Access Bank Rwanda earns three PECB certifications for cybersecurity compliance

With the rate of cyber-attacks, data breaches and unauthorized use of personal data growing exponentially, the banking sector especially being a high-profile target for hackers, must have round-the-clock monitoring to detect and respond to unusual activity. It is in this regard that Access Bank Rwanda has been awarded with three Professional Evaluation and Certification Board (PECB) on this Tuesday, 19^th November, 2019.

The PECB certifications rewarded to Access Bank Rwanda include:

• PECB ISO/22301:2012 certificate [Information Security Management System]
• PECB ISO/IEC 27001: 2013 certificate [Business Continuity Management systems]
• The Certificate of CPI compliance [Payment Card Industry]

Commenting about the certifications, Jean Claude Karayenzi, Access Bank Rwanda Managing Director said the Bank Rwanda is honored to be the first commercial bank in Rwanda to obtain these three certifications from the Professional Evaluation and Certification Board (PECB) “Access Bank Rwanda has adopted and complied with the world’s highest known management standard information security, business continuity and card data security. Attaining this certification is an important milestone as we continuously walk towards increasing the confidence of our customers and other relevant stakeholders.”

Access Bank Rwanda works closely with Digital Jewels, a specialized IT consulting firm to eliminate the risks associated with banking on the web. Through data protection measures such as firewalls, anti-virus and anti-malware applications, security audit and multi-factor authentication among others, Access Bank Rwanda has succeeded in keeping hackers at bay.

Adedoyin Odunfa, Digital Jewels Chief Executive Officer says that the banking sector is subject to the most stringent regulatory requirements and those laws often have a broad jurisdictional scope. “Failure to comply with those laws can lead to significant fines and injunctions. Access Bank Rwanda has made strides on this compliance journey and has taken significant measures to spot outliers in data access patterns and other key indicators of possible fraud.”

John Karamuka, Head of Payment Systems at the National Bank of Rwanda commended Access Bank Rwanda efforts towards data protection and for adopting banking procedures that align with the central bank policies. “Cybercrime is a rising threat and given that individuals who use banking accounts on their mobile phones tend to have minimal or no security, it makes the potential of attacks much greater. Access Bank efforts to protect customers’ assets are unprecedented and align with the Central Bank requirement that banks should have a robust and fully protocolled cybersecurity strategy”

In addition to the protective measures taken by Access Bank Rwanda to tackle cybercrime, the Bank also constantly educates and trains employees on cybersecurity protocol.