Mobile phone subscribers reach 4.3m

Rwandans owning mobile phones have reached 4.3 million, says Dr. Ignace Gatare , Minister in the President’s Office in Charge of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Gatare disclosed this during a televised talk-show at Telecom house yesterday, which brought together, Mobile telecom operators, Banking sector officials, ICT stakeholders among others to chart ways on how to promote the use of mobile banking and electronic money transfer services. “We are very pleased by the increasing number of people accessing mobile phones, but this is not enough since the people using their mobile phones for banking and electronic money transfer are very few,” he said. Gatare underscored the need to increase the number of people using mobile banking like performing balance checks, account transactions, payments, credit applications and other banking transactions. He mentioned that in late 2009, the country had 2.4 million subscribers, adding that Tigo’s entry into the market boosted the mobile space in the country. The ICT Minister called upon stakeholders in the telecom, banking and the ICT sectors to ensure that Rwandans access the services of mobile banking and electronic money transfer saying that about 100,000 people using those services are still very few compared the 4.3 million people owning mobile devices. According to Pacifique Kabanda, Post-paid and Corporate Sales Manager at TIGO, his company is carrying out a massive campaign countrywide to enable the people understand how to use mobile banking and electronic money transfer services. “We have about 600 Tigo agents around the country assisting Rwandans how to operate those services and we are currently increasing the number of agents,” he stated. Innocent B Muhizi, Head of IT at Commercial Bank of Rwanda (BCR) said that strong partnership is needed between Telecom operators, banks and the government to make sure that mobile banking services reach all Rwandans. “BCR has introduced modern payment system using mobile phones and we want all Rwandans to access the service,” he noted. According to John Bosco Sebabi, Director Payment Systems Department in the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR), the services provide an efficient operating payment system for economic growth in the country. “We support mobile payment systems and we encourage all Rwandans to access these services because they are essential,” he added. He emphasised that, an awareness campaign was needed to enable people use mobile banking and electronic money transfer services. Ends