On 24 July 2026, Rwanda published Law No. 033/2026 of 24/07/2026 governing the National Bank of Rwanda (the 2026 Law). Most commentary focuses on what the law says today. I find it more useful to ask where it comes from, as it is the latest milestone on a journey that began in 1964, two years after Rwanda’s first Constitution. Since then, the central bank’s legal framework and the Constitution have continued to evolve side by side. The 1964 law created the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) as an autonomous public institution with capital of Rwf30 million. Its mission was to keep the currency stable and steer credit and foreign exchange towards the country’s economic development. It operated under a three-member Board comprising the Governor and two administrators. The State could owe the bank up to half of the previous year’s revenue. The bank was autonomous on paper, but it served as the government’s banker and lender. That model began to give way in the 1990s, when the bank moved from direct credit controls towards market instruments under structural adjustment. After the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, the country had to rebuild its institutions, and the 1997 law was part of that effort. It cut the State’s overdraft ceiling to 11% of ordinary revenue and limited the overdraft to 240 days a year. It enlarged the Board to seven members and gave the Governor a six-year term. The bank’s operations, however, were still overseen by censors: civil servants appointed by, and reporting to, the Ministry of Finance. The 1997 law spoke mainly of the value and stability of the currency. The 2007 law came as central banks around the world were settling on price stability as their primary responsibility, and Rwanda followed suit. Price stability became the bank’s mission, alongside maintaining a sound financial system and supporting the government’s economic policies. Capital rose to Rwf7 billion, and at least 30% of Board members had to be women. The 2017 law removed support for government policy from the bank’s mandate. It also created dedicated monetary policy and financial stability committees and abolished the censors, leaving the bank’s external audit to an independent auditor. The Governor’s annual report would now go to Parliament as well as to the President. The law also transferred the power to appoint the Deputy Governor and Board members to the President, following the constitutional amendments of 2008 and 2015. In 2021, an amendment brought trusts and company service providers under BNR’s supervision and removed the nationality requirement for Board members, allowing expertise to be sought wherever it could be found. This brings us to 2026, with three changes worth noting. First, the Governor and Deputy Governor are still appointed by Presidential Order, but appointments must now be made within 90 days of a vacancy and approved by the Senate, as the Constitution already allowed for heads of public institutions. Appointments to the bank’s leadership now involve two branches of the State rather than one. Second, crisis management and resolution become responsibilities of BNR itself. The bank may also provide emergency liquidity to institutions that are solvent but short of cash. The resolution tools were already provided for in the 2024 banking law, in line with the Financial Stability Board’s recommendations following the 2008 crisis. Under the 2017 central bank law, crisis management was solely a task of the Financial Stability Committee. Third, the State’s access to central bank financing is further restricted. In 1964, the State could owe the bank half of its revenue. Since 1997, the ceiling has been 11%. That ceiling remains, but advances must be repaid in cash within the same financial year. BNR may buy government securities only for monetary policy purposes, on the secondary market and at market prices, and never to finance the budget deficit. The State once leaned on the bank. Now the law sets out how, and how quickly, the State must stand behind it. There is more. The bank’s mandate brings growth back, but only as a result of stability, rather than as a separate goal. The Board expands from nine to eleven members, and no more than 30% of its members may be civil servants. The Governor, the Deputy Governor and one member from academia or research are excluded from that calculation. The 2007 law had set a minimum of 30% women on the Board at a time when women were still catching up in public leadership. With that gap now largely closed, the 2026 Law turns its attention to a new balance: between public servants and independent experts. Another change concerns the currency. In line with the Constitution, which gives the President the power to issue the national currency, the bank now manages the currency on behalf of the State. A Presidential Order determines which banknotes are legal tender and when old notes cease to be legal tender. In turn, the power to fix the exchange rate in exceptional circumstances moves from the President to the bank. The bank began in 1964 as a small currency-issuing and credit-control institution run by three people and closely tied to the Treasury. By 2026, it has become an independent central bank and financial-sector supervisor, with expert committees, a larger Board drawn from a wider range of expertise, tight limits on lending to the State, and accounting practices governed by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The writer is an Associate at ENS in Rwanda.
