More Rwandans have access to financial services – study

Formation of Savings and Credit Cooperatives at sector level has helped more Rwandans to access formal financial services.Central bank said yesterday that the number of Rwandans that have access to formal financial services increased to 42 per cent of the adult population, from 21.1 per cent in 2008.The jump, according to the bank, was driven by the roll out of Umurenge Sacco totaling to 416, financial awareness campaign, competition in the banking sector, and introduction of mobile banking.“In a nutshell, restructuring of Microfinance Institutions and stiff competition among the banking sector highly contributed,” Amb Claver Gatete, the Governor National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) said yesterday during a presentation on monetary policy and financial stability of Rwanda.Citing a study conducted by FinScopeRwanda, the Governor said that adult population with access to informal financial services increased to 29.8 per cent from 26.4 per cent in 2008, which means that 71.8 per cent of Rwandans are financially included.The statistics also indicate that government is in line to attain its target of 80 per cent of the population getting access to financial services by the year 2017.Access to financial services is a key to mobiliing resources and increasing the savings culture thus contributing to inclusive growth.“It would not make any sense if we just publish figures that do not reflect the actual situation on the ground,” he said.Alphonse Munyentwari, the Governor of the Southern Province said through Saccos, farmers have come to know the benefits in saving and will do that.“True, before, saving was meant for rich people but farmers are encouraged to form associations, save and the figures presented are reflected in the rural community,” he said.According to Munyentwari, farmers in cooperatives are facilitated to access loans and honour their loan payments up to 95 per cent.“It’s in our performance contracts, group farmers in cooperatives save and reduce non performing loans to 5 per cent,” he said.Earlier this year, International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report citing limited access to financial services as a key constraint to growth across the East African Community.Through a working paper dubbed ‘Assessing Bank Competition within the East African Community, the IMF challenged new entrants for not taking the advantage to include the large number of the unbanked population. IMF team recommended that in order to strengthen bank competition and increase access to financial services, policy makers will need to aggressively pursue reforms aimed at eliminating the structural barriers to contestable banking systems in the region.The total assets of microfinance sector including Umurenge Saccos increased by 22 per cent from the end last year to June 2012, and recorded earnings worth Rwf94.6 billion from Rwf77.4 billion.

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More Rwandans have access to financial services – study