Fintech & digital payments rules in Rwanda (2026)

Regulation n° 74/2023 of 18 September 2023 is the primary instrument governing payment service providers. It establishes four licence categories (I–IV) with initial capital requirements ranging from RWF 30 million to RWF 300 million, requires legal incorporation and a resident CEO in Rwanda, and mandates AML/CFT compliance. All pre-existing PSPs were required to recategorise under the new framework by 18 September 2024 or face licence revocation.

Regulation n° 54/2022 on Electronic Money Issuers sets out a dedicated licensing track for EMIs, requiring that issuers maintain 100% of the e-money float in liquid assets at all times. Mobile money operators (MTN MoMo, Airtel Money) are the dominant licensed EMIs; the framework has been in place since the Payment Systems Law of 2010 with progressive updates.

Rwanda launched the Rwanda National Digital Payment System 2.0 (commercially branded eKash) in December 2025 — a fully interoperable, open-source national payment switch enabling instant transactions across mobile money, banks, and merchants. The system was unveiled at the Inclusive Fintech Forum in Kigali in February 2025 and went live nationally by end-2025.

The BNR operates a formal regulatory sandbox allowing innovative payment and fintech products to be tested under relaxed regulatory conditions before full licensing. This sits within Rwanda's Fintech Policy 2022–2027, which targets growing the fintech sector to 300 businesses and completing licensing in 3–4 months.

BNR signed a licence-passporting MOU with the Bank of Ghana on 25 February 2025, enabling regulated PSPs to expand mobile money and remittance services across both markets without new licences. A comparable MOU with the Central Bank of Kenya was announced in 2026, extending the passporting model to the larger Kenyan market.

Following a successful proof-of-concept, BNR launched a 12-month e-FRW (Central Bank Digital Currency) pilot in early 2026, targeting retail use cases including transport payments and government transfers. BNPL remains largely unregulated as a distinct product category — the sector is nascent and no standalone BNPL licensing regime had been enacted as of mid-2026; such products fall under broader credit and consumer-protection rules.