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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