East African Business Week (Kampala)
Bosco Hitimana
2 November 2008
Kigali — Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) is set to open its first branch in Rwanda anytime this month, the bank's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has revealed.
"We have operations in Kenya, Uganda, Southern Sudan and Tanzania and we will be shortly opening our business here in Rwanda (may be) in November," the bank's CEO, Martin Oduor-Otieno said.
Martin Oduor-Otieno was attending the two-day first East Africa International Business Forum (EAIBF) concluded last week in Kigali.
He said the bank acquired the license to operate in Rwanda and has identified a suitable premise which is being refurbished for the first branch to open.
The bank's first branch in Rwanda will be located in the heart of Kigali city next to Banque de Kigali and opposite Kigali City Council Offices.
With its wide range of products and banking innovations, Oduor-Otieno said, the bank will offer Rwandans retail banking, savings account, and personal loans. KCB will also offer financing products like trade finance products and mortgage financing to the corporate sector.
"We are a fully fledged banking organisation. Mortgage financing is one of the areas with our key strengths which we will be bringing to this country," he said.
He also said the bank is also strong in card business and its clients in the country will also access credit cards for easy and quick business transactions.
"I must say that we have recently invested in the state of the art technology-banking platform in the last couple of weeks which we will be rolling out here in this country," he added.
KCB is investing US$10 to $15million inclusive of $8million minimum share capital required by the central bank to get licensed.
The bank seeks to open eight branches in the country in the next six months, three in Kigali city and the remaining five in major upcountry towns. At least two branches should be operating in Kigali before the end of this year.
With a branch network across East Africa, Oduor-Otieno said that Rwandans doing business across the region need not keep huge sums of money in cash instead they will be withdrawing their money from any branches across the borders.
"As a strong regional bank, we are ready to facilitate trade and investment across this region. They (clients) can deposit their funds here in Kigali and withdraw in Mombasa," he added.
He said this is possible because the bank runs a centralised system which allows clients to access their bank accounts in any branches across the region.
Currently ten Rwandans have been hired to team up with the bank's experienced staff to speed up the enrollment process in the country.
KCB is a Kenyan based bank with close to 150 branches across the region backed by over 276 Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) outlets.
The group runs operations in Uganda, Tanzania and Southern Sudan, serving close to one million clients inclusive of Kenya.
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