Rwanda Calls for More Investment as Stock Markets Improve

winners at the Capital Market University Challenge 2017

Rwanda stock exchange (RSE) has asked citizens and investors to pool funds and savings to invest in the local bourse.

“I urge people to come together and form savings groups that save no matter how little monies they have together frequently to invest through the capital markets,” said Celestin Rwabukumba the CEO of RSE.

Many Rwandans have picked interest in buying shares with Rwanda’s best performing local commercial institution- Bank of Kigali (BK) which announced several changes to attract more shareholders.

For example, University students brought shares with BK, after winning Capital Market University Challenge 2017 and have in the last six months reported progress in the prospectus.

In the last two days BK shares have steadily increased from Rwf280 to Rwf295 per share as per today’s trading.

On the other hand, Bank of Kigali changed its name to ‘BK Group Plc’ after an extra ordinary general meeting approved the new brand name on December 6th, 2017 in which the bank approved an increase in share capital of Rwf3.480bn consisting of 348m ordinary shares valued at Rwf10 per share.

The increase in BK’s shares doesn’t come as a surprise especially that banks had the biggest scramble for the Rwf10billion 7-year Treasury bonds (T-Bond) rolled out by government recently, despite an increased application rate from retailers.

At the announcement of the T Bonds last month, retailers applied at a rate of 42% while banks had only 4% and institutional investors at 20%; but the closing of the oversubscribed allotment banks pulled 25.5% of the bonds while institutional investors grabbed high at 64.4% of the sold bonds.

BK remains the most competitive financial institution with a capital of at a time when multinational and regional banks have scaled down on opening new branches, resorting to closing some of the existing ones instead.

Reports indicate that continental banks like Ecobank is currently pulling down on its retail banking business with at least 12 branches lined up for closure ahead of 2018, which has already seen some of its branches in key commercial spots like Nyabugongo and Remera closing down completely.

On Thursday, the RSE predictions of an improving stock performance were evident as both the stock and shares index went up 2.16 and 0.31 point then closed at 134.39 and 133.34 respectively.

The performance was a result of BK adding ten more shares on its stake. Other counters however remained and traded constantly.

In a related development, the cashless Rwanda campaign was today taken to retailers operating in Rwanda’s business community hotspot districts of Nyanza, Muhanga, Ruhango and Kamonyi, with the expectation of increasing their compliance and contribution to the country’s target of becoming cashless by 2024.