Rwanda: What's Holding Back Uptake of Cashless Payments?

The Central Bank will in October launch its third cashless payment system awareness campaigns in a bid to drive uptake.

This is in line with government's ambitions of a cashless economy.

This will be the third campaign by the central bank and stakeholders to push through with efforts toward a cashless economy since 2015.

A review of data over the previous years show growth in uptake of cashless payment.

Stakeholders have also cited persistent challenges that have made cashless payments unfeasible.

According to the National Bank of Rwanda statistics, the number of transactions that were conducted through Point of Sales rose to 2.2 million as of June this year from 1.5 million in June last year.

The value of transaction through POS devices in the first six months of 2019 stood at Rwf100 billion.

Among the major drivers were the introduction of new types of Point of sales devices which as of June this year stood at 14,000 in total and expected to grow in the course of the year.

The number of traditional point of sales rose of 3046 as of June this year, the Central Bank says.

Mobile financial services remain the main driver of cashless payments.

At least six million mobile transactions valued at Rwf2,058 billion were carried out in the first half of 2019.

However, despite the increase in volumes and values of mobile financial services, further review of the data shows that a majority of it goes to airtime purchases, cash in and cash-out (Money transfers).

With that, a large portion of the transactions do not fully constitute as cashless payments but transfer platforms... Read more on All Africa

Source: Agence Ecofin