SACCO Professionalization and Development of a Cooperative Bank

Rwanda 

Umurenge SACCOs are small-scale Savings and Credit Cooperatives, which were founded in each Rwandan administrative sector in 2009. Overall, they are 416 autonomous institutions which serve 2.7 million members. Umurenge SACCOs have contributed significantly to the increase of financial inclusion of the poor and rural population. However, various structural obstacles hinder the sustainable performance of the sector. In order to address these obstacles, the Rwandan government initiated a professionalization program in 2015, to which German Sparkassenstiftung Eastern Africa, inter alia, makes the following contributions in the so called 3-C’s:   

• COMPUTERIZATION: Supporting the selection and advising in the development and deployment of a core banking software for the SACCOs. Assistance in implementing the data cleaning in the SACCOs as well as the data migration for each SACCO 

• CONSOLIDATION: Consulting in the professionalization of internal policies and procedures of the SACCOs and the Cooperative Bank. Participative business planning for 30 District SACCOs, to which the 416 Umurenge SACCOs shall be merged 

• COOPERATIVE BANK: Drafting a business plan and business model for a Cooperative Bank, which will take over the role of a central financial and non-financial service provider for the SACCO sector