Monday, Aug 8 Today we visited Urwego Opportunity Bank’s main branch in Kigali, Rwanda.  We joined the staff in morning devotions and the weekly staff announcements from CEO Jeffrey Lee.  Jeffrey announced continued growth thru July and August is off to a strong start.  We then took a behind-the-bank tour.  Currently they have more than 240 employees with 8 deposit-taking branches, serving more than 36,000 clients with microloans and over 106,000 clients with savings products.  UOB plans to continue expanding their product offerings and branch locations to better serve the economically-active poor in Rwanda with financial services and related training.  After a few photo opportunities, we piled back in the bus and settled in for a 90-min bumpy ride down a long red dusty road to visit a Trust Bank in the rural village of Nyamata, almost to the border of Burundi.  A tech-saavy traveler found our exact location with Google GPS on his I-phone. The mud brick homes don’t even have addresses, and I never saw a street sign, yet our exact movements were being tracked on his phone.  We did however come upon one solitary Stop sign, a cow, and a lot of goats. 

Monday, Aug 8

Today we visited Urwego Opportunity Bank’s main branch in Kigali, Rwanda.  We joined the staff in morning devotions and the weekly staff announcements from CEO Jeffrey Lee.  Jeffrey announced continued growth thru July and August is off to a strong start.  We then took a behind-the-bank tour.  Currently they have more than 240 employees with 8 deposit-taking branches, serving more than 36,000 clients with microloans and over 106,000 clients with savings products.  UOB plans to continue expanding their product offerings and branch locations to better serve the economically-active poor in Rwanda with financial services and related training.  After a few photo opportunities, we piled back in the bus and settled in for a 90-min bumpy ride down a long red dusty road to visit a Trust Bank in the rural village of Nyamata, almost to the border of Burundi.  A tech-saavy traveler found our exact location with Google GPS on his I-phone. The mud brick homes don’t even have addresses, and I never saw a street sign, yet our exact movements were being tracked on his phone.  We did however come upon one solitary Stop sign, a cow, and a lot of goats.