August 16th, Tuesday... BNR Examination

UOB dates back to 1997 when World Relief Rwanda started Urwego Community Banking, providing micro finance for Rwandan poor as a post-genocide relief work. It became an independent MFI in 2004 and became a licensed bank in 2007 when it merged with Opportunity International's green field bank.

Since it became a bank, BNR (National Bank of Rwanda) has kept postponing its first examination on UOB until July when we suddenly received a team of five (5) bank examiners from the central bank. They stayed at the bank for almost a month to examine the first and largest micro finance bank in Rwanda. Obviously they did not have an established examination procedures on micro finance banks. So it was a learning opportunity for them.

Overall, the examination processes went well.

Today, they wanted to talk to me, asking several questions to which they could not obtain answers from our staff. This meeting went well.

Now we are waiting for the examination report. We are praying that the report on this first ever examination will come out clean and positive. It will be another opportunity to witness how gracious our God is. - Jeffrey