The governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, John Rwangombwa, on Wednesday observed that with current mobile phone penetration rate in Rwanda, public in both business community and consumers should take advantage to pay using available digital payment platforms.
Speaking during a second phase of the digital payment awareness campaign on Wednesday in Kigali, the top Rwandan official stressed that as people send the money let’s also challenge the receivers to transact and pay directly rather than cashing it out.
By 2024, Rwanda’s Central bank emphasizes to facilitate the transformation of the country into a cashless economy by increasing mainly the number of digital payment acceptance points by least 15 times from 21.6 per 100,000 adults to 324.
So far the country managed to develop a cashless policy which is currently being used in government transactions with a target to ensure that 100% of all payments made by the government by next year, according to official projections.
Commenting on these trends, Rwangombwa called upon internet providers to increase the internet network accessibility and availability especially to the rural community.
Rwanda’s financial sector actors believe that once the payments market infrastructure is in place, the marginal costs for payments are low and positive externalities are present.
“We should not keep fighting to take the bigger portion of the cake but instead contribute to enlarge the network so that the above infrastructure is beneficial to everyone,” Rwangombwa said.
According to him, once the infrastructure is in place, sellers and buyers should be convinced that the payment order will be carried out—a necessary condition for people to be willing to use the system.
Currently Rwandan officials are emphasizing to increase awareness and education of e-payments among public and encourage innovative business models that offer a
strong value proposition for merchants and consumers to use digital payments.
Rwanda’s Vision 2020 seeks to transform the economy from a cash-based economy to a digital-driven economy, among other targets.
Estimates by Central bank indicate that the business community loses up to 6 per cent in non-electronic transactions compared to only 2 per cent if they used digital payment platforms.
CU/abj/APA