New financial statistics indicate that the number of credit and debit cards have increased as the country sets new electronic payment targets towards a cashless society.
Central bank figures show that credit cards grew from 172 in 2010 to 3,531 this year, while debt cards shot from 41,377 to 872,476 in the same period.
This comes at a time when government has set 2024 targets of digital payment acceptance points from 37/100,000 to 324/100,000 and all government payments going a hundred percent digital.
Currently all government services, like children registration, national identity cards and marriage certificates, among others are paid through the Irembo platform.
However the new drive plans to have all payments made government to government going digital at 70 percent.
If this is achieved, electronic payments systems will represent 80% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which has currently rose by 4% in the second quarter of 2017, showing nominal GDP in the second quarter totalled Rwf1, 869 billion, up from Rwf1, 636 billion in Q2 2016.
In the meantime both the Rwanda stock market and shares index went down 0.16 and 0.02 point then closed at 133.97 and 133.28 respectively.
Today’s trading session recorded a total turnover of Rwf 153,500 from 1,900 shares traded in 2 deals.
But I&M Bank (IMR) counter felt the only drop as it closed at Rwf 95(Rwf96 previous). The trading session recorded a total turnover of Rwf 85,500 from 900 shares traded in 1 deal.
