuesday announced strong profit margins in the first quarter of this year as it consolidated its leadership position in an increasingly competitive market.The bank unveiled its quarterly results during the investor briefing, where it said that it recorded a net income of Rwf3.2b with operating income of Rwf8.7b against total operating costs of Rwf3.9b.Rwanda’s banking industry is currently undergoing fundamental changes driven by a fully liberalised regulatory regime. BK’s total assets stood at Rwf303b, representing a 43.5 per cent growth in terms of year on year change.Net loans shot up by 26.2 per cent to reach Rwf132.4b while client deposits amounted to Rwf203.7b, possibly pointing to the fact that more people in Rwanda are embracing banking services.Shareholder’s equity, an important performance metric for those holding the bank’s shares at Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE), reached Rwf64.8 billion further signalling that the momentum and investor confidence in the BK stock is very likely to increase in the coming days. The growth in shareholders equity also means that BK is the most capitalised bank in the market. Top Bank officials revealed that BK will continue improving some of its key services in the industry such as retail banking. "We are pleased with the bank’s performance to date. In the second quarter of the year, we will continue to lay the ground for executing our ambitious retail strategy. We have launched our premier banking services and concluded the pilot phase of our MPAY product.  We will also start deploying enhanced deposit taking ATMs that do not use deposit envelops,” James Gatera, BK Chief Executive said.Gatera added that such new products will complement the Bank’s current VISA debit card thereby enabling customers to transact business without cash. BK has also started issuing its own VISA credit cards and it is set to rolling out its agency banking model that has been championed by new Kenya’s KCB and Equity. "Our retail deposits grew by 47.9 per cent year on year to reach Rwf58.6 billion while corporate deposits grew by 34.3 per cent amounting to Rwf145 billion,” Lawson Naibo, BK Chief Operating Officer said. This year, competition within the country’s banking sector took a different dimension with leading local players such as BK further realigning their services with focus on retail segment in order to fend off competition from new entrants from the region such as KCB and Equity.This larger realignment is aimed at maintaining its leadership position. BK  says that its key performance metrics are in line with sector best practice thereby enabling it to withstand  some of the emerging threats posed by stiff competition from new entrants.