BRD’s New CEO and Rwanda’s Mobile Fintech Next

BRD just made a leadership move that’s easy to file under “banking news” and forget. That would be a mistake.

On December 24, 2025, the Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD) appointed economist Stella Rusine Nteziryayo as its new CEO (pending regulatory approval). She steps in after Kampeta Pitchette Sayinzoga’s six-year run—years in which BRD shifted from losses to profitability and scaled its loan book dramatically.

This matters for fintech and mobile payments in Rwanda because development banks don’t simply “fund projects.” They shape which risks get taken, which sectors get patient capital, and which digital rails get built. In a country where financial services are increasingly mobile-first, BRD’s priorities influence what reaches people’s phones—credit, savings, insurance, merchant payments, and the data systems behind them.

This post sits inside our series “Uko AI Ihindura Urwego rwa Fintech n’Ubwishyu Bukoresheje Telefoni mu Rwanda”—focused on how AI is changing fintech, mobile payments, customer communication, and growth. A CEO change at BRD isn’t a side story; it’s one of the quiet levers that can speed up (or slow down) AI adoption in financial services.

What BRD’s CEO change signals for fintech and mobile payments

Answer first: A new CEO at BRD signals potential shifts in where long-term capital goes—and that can either accelerate digital banking and mobile payment innovation or keep it stuck in pilot mode.

BRD’s mandate is long-term, affordable financing aligned with Rwanda’s development priorities. Over the last six years, BRD strengthened financing across energy, education, agriculture, manufacturing, and sustainable finance, while also building partnerships with international financiers for large-scale projects. That blend—local priorities plus global capital—often determines whether a fintech idea becomes a national product.

Mobile payments and digital financial services don’t grow only because an app is nice. They grow when:

• Infrastructure projects (energy, connectivity, device access) reduce friction
• Merchant ecosystems get financed (inventory credit, working capital, equipment)
• Formalization becomes worthwhile (digital invoicing, tax compliance tools)
• Risk systems improve (credit scoring, fraud controls, dispute processes)

A development bank influences all four.

The most overlooked point: development finance sets the “risk thermostat”

Commercial banks often want short tenors and clean collateral. Fintech often needs the opposite: time, experimentation, and room for iteration.

BRD can set the risk thermostat for the market by supporting structures such as:

• Blended finance (mixing concessional and commercial capital)
• Guarantees that make banks more willing to lend to MSMEs using digital rails
• Longer-tenor funding for infrastructure that mobile financial services depend on

If you care about ubwishyu bukoresheje telefoni (mobile payments), you should care about who decides how BRD prices risk and how fast it approves new instruments.

The numbers that explain why BRD’s direction matters

Answer first: BRD is bigger and stronger than it was six years ago, which means its strategic choices now have more force in the fintech ecosystem.

During Kampeta Pitchette Sayinzoga’s tenure, BRD reportedly:

• Moved from a loss-making position to sustained profitability
• Posted an annual profit of Rwf 22.8 billion
• Expanded its loan book from Rwf 167 billion to Rwf 710 billion

Those aren’t vanity metrics. A larger loan book means BRD can do more of what fintech needs most: fund systems that are expensive upfront but pay off over time—digital identity integrations, payment acceptance networks, and sector platforms (agri value-chain finance, school fee rails, energy pay-as-you-go expansions).

If you’ve ever wondered why some fintech partnerships move fast while others drag for years, it’s often because funding structures don’t match the product’s cashflow reality. BRD’s balance sheet strength gives it more options to match structure to reality.

Why Stella Nteziryayo’s profile fits the AI-fintech moment

Answer first: A CEO with deep experience in macro policy, debt management, and sustainable finance is well-positioned to push financial innovation that’s disciplined—not hype-driven.

Nteziryayo brings over a decade of expertise in:

• Macroeconomic policy
• Fiscal planning
• Debt management
• Climate and sustainable finance

Until recently, she served as Chief Economist at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, working closely on Rwanda’s economic strategy and sovereign financing coordination. She’s also a member of BRD’s Board of Directors, which should reduce the “learning curve lag” that sometimes slows new leadership.

From an AI and fintech lens, this background is useful because AI in financial services isn’t mainly a technology problem. It’s a governance problem.

Here’s what works in practice:

• Clear risk appetite for AI use cases (fraud detection vs. credit underwriting vs. marketing)
• Model governance (who signs off, how drift is tracked, what gets audited)
• Responsible data strategy (consent, minimization, retention)
• Funding discipline (AI projects need measurable outcomes, not dashboards)

An economist’s mindset can be a strength here: define the outcome, set constraints, measure results, iterate.

Women in leadership isn’t just representation—it changes product decisions

A lot of “financial inclusion” fails because product teams don’t understand the daily constraints of the people they claim to serve—especially women running informal businesses, family budgets, and seasonal cashflows.

Leadership diversity doesn’t automatically fix that. But it often changes what gets noticed and funded:

• What counts as a “bankable” micro-merchant
• Which customer support channels matter (voice, WhatsApp, agent networks)
• How products handle irregular income and caregiving time constraints

In Rwanda’s push to expand access to formal financial services, those details decide adoption.

