The digital era is upon us. Rwandans are increasingly embracing the changes as the country makes a swift transition to a cashless economy.
KCB Bank, alongside other banks is at the forefront revolutionizing digital banking to achieve the financial inclusion targets and attain sustainable growth and prosperity.
This Friday, under the theme ‘Digital Friday,’ the bank treated over 80 university students to a fun and educative afternoon on different banking technologies and encouraged the youth to embrace the change since Rwanda’s digital future depends on them.
Mr. Maurice Torotich, the Managing Director of KCB Bank Rwanda, encouraged the students to improve the quality of their lives by immersing in technology.
Students displayed eagerness to learn about mobile technology in the banking sector with many among them winning different prizes.
“In the world today, technology provides quick and affordable solutions, both in a social and economic context. Key to success will be early adoption, which is where we aim to take the lead by providing the youth with both innovative and timely technology,” said Torotich.
The banking services are strategically simplifying the lives of customers by transitioning from long queues and ATM machines to strengthening their digital presence.
“We live in an era where banking services are transitioning to mobile and web based platforms. This is a deliberate strategy to simplify the lives of our customers,” said Albert Akimanzi, Head of Marketing and Cooperate Communications, KCB Bank Rwanda.
The Bank has launched a mobile application that is envisioned to provide efficiency in the services it offeres.
This comes as an addition to the different technologies that they already have in store such as mobile payments, access to mobile loans, m-visa services and internet banking which boost the universal access to finance.
At the moment, online banking in Rwanda is limited to only few services.
Innocent Kaneza, an ICT expert says that he supports the move to a cashless economy but most banks in Rwanda do not offer online transactions.
“Banks do not make it easy for people in some services since some of them barely offer online payment solutions. This is a big challenge for business owners,” Kaneza told Taarifa.
He further said that expenses incurred by merchants online is slightly expensive.
Rwema Prince, a student at IPRC who attended the event said that he looks forward to learning the new innovations in the constantly changing markets. His main concern is on the transaction fee and interest rates.
“Online services may be expensive at times since sellers might deliberately charge more in order to evade tax. There needs to be a place we can report such fraudulent acts,” Rwema said.
He is not bothered by transaction fee for most services, but points out that there are other costs on the side that are usually incurred per transaction from the mobile operators.
