Sector Credit and Savings Scheme commonly known as Imirenge SACCOS have been advised to invest in Capital markets as a way of maximizing profits for their members.

The counsel was given on Friday during an awareness meeting for SACCOS in Kigali organized by the Rwanda Capital Markets Authority (CMA).

The meeting gathered over forty SACCOS mostly represented by managers and presidents of the micro-finance institutions and more efforts will be made aimed at empowering SACCO leaders and their members with enough financial literacy to invest in capital markets.

Charles Faraha, the legal and corporate manager with the Rwanda Capital Markets Authority said it makes a lot of business sense to have SACCOs diversify ways of saving members' money to help them optimize benefits.

"SACCOS have a lot of money lying in the bank which does not help their members at all, but through investing in stock or other long term securities, they could make a lot of profits," remarked Furaha.

By January 31, at least 220 SACCOS in Rwanda had been fully licensed to grant loans. By mid 2011, sector credit and savings schemes had deposited a total of Frw 14.7b with Frw 1.8b given out as loans to members.

There are currently two local companies listed on the stock exchange, Bralirwa which listed in February 2011 and Bank of Kigali that followed suit in August the same year. There are also two cross listed companies, Nation Media Group and KCB, both from Kenya. Yet more companies have expressed interest.

Having started out four years ago, Capital markets are just growing but reportedly have a bright future, according to Shehzad Noordally general manger of CDH Capital.