Members of Saving and Credit Co-operatives are calling for a roll out of mobile services to limited physical visit to offices whenever they want to access financial services.

Saccos, unlike other financial institutions such as banks, have not embraced mobile money services that can allow the clients to have access to the services through mobile phones.

Users say they are facing challenges attributed to travel to offices for services that take long due to queues yet, they can use mobile phones to access services.

For the 12 years working with Rusororo-Socco, Immaculee Mukarugwiza, who lives in Gasabo recals how it takes a lot of time to get service due to long queues
of service seekers.

"It can even take you two hours and more for you to get the service, because a lot of people found there in need of the same service," said Mukarugwiza, adding that she walks a long distance to do a transaction.

"You can't make any transaction with your phone like others. It requires you to prepare yourself before some time..." She added

Ferdinand Ryumugabe, Ru-Sacco employee in charge of loan recovery, said sometimes they limit the number of people to be served to avoid crowding in the office.

"The challenge we face is that the people can't access the money on their phones, and second is that they can't be provided with the services in different Sacco. Therefore, it requires us to work hard all days except on Sunday," said, Mr Ryumugabe

"Once we are equipped with a new technology, it will be easier to make a report and to provide a worthy service. The time we spend on one person can be reduced from five to two minutes, but we even limit the number of the clients in some cases by now, " he noted.

He noted a new system would help in offering services to clients at shortest time. The National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) has noted gaps in the use of technology among saving and credit co-operatives. However, the covid-19 pandemic hindered roll out of a basic system that was being installed to help in deposit and withdrawal without using old-fashioned paper style and to make a report easily.

Clarice Mushimirwa, in charge of provision of the micro-finance department in the National Bank of Rwanda, told Rwanda Today that all the Saccos shall have the same banking system as banks.