Banking Technology October 2019 issue out now

Written by FinTech Futures
4th October 2019

Lessons from Africa

The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.

A note from our editor, Sharon Kimathi:

Africa has been no stranger to transformation. It’s climates from the north to the south differ greatly, whilst each region and country bursts with its own unique cultures, languages and technology.

Kenya, birth-place of M-Pesa, has 68 individual languages alone with a thriving digital economy. In fact, the East African region forecasted growth of 6.3% in the third quarter of the year driven by Kenya and Ethiopia. The former recently started its oil exploration and production whilst the latter focuses on its new dam, with the capacity to increase national energy output by 85%.

With new infrastructure and development comes new technology and new opportunities for the fintech industry.

Thabo Makoko, global head of transactional services at Absa, explores how countries in the south of the African equator can improve their payments infrastructure, highlighting examples from Zimbabwe and South Africa due to the rising remittance trend in the region as around three million Zimbabweans currently work abroad in South Africa.

However, due to domestic issues cash is very difficult to access in Zimbabwe. On the plus side, this has forced the country to speedily adopt mobile and digital payment infrastructure. But for a worker in South Africa trying to send money back to their family, this presents a problem. Makoko focuses on how the vast and bountiful continent can evolve it’s paytech to address these issues.

From payment solutions to peer-to-peer lending platforms, African fintech has been a trendsetter in the industry for some time now, argues Carbon CEO, Chijioke Dozie. He notes that while the focus is often on the other things happening on the continent, many of the solutions that have been widely available in Africa for a long time are just being introduced in other parts of the world.

For example, Africans have been using digital wallets for over a decade, sending and receiving money without a traditional bank account. However, when Mark Zuckerberg said sending money should be as easy as sending photos, suggesting that money could be sent via Facebook and WhatsApp, it was positioned as a ground-breaking idea.

Well, Africans have been doing that for a while through the likes of M-Pesa, Airtel and more since the early 2000’s.

According to Forbes, Africa’s fintech companies have raised $320 million in funding since January 2015 and the sector has surged 60% in the last two years. The continent will only continue growing and transforming as with fresh digital developments as the years go by – the only way is up!

The October 2019 edition of Banking Technology features:

Through a Gen Z lens

Educating the masses

Thought leadership
Five lessons to learn from African fintechs

Analysis
5G’s impact on e-commerce

Editor’s choice

Making payment easy across Africa and beyond

Focus
The three challenges faced in building partnerships

Insight
Cobol and AI combine to drive digital transformation

Spotlight
Helping SMEs feel the love from financial services.

I’m just saying…

Tesla-fy your bank