The Prime Minister Dr Justin Nsengiyumva speaking in Parliament on Friday
KIGALI — Rwanda’s government is stepping up efforts to make thousands of informal savings groups safer after the authorities found that nearly 15,000 ibimina now hold billions of Francs.
Prime Minister Dr Justin Nsengiyumva announced the figure while presenting the government’s financial-sector progress report to both chambers of Parliament on October 2.
He said the government is improving the way ibimina operate. The goal is to increase transparency, prevent theft and protect members’ money.
Ibimina are not new to Rwanda.
They have been used for generations as a simple way for people to support one another financially.
Friends can form an ikimina. So can family members, workmates, neighbours or other groups.
Members agree on how much each person will contribute. They then contribute the agreed amount at regular intervals.
The arrangement can take different forms.
In some groups, members collect money for a specific purpose. Once the purpose is achieved, the group ends.
In others, members agree that the entire collection will go to one member at a time. The next collection goes to another member. This continues until everyone has received the agreed amount.
Some groups also use the money to help members meet an emergency or finance a particular activity.
Increasingly, ibimina are also using banks and other financial institutions to hold their money instead of keeping cash among members.
The basic principle remains the same: members pool their resources to support one another.
Government policy now seeks to make these arrangements more reliable.
The move comes as ibimina have become an important part of Rwanda’s financial landscape. The government says there are now nearly 15,000 of them, holding close to Rwf54 billion.
The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning has also recently outlined a formal framework for the operation of tontines, another term used for such collective savings arrangements. The framework recognises their role in Rwanda’s social and economic life.
Under the framework, a tontine is a group that contributes money to create collective savings and can lend money to its members under agreed conditions. A group must have at least five members and operate under an agreed common purpose.
The government’s wider financial-inclusion strategy still treats many ibimina as informal financial arrangements. The National Financial Inclusion Roadmap says such groups are generally outside direct regulation by the National Bank of Rwanda.
That makes protection increasingly important as the amounts involved grow.
The government says its focus is not only on how groups collect money. It also wants stronger safeguards against theft and other forms of abuse.
The Prime Minister linked the measures to wider efforts to protect financial consumers.
New rules and procedures have been introduced to prevent and address financial fraud. They are also intended to help recover stolen money where possible.
Reported financial-fraud complaints fell from 4,128 in the second quarter of 2025 to 2,879 in the same quarter of 2026.
That is a fall of about 30%.
But the government says problems remain.
Phone-based fraud and attempts to trick people into revealing confidential information continue to pose risks.
The government also plans to strengthen payment infrastructure.
It will develop policies to respond to cyberattacks as more financial services move online.
This is becoming more important as Rwanda’s use of digital financial services expands.
The number of digital-payment transactions rose from 256 million in 2017 to 3.1 billion in 2025. Their value rose from Rwf2.9 trillion to Rwf85.5 trillion over the same period.
The number of FinTech companies also increased from three to 36.
The government launched eKash in 2026 to connect financial institutions and make transfers cheaper. Transfers through the system can cost a maximum of Rwf20, while a single transaction can reach Rwf10 million.
For ibimina, the challenge is therefore changing.
The traditional idea remains simple: people put money together and help one another.
But the amounts involved are becoming significant.
Rwf54 billion spread across nearly 15,000 groups means that the protection of these funds is no longer only a private matter between members.
The government wants the groups to operate transparently, reduce opportunities for theft and give members greater confidence that their savings are safe.
The approach also fits into Rwanda’s broader effort to move more people from informal financial arrangements into safer and more reliable financial systems.
But ibimina are likely to remain part of that system.
They serve a social purpose that goes beyond banking.
For many members, the value is not simply in saving money. It is in having a group that can mobilise money when one member needs it.
That communal-support principle remains at the heart of the system.
The government’s task is to make that system safer without removing the flexibility that has made ibimina useful for generations.
