Banks commit to human skills development

Despite the global financial crisis coupled with the liquidity crisis, Bank of Kigali (BK) managed to attract Rwf4.5 billion net earnings from January to September 2009, and now the bank has endeavoured into Human Capital Skills Development (HCSD). By doing so, the bank embarked on hiring best performing students from some of Rwanda’s universities, to reduce the big number of un-professionals in the financial sector. According to the recent report by the National Bank of Rwanda (NBR), the banking sector is facing a serious problem of unprofessionalism. Also in an interview with the Business Times, Banque Populaire du Rwanda’s (BPR), CEO, Ben Kalkman, said that the sector indeed lacked trained professionals. He said that the sector was expecting School of Finance and Banking (SFB) to provide professionals but because of some shortcomings the banks have to hire and train their own staff which is time consuming and expensive. “To overcome the problem, Rwanda Banking Association (RBA) is setting up a school which will be called the Banker’s Institute (BI) and it will be starting operations next year. It will help with the lack of professionalism in the sector,” Kalkman explained. Bank of Kigali’s (BK) Chief Operations Manager, Lawson Naibo said at the contract signing ceremony, where 25 of the best students were being hired from SFB, KIST, Mudende and National University of Rwanda (NUR) that the hired students would receive external apprenticeship training and development in collaboration with Kenya Institute of Bankers and SFB. “We expect that in 18 to 24 months the graduates will be the best professional bankers in the Rwanda and we can export some to the region as we realize our regional growth vision,” Naibo explained. Naibo also explained that the bank’s strategy on HCSD is to recruit and select the best people in the market. “The bank is in a drive of developing a robust performance management system and linking with the various learning institution in the region,” he added. BK is the most profitable bank in Rwanda with the result registering over 50 percent of the banking sector’s overall profitability, according to the bank’s financial report 2008. Last year the bank returned a profit after tax of Rwf5.6 billion compared to Rwf4.2 billion in the previous year and the bank expects to surpass last year’s profits despite this year’s slowdown. Also according to the bank’s September report, the bank’s total assets grew by 20 percent this year compared to the same year period last year. Human capital is referred to as the stock of competences, knowledge and personality attributes embodied in the ability to perform labour so as to produce economic value. Ends

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Banks commit to human skills development