A team from the Rokel Commercial Bank, including the Chairman of the Board of Directors – Buffy Bailor, the Managing Director – Dr. Walton E. Gilpin and the Director of Finance – Abassie Thomas is in Kigali, Rwanda to hold discussions with the Equity Bank for potential collaboration and partnership. The group is also attending an important seminar organized by the Rwandan Institute for Capacity Development. The seminar involves training on various levels of financial management for top executives as a sure way of broadening their professional and intellectual capacities.
Speaking from Kigali, the Managing Director of Rokel Commercial Bank, Dr. Walton Ekundayo Gilpin underscored the importance of bilateral engagements with bigger financial institutions as well as broadening the horizons of the bank’s management to enable them embrace and adapt to emerging trends in the financial sector. The engagement with Equity Bank, he explained, can open doors for investment opportunities between the two banks, adding that, Rokel Commercial Bank in Sierra Leone has always leveraged on such opportunities and has in part accounted for its phenomenal growth over the years.
“Apart from the immense growth potential that would be garnered from our potential collaboration with Equity Bank, it is also very important for us to learn and return home to implement those strategies that have contributed in turning these financial institutions into global giants….” he said.
With its parent body, Equity Group Holdings headquartered in Kenya, the Equity Bank boasts of the second strongest brand in the World (2024 Ranking). In Rwanda, the bank operates a total of 47 branches and it is a part of a larger conglomerate of commercial banks in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia.
The team also visited the I&M bank – a subsidiary of the I&M Group PLC. The bank is also a leading financial banking group in Eastern Africa with a presence in Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
Rwanda, like Sierra Leone is a post – conflict country and has over the last few decades become a sterling example of rapid economic transformation with financial institutions like the Equity Bank playing a major role.
