KIGALI | 15 June 2026 A landmark study released today by the National Bank of Rwanda (NBR), Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR), and the Women in Finance Rwanda Foundation (WIFR) reveals that Rwanda is outperforming global averages in women’s representation across financial sector leadership, while highlighting critical challenges in sustaining the pipeline of future women leaders.

The Women in Financial Services Rwanda 2025 Study is the first study of its kind in Africa and draws on data from more than 50 financial institutions and insights from over 1,500 professionals across Rwanda’s banking, insurance, pensions, investment management, and fintech sectors.

The study found that women hold 39% of Board seats, 39% of CEO/Managing Director positions, and 35% of Executive Committee roles in Rwanda’s financial sector, significantly exceeding global averages of 28%, 9%, and 23%, respectively.

However, the findings also reveal a persistent leadership pipeline challenge. Women account for 64% of non-managerial exits, receive 30% fewer promotions than men, and remain concentrated in support functions rather than technical and revenue-generating roles that typically lead to executive leadership.

While Rwanda has achieved notable success at senior leadership levels, women’s representation declines along the career pathway—from 56% at the non-managerial level to 43% in middle management, 36% in senior management, and 35% at the Executive Committee level. The study further highlights barriers, including workplace bias, limited sponsorship, maternity reintegration challenges, pay disparities, and concerns around workplace safety and reporting mechanisms.

The findings were presented at a high-level launch attended by financial sector leaders, policymakers, regulators, development partners, and private sector stakeholders to discuss the implications for Rwanda’s financial sector and the broader African financial services industry.

Leadership Perspectives

Soraya Hakuziyaremye, Governor, National Bank of Rwanda

“Rwanda has demonstrated that gender progress at the top is achievable, but the pipeline sustaining it remains fragile. This report provides practical insight into where institutions need to act to ensure talent is recognized, supported, and able to progress.”

Agnès Uwanyiligira, Ag. CEO, Access to Finance Rwanda

“Women’s economic participation is directly linked to the resilience and competitiveness of our financial sector. This study provides evidence that can help institutions take more deliberate and measurable actions.”

Lina Higiro, Founding Chair, Women in Finance Rwanda Foundation

“The gains we are seeing are encouraging, but sustaining them will require stronger leadership commitment, active sponsorship, and greater transparency in measuring progress. Rwanda has shown what is possible at the top; the next step is ensuring that more women successfully navigate the journey to leadership.”

Recommendations

To strengthen the leadership pipeline for women in financial services, the report recommends:

• Board-approved gender targets and accountability frameworks.
• Gender-disaggregated workforce reporting and transparency.
• Enhanced sponsorship and leadership development opportunities for women.
• Independent whistleblowing mechanisms and stronger workplace protections.
• A sector-wide roadmap to accelerate progress toward gender-balanced leadership by 2030.

The study provides a baseline for action and positions Rwanda as both a leader in women’s representation and a model for how financial institutions can build more inclusive, competitive, and sustainable leadership pipelines.

About the Study

The Women in Financial Services Rwanda 2025 Study is the first study of its kind in Africa, providing a comprehensive assessment of gender representation, career progression, workplace experiences, and leadership pathways across Rwanda’s financial services sector.

Commissioned by the National Bank of Rwanda, Access to Finance Rwanda, and the Women in Finance Rwanda Foundation, and conducted by Oliver Wyman, the study combines workforce data from more than 50 financial institutions with survey responses and interviews from over 1,500 financial services professionals. The findings provide an evidence-based baseline to inform policy, institutional action, and industry-wide efforts to strengthen the leadership pipeline for women in financial services.

The blog explores how Rwanda has made significant progress in digital financial inclusion through mobile money and digital payments. It also highlights the challenges that remain out of reach for rural communities, women, and low-income populations.

Rwanda’s digital money efforts have reached 85.3% of Rwandans, or 7 million people. The difficult question is whether it works for them, and the case of two Rwandans makes that clear. The first is a salaried civil servant in Kigali who pays her electricity bill, her children’s school fees, and her health insurance entirely through her phone. She never visits a single counter. The second is a young woman who sells vegetables at a weekly market in the Southern Province. She has heard of mobile money and even lives within walking distance of an agent. Yet, she does not own a mobile phone, lacks a regular income, and has never made a digital transaction in her life.

