CHAPTER V: SUMMARY OF THE
FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5 1 Summary.
The previous chapters have attempted to address the topic that
the researcher identified as a pertinent issue.This chapter provides the
summary, conclusion and recommendations about the findings of the study.
The objectives of this study were:
- To identify the rationale of «banques populaires»
transformation from a cooperative to a commercial bank,
- To find out the impact of «banques populaires»
transformation from a cooperative to a commercial bank.
- To find out if there is any improvement in its services.
- To find out if it has in any way improved the economic
activities.
In June 2008 the Coöperatieve Centrale
Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank B.A. (Rabobank Group) acquired a minority stake of
35% in the newly formed Banque Populaire du Rwanda S.A. (BPR). The
transformation from the cooperative past towards becoming a fully fledged
retail & commercial bank -with strong cooperative roots- was completed.
The reasons or the rationale for the transformation according to
the respondents were:
- Acquiring license to offer a full range of financial services
in urban and rural areas;
- Strengthening the bank capacity to grant loans;
- To foster and strengthen high service quality and customer
care;
- To upgrade its core business from being a cooperative that
offers basic savings and credit services to
become a fully fledged retail bank;
Although it is difficult to evaluate the impact of this
transformation after only approximately one year and a half of operations in a
new system, according to the findings from this research it should be stressed
that a positive impact is visible:
The impact of this transformation can be appraised in
terms of the following areas:
An increase of the number of customers after the
transformation,
A big volume of collected deposits,
A big volume of granted loans,
A number of new products introduced after the transformation and
some of which the banks were not allowed to carry on as cooperative banks.
The impact can also be evaluated through the contribution of the
process of transformation and change of the banques populaires transformation
from a cooperative to a commercial bank in the promotion of financial sector in
Rwanda.
By going commercial, BPR upgraded its core business from being a
cooperative that offers basic savings and credit services to becoming a fully
fledged retail bank.
The new status acquired by the bank after transformation
conferred upon it the license to offer additional services that it was not
allowed offering. After the transformation the bank set up new departments and
launched new products in line with the new status acquired.
BPR SA has set up a commercial department having under its
portfolio product development, business development and marketing.
In product development, new products have been launched as part
of the fulfillment of BPR's mission of offering a wide range of financial
services in both urban and rural reas.
These include:
· Domestic money transfer among our branches using BPR
mobile counter
· Account services in foreign currencies (USD and
Euro)
· International money transfers via SWIFT
· A new savings account: GWIZA savings account
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