Rwanda has been ranked by Standard Investment Bank (SIB) as East African Community’s (EAC) most favourable investment destination for banks looking for regional expansion.The country tops its regional counterparts in terms of asset growth, profit after tax, cost to income ration and growth of its growth domestic product, SIB said in a report. The Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, Ambassador Claver Gatete attributed the profitability of the local banking system to good supervision which controls banks failures thus instilling high level of confidence in investors.“It’s a number of factors, combining good regulatory system, putting up a good payment system. All this encourages investors to join the market,” Gatete said.Recently Rwanda joined a new regional payment system, which is expected to facilitate trade and ease cross border money transfer within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) among other.The system was linked to the Rwanda Integrated Payment Processing System (RIPPS). “All companies are treated equally with no discrimination, they have health competition hence growing the economy,” Gatete added.The findings indicate that Rwanda scored 46 points to beat Tanzania by 14 points and Kenya by 7 points.Sanjev Anand, the Managing Director Rwanda Commercial Bank (BCR) said that; “The banking sector has been very stable for the past three years. It has enjoyed capitalisation and profitability.”Anand noted that investors are always attracted by stability, profitability and potential, where Rwanda scores highly.Rwanda has recently attracted a number of banks mainly from Kenya including I&M, Fina Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB Group) and Equity Bank.
