Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Toroitich plans new products, better client service to grow BPR

Customers wait to be served at BPR headquaters.
Customers wait to be served at BPR headquaters. The bank’s new CEO plans to improve customer satisfaction. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA | NATION 
By ROBERT MBARAGA
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The new managing director of Banque Populaire du Rwanda — Part of Atlas Mara — Maurice Toroitich, has vowed to focus on customer satisfaction as a strategy to take advantage of the bank’s countrywide network.
Mr Toroitich, who was the managing director of KCB Rwanda, said that under his tenure, Banque Populaire du Rwanda (BPR) will use its countrywide network to enter new market segments.
In an exclusive interview with Rwanda Today, Mr Toroitich said poor service delivery has negatively affected the bank and working on it “not only makes business sense, but also benefits customers.”
“Customers with a BPR account have not been using other banks because of not being satisfied with our services,” he said.
BPR understands that besides having lost customers to competition in recent years it has many customers in its system who are doing very little business with it, because their services are not adequate.
Stakeholders including directors have confirmed that the CEO held meetings to talk about the focus on customer satisfaction, after he took over the office recently.
However, it is not yet clear what the bank will do to improve customer satisfaction but confirm this will involve reviewing people, premises, prices, products and “everything else that has an impact on the customer.”
“I am only a few days into the business and I can’t necessarily say that I will change anything, but I will make sure that customers have the best experience that they can have when dealing with BPR,” said Mr Toroitich.
Performance standards
He said the emphasis will be on building a service philosophy and having key performance standards that the team is accountable for.
In terms of products, the new BPR CEO will rely on the bank’s network of more than 190 branches to build a strong base in SME banking.
According to Mr Toroitich, there are plans to inject funds into key sectors of the economy including in agriculture and mining, which reports show have previously been neglected by the banking sector.
Despite the agriculture sector being termed risky, Mr Toroitich said BPR will come up with special products like funding irrigation equipment and lending to entrepreneurs who seek to add value to agricultural production.
One of the biggest assignments Mr Toroitich faces, is to reconcile the bank’s competitive advantage, which has to do with its network of more than 190 branches and its plans to close down the less profitable branches.
Around 20 branches were flagged for closure, but the new leadership says the need to keep its customer base will involve coming up with other strategies such as agency banking before closing any branches.
Another challenge is the high number of non-performing loans (NPLs), which stands at nine per cent, coupled with a high cost-to-income ratio.
The recent monetary policy and financial stability statement by the Central Bank (BNR) highlighted the danger that NPLs pose to the economy. BNR requires the NPL ratio to be below five per cent.
Cost cutting measures such as workforce reduction, helped the bank reduce its cost-to-income ratio from 98 per cent to 80 per cent in the past one year. However, the need to improve the ratio is still significant.

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