Where AI can realistically help BRD shape mobile-first finance

Answer first: AI can help BRD and its partners scale mobile-first finance by improving risk decisions, reducing fraud, and upgrading customer communication—if the use cases are practical and tied to measurable impact.

In our topic series, we focus on AI not as magic, but as a set of tools that help teams move faster while staying consistent. For a development finance institution and the ecosystem around it, AI use cases that make immediate sense include:

1) Faster, fairer credit decisions for MSMEs (with guardrails)

Many small businesses don’t have formal statements, but they do have signals: mobile money flows, invoice patterns, inventory cycles, repayment histories with SACCOs or MFIs.

AI-assisted underwriting can:

• Reduce manual review time
• Standardize decisions across branches/teams
• Improve early-warning indicators for portfolio health

The guardrails matter:

• Avoid proxies that create unfair outcomes
• Keep explainability for declined decisions
• Combine model outputs with human review for edge cases

2) Fraud detection and transaction monitoring for digital rails

As mobile payments grow, fraud grows too. AI helps by spotting anomalies across:

• Merchant transaction spikes
• SIM-swap patterns (where available)
• Agent network irregularities
• Repeated chargebacks or dispute clusters

This is one of the easiest AI wins because the value is measurable: fewer losses, fewer customer complaints, stronger trust.

3) Customer communication that actually lowers support load

Many institutions still treat customer support as a cost center. It’s a growth lever.

AI can improve communication in Kinyarwanda and English across:

• Chat and messaging triage n- FAQ automation for common issues (PIN resets, transaction delays)
• Proactive notifications (repayment reminders, fee explanations, account health tips)

The point isn’t to replace humans. It’s to reserve human agents for complex cases and keep response times low during peak periods (end-of-month bills, school fees, holiday spending).

4) Smarter impact measurement (the part donors and partners care about)

Development finance is judged on outcomes: jobs, productivity, access, resilience.

AI-assisted analytics can help answer questions like:

• Which financed projects increased digital payment acceptance?
• Which sectors show repayment stress earliest—and why?
• What interventions improved women-led MSME performance?

Better measurement attracts more capital. More capital funds more infrastructure. That’s the loop.

What fintech founders and bank teams should do now (practical moves)

Answer first: The teams that win in 2026 won’t be the loudest. They’ll be the ones who show BRD and partners a clear, low-risk path from pilot to scale.

If you’re building in Rwanda’s fintech or digital banking space, here’s what I’ve found works when engaging development finance institutions and large incumbents.

Prepare your “scale dossier” (not a pitch deck)

A pitch deck sells vision. A dossier sells execution. Include:

1. Unit economics (CAC, retention, contribution margin)
2. Risk controls (fraud, KYC/AML workflow, dispute process)
3. Data practices (consent, storage, who can access what)
4. Integration plan (APIs, reporting, reconciliation)
5. Pilot-to-scale triggers (what metrics unlock rollout)

Propose blended models that match real cashflow

If your customers earn daily and repay weekly, don’t force monthly structures. If income is seasonal (agri), structure grace periods and repayment windows.

BRD’s long-term financing orientation can support structures that commercial lenders typically avoid—if you make the case with numbers.

Design for mobile-first reality, not smartphone fantasy

Rwanda is mobile-first, but not everyone is app-first. Adoption grows when you support:

• USSD or lightweight flows
• Agent support and merchant onboarding
• Clear fee communication (no surprises)
• Simple receipts and confirmations

AI can improve this by localizing language and anticipating confusion points, but the core design must be simple.

People also ask: what does BRD have to do with my everyday mobile payments?

Answer first: BRD influences the financing behind the rails—merchant acceptance, MSME liquidity, and infrastructure—so its strategy shows up in the reliability and availability of services you use on your phone.

If BRD funds a value-chain project that digitizes payments to farmers, that increases mobile money flows and makes other financial products viable (savings, microinsurance, credit). If BRD supports energy or manufacturing projects, it can expand the base of salaried and merchant users who transact digitally.

The effect isn’t always immediate, but it’s real.

What to watch in 2026: signals that the strategy is shifting

Answer first: Watch for changes in instruments, partnerships, and measurable digital outcomes—not slogans.

Three concrete signals worth tracking:

• New financing windows that explicitly support digital financial services, merchant networks, or sector payment platforms
• Partnership announcements that tie capital to specific adoption targets (merchants onboarded, MSMEs financed via digital rails)
• Operational upgrades like faster approvals, standardized risk frameworks, and better portfolio transparency

If those show up, Rwanda’s mobile payments and digital banking ecosystem will have more room to grow—and AI will be used in ways that actually improve service quality.

BRD’s appointment of Stella Rusine Nteziryayo is, at minimum, a continuity-plus move: continuity because she’s already on the board, “plus” because her macro and sustainable finance background fits the moment Rwanda’s fintech sector needs discipline as much as ambition.

If you’re following this series on AI in fintech and mobile payments in Rwanda, keep an eye on what BRD funds next—not just what it says. The future of digital finance is built as much in credit committees and project pipelines as it is in product roadmaps.

What would you want to see funded first to improve ubwishyu bukoresheje telefoni—merchant acceptance, MSME credit, or customer protection and fraud controls?