In a fiercely contested race, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s largest bank, Rawbank, was named the country’s Bank of the Year. In addition to showing a strong financial recovery after plunging into a loss in 2020, the judges praised the bank for a series of key digital upgrades and product launches during the reporting period.

A particular milestone was the upgrade of the bank’s illicocash app, first launched in 2017. In 2021, the bank launched illicocash 2.0, enabling a wider range of payment options, including bank-to-wallet, wallet-to-bank, and the ability to link a bank account to the illicocash wallet, as well as international transfers and budget management. The bank also continued to upgrade its customer relationship management systems, which are increasingly cloud-based.

“Digitization is the new frontier in the banking industry, and the only direction is innovation to take the customer experience to the next level,” says Mustafa Rawji, Managing Director of Rawbank. “Our commitment to innovation is to enhance our illicocash digital wallet with new features that expand our customers’ digital ecosystem.”

In May 2021, Rawbank obtained custodian bank status, allowing it to open a securities trading room.

Following approval from the country’s Insurance Regulatory and Supervisory Authority in November 2021, the bank also began offering bancassurance products across its network, hoping to make significant progress in a country where insurance penetration is less than 1%.

After recording a loss of CnFr 91.7 billion ($45 million) in 2020, the bank has returned to profits in 2021, with a return on equity of 15.7%, well above its pre-pandemic level of 3.3%. Tier 1 capital and assets increased by 22.7% and 47%, respectively, with non-performing loans falling to 0.65% at the end of 2021.

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source: TheBanker