Both women are Rwandan adults. Yet, only one of them is counted among the 85.3% of Rwandan adults who are now digitally financially included, based on the AFR FinScope 2024 Digital Financial Services Thematic Report. This figure places Rwanda among the highest-included countries in sub-Saharan Africa, a remarkable leap from just 46% in 2016. However, behind it lies a more complex story about who digital financial services truly reach and how they do so.

Rwanda’s digital financial inclusion story is one of mobile money. The AFR FinScope 2024 report shows that the vast majority of adults now have access to mobile money services, while banks serve just 1.5% of adults. These mobile money platforms, not bank branches, brought most Rwandans into the financial system. The mobile money services are delivered through basic phones and SIM cards, primarily through providers, such as MTN Rwanda and Airtel Rwanda.

People are drawn to mobile money platforms above all by the need to pay businesses, especially for medical expenses, utilities, and airtime, which top the list. Rwanda’s national digital payment platform is eKash. It enables instant, interoperable transfers across banks and mobile money networks, which makes these everyday transactions seamless.

Government and regulatory action have amplified this momentum. The National Bank of Rwanda’s Payment System Strategy and Law No. 061/2021 mandated interoperability across providers. The Twagiye Kashiresi digital literacy campaign boosted merchant payment volumes, while the COVID-19 period served as an accelerant. Estimates indicate that 9% of Rwandan adults became first-time mobile money users during this period, with an additional 13% who increased their usage.

Yet, access is not the same as use, and use differs from transformation. Rwanda has built a remarkable platform, but the data shows that most people use it primarily for bill payments. The fuller potential of this platform includes digital wage receipts, safe savings, and loan repayment without a branch visit, which remain out of reach for most.

Only 15.4% of adults receive their income digitally. Most of those who do save formally keep their money in a mobile money account, yet informal channels still command a significant share of savings. For many people, especially those with low and unpredictable incomes, savings groups offer a more flexible, accessible, and trusted way to manage money. Village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) are groups that allow small, frequent contributions and quick access to funds when needed, and only 14% of borrowers repay loans digitally.

Rwandans use digital accounts for transactions, but not yet as tools for financial management. This is the access-usage gap, and it matters because the transformative potential of digital finance lies not in the payment itself, but in what the payment can unlock.

The 1.2 million adults who remain entirely excluded have a clear profile. Rural residents comprise 84.7% of this group, and women account for 61.2%. Half of the excluded are young, and 80% have not progressed beyond primary school. Casual workers and street vendors account for nearly half of this group at 44.9%, and most earn irregular incomes with no steady relationship with any financial institution.

The primary barrier is simple and concrete, as 68% of non-mobile money users cite a lack of cell phone ownership as the main reason for not using mobile money. It is not the complexity of service, high fees, or distrust of the system. The network infrastructure around many of these people already exists, with 69.6% of excluded adults living within reach of a reliable Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) signal. The infrastructure is largely in place, but most excluded adults do not own a device.

Beyond devices, attitude plays a role. Many excluded adults prefer to deal with people rather than machines and prefer cash payments. These attitudes are not irrational preferences, as they reflect trust, habit, and the social fabric of informal financial life, but they are also addressable. 65.3% of excluded adults live within 1 km of a mobile money agent, which means the last mile is shorter and more solvable than it seems.

Exclusion also has a gender dimension, as two out of every three excluded adults are women. The gender gap in digital financial inclusion is present across all age groups and widens with age, which reflects deeper structural constraints. Lower phone ownership, less control over household income, and reduced exposure to formal financial services all play a role.

Kenya’s M-Pesa is the most-cited comparator for Rwanda. M-Pesa turned a payment tool into an economic lifeline in Kenya, with more than 34 million subscribers and 300,000 agent outlets. It enabled microloans, salary disbursement, and integration into government services. The lesson is that coverage and ecosystem depth determine how widely people use a platform.

India’s Aadhaar-enabled ecosystem offers a second model for Rwanda. India simplified the account-opening process and enabled direct benefit transfers at scale by linking biometric identity to financial access. Rwanda’s existing national ID infrastructure and eKash platform are natural foundations for a similar approach, particularly for the Umurenge SACCOs and cooperatives that remain only partially connected to the national payment switch.

Nigeria’s interoperability push shows how cross-platform connectivity expands trust and use among previously excluded populations. Rwanda’s eKash is already a move in this direction. Yet, full extension to savings and credit cooperative organizations (SACCOs) that serve rural communities remains an unfinished piece of the puzzle.

On the technology frontier, AI credit models can use mobile money transaction history to extend small loans to users without formal credit records. Rwanda’s planned CBDC pilots from 2026 offer an entry point to bring excluded populations into the digital system for the first time through transparent government-to-person payments. These tools shift the system from access to utility.

Rwanda’s digital financial inclusion journey has reached an inflection point. The groundwork is largely in place, with the mobile money built, agent networks expanded, and the near-universal access achieved in urban areas. The country should be proud of this next step that goes beyond technology to reach a point where digital financial services become genuinely useful and trusted. These services should reach the vegetable seller in the Southern Province, the rural woman without a phone, and the young casual worker who has never had a reason to go digital.

Affordable devices, liquid networks of well-trained agents in the most underserved zones, and products designed for irregular incomes rather than salaried employees alone must drive the next step. It means fee transparency, local-language interfaces, and patient community-level work to build digital confidence where cash remains the default.

The AFR FinScope 2024 report provides Rwanda’s policymakers, providers, and development partners with a precise map of where the gaps are and who carries them. Rwanda has solved access, and the next step will not be measured by the number of accounts opened, but by the lives changed.

This blog draws on findings from the AFR FinScope 2024 Digital Financial Services Thematic Report, published by Access to Finance Rwanda.

Rwanda is making a compelling case that the future of inclusion will depend not only on innovation itself, but also on the digital public infrastructure that allows it to scale and reach more people.

Known as Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), these systems form the foundation that connects people, businesses, and markets. Built on three core pillars — digital identity, payments, and data-sharing frameworks — DPI creates the digital rails that allow services to move efficiently, much like roads support the movement of people and goods.

The role of DPI took centre stage during the Inclusive FinTech Forum 2026, held in Kigali from March 10 to 12, where policymakers, development partners, and industry leaders explored how such infrastructure can accelerate inclusion and expand access to financial services.

Hosted by the Ministry of ICT and Innovation, the Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA), and Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR), the forum’s DPI Track examined how shared digital systems can help fintech companies grow faster, reduce costs, and serve people who remain excluded from formal finance.

Closing the inclusion gap

Across Africa, fintech innovation has expanded access to mobile payments, digital wallets, and credit. However, gaps persist. Millions of people, particularly women, low-income households, smallholder farmers, and small businesses, still struggle to access affordable and appropriate financial services.

Fragmented systems and limited interoperability continue to constrain progress. According to the World Bank, 420 million adults in Africa were financially excluded as of 2022.

In Rwanda, significant strides have been made. Digital financial inclusion stands at 85.3 per cent of adults — about 7 million people — according to FinScope 2024. The challenge now is no longer access alone, but how to build systems that make digital finance more inclusive, scalable, and trustworthy.

Enabling fintech through shared infrastructure

Speaking during the forum, the Minister of State in the Ministry of ICT and Innovation, Yves Iradukunda, emphasised that while fintech innovation is transforming how people transact and access financial services, its full impact depends on the underlying infrastructure.

“The ability for fintech to reach the underserved population depends heavily on digital public infrastructure, which should support their operations and their service capabilities,” he said.

He stated that systems such as digital identity, interoperable payments, and secure data exchange provide the shared foundation on which innovators can build, enabling faster innovation, lower costs, and wider reach.

A coordinated national approach

A key factor behind Rwanda’s progress has been its deliberate effort to avoid fragmented implementation.

“Our approach has been a whole-of-government approach. Not looking at silos type of implementation, but a cohesive approach to transform the country using digital tools,” said Antoine Sebera, Chief Executive Officer of RISA. 

Antoine Sebera, CEO, Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA), speaking on one of the DPI Track sessions at IFF2026.

He underscored the importance of foundational infrastructure — including connectivity, smartphone access, and digital literacy — to ensure that digital systems translate into meaningful use for citizens and businesses.

Reaching the underserved

For Access to Finance Rwanda Chief Executive Officer Jean Bosco Iyacu, DPI is not just a technical framework, but a pathway to inclusion.

“I’m a firm believer in DPI because it unlocks value, but also it touches the vast majority of the underserved and unserved segments of the population,” he said.

Jean Bosco Iyacu, CEO of Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR), said that fintechs should look beyond the market’s most crowded segments

He pointed out that traditional financial systems have struggled to close the inclusion gap quickly enough. By contrast, DPI reduces friction, lowers integration costs, and expands access.

“With DPI, you have a single integration; you access the entire market,” Iyacu said.

This shift is particularly important for fintech innovators, who often face high costs and complexity when integrating with multiple financial institutions. Shared infrastructure allows them to focus more on designing relevant products rather than negotiating access.

Iyacu also urged fintech firms to look beyond payments, which have driven much of the sector’s growth across Africa. He identified insurance, wealth creation tools, digital lending, and capital markets as the next frontier for inclusion.

Beyond access to real inclusion

The discussion also highlighted that access to digital tools alone does not guarantee meaningful participation in the economy.

Lee Naik, Chief Executive Officer and Regional President of TransUnion Africa, underscored that real inclusion goes beyond owning a mobile wallet or digital ID.

Economic participation, he observed, is realised when individuals and businesses can access services that improve their livelihoods — such as credit for farmers, working capital for traders, or financing for entrepreneurs.

The implication is clear: digital systems must move beyond enabling transactions to unlocking broader economic opportunities.

The role of policy and trust

Speakers emphasised that the success of DPI depends as much on governance and policy as it does on technology.

Effective digital public systems require clear regulatory frameworks, institutional coordination, and safeguards that protect users while encouraging innovation.

At the same time, experts cautioned against a one-size-fits-all approach.

“Digital Public Infrastructure is not a one-size-fits-all model. Governance arrangements will differ across countries. What matters is allowing countries to shape the right policies, governance, and guardrails for their own context,” said Nanjira Sambuli, Senior Advocacy Officer for Africa Inclusive Financial Systems and Digital Public Infrastructure at the Gates Foundation.

Key considerations include data privacy, security, ownership, and user consent, alongside ensuring that regulation remains flexible enough to support innovation.

A continental opportunity

While much of the discussion focused on Rwanda, the implications extend across Africa.

As the continent advances integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area, fragmented systems continue to make cross-border transactions costly and inefficient. More interoperable digital infrastructure could help address these challenges, enabling smoother trade and stronger economic connectivity.

In this context, DPI is not only a tool for domestic inclusion, but also a building block for a more integrated and competitive African economy.

From ambition to implementation: Rwanda’s case for DPI

For Rwanda, that momentum is already visible. The country has made deliberate investments, adopted a coordinated approach, and positioned digital transformation as part of national development rather than a narrow technology agenda. 

Yves Iradukunda, Minister of State, Ministry of ICT and Innovation, delivers his remarks at the DPI track at IFF2026

Through collaboration with the National Bank of Rwanda and RISA, Access to Finance Rwanda is supporting the development of a Credit Market Infrastructure — a shared digital platform designed to modernise the country’s credit ecosystem. The system connects financial service providers, data providers, and borrowers through standardised Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and automated processes.

The initiative initially focuses on addressing challenges in agricultural lending, a sector that remains underserved despite its importance to the economy.

AFR is also supporting the Agriculture Management Information System, developed with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, which aims to help farmers access financial services, advisory support, and market opportunities through a digital platform.

Supporting long-term development

These efforts align with Rwanda’s Vision 2050, which places technology and innovation at the centre of economic and social transformation.

Digital Public Infrastructure is expected to play a critical role in this agenda by enabling efficient service delivery, expanding economic opportunities, and strengthening resilience.

By prioritising national coordination, fostering regional collaboration, and supporting innovation ecosystems, Rwanda is laying the strong foundation for a more inclusive digital economy. 

Key players at the recent launch of Rwanda DPI Day in Kigali on March 9.

The bigger picture

Discussions at the Inclusive FinTech Forum underscored a key reality: Africa does not lack innovation or ambition. The challenge lies in building the foundational systems that allow these innovations to scale effectively.

For Rwanda, the focus has shifted from simply expanding access to ensuring that digital systems deliver meaningful impact — enabling people and businesses not only to transact, but to grow, invest, and participate fully in the economy.