Cape Town 2022

Lyle Horsley, the divisional head of the FinTech unit in the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and the chairperson of the Intergovernmental FinTech Working Group spoke about the fintech landscape and its impact on the African continent.

The past few years, we have witnessed massive acceleration in payment innovation as companies evolved with the growing consumer preference for contactless and safe forms of payment prompted by the pandemic. These innovations span across much of the fintech sector with updates made to hardware solutions and modes of transaction as well as accelerating changes toward faster/instant, contactless, biometric, cross-border, and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) have also been some sub-sectors of the fintech industry to witness incredible changes and impact upon the lives of African consumers. This panel brings thought leaders and entrepreneurs who are actively on the ground working to resolve payment pain points across Africa to discuss what the future holds for Africa’s vibrant payments industry.

With the advent of digital financial services and innovations in fintech, many countries have become more effective in structuring their regulation to create conducive frameworks for fintech innovation growth. In this respect, South Africa is undertaking several initiatives in this regard that will strengthen the ecosystem – including CBDC, RPP, PIB – mostly anchored around SARB’s Vision 2025. This panel brings together experts from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), the Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA) and the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (FSWG) to discuss the South African regulatory landscape and where the regulatory space surrounding fintech is headed in the future to enable fintech innovation and drive global competitiveness and accelerate financial inclusion

The Financial Industry across the globe is responding to the regulatory as well as consumer requests for instant, interoperable, and convenient payment services. As a result, industry is driving the charge for rapid/faster payments and interoperable systems. This panel brings together the South African Payments Association and the industry experts & decision makers together to dive into the specifics behind South Africa’s payment landscape, the journey and impact behind the Rapid Payments Programme (RPP), and how the Payments Industry Body (PIB) is working with the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) toward a mission of all-inclusive payments innovation.

The year 2022 has brought a ‘VC deep freeze’ to the global technology ecosystem prompted by market uncertainties, inflation, valuation corrections and related macroeconomic conditions. Having seen VC funding of nearly
$5 billion in 2021, Africa is standing out globally and fintechs across the continent continue to raise funds as startups are resolving real problems. This panel brings together ecosystem builders, investors, and astute VCs to dissect the African VC landscape despite the global slowdown and provide insights into how investors are differentiating themselves and enabling meaningful support for their portfolio companies.

A fintech is only as strong as the ecosystem(s) it is operating in. A strong ecosystem is built with collaborative, interactive and complimentary pillars of regulation, talent, technology, education and innovation capital. South Africa boasts one of the most advanced tech ecosystems in Africa, alongside other cities like Cairo, Nairobi, and Lagos. This panel brings ecosystem players who are building and contributing to a strong local and continental ecosystem that is becoming the bedrock of support for fintech startups.

In its editorial for what to expect in the Africa fintech space at the start of 2022, one of the predictions of the AFTS made was that ‘Cryptocurrency’s future will be defined by Africa’. Some of the most active global cryptocurrency users are in Africa and Digital Asset providers are increasingly solving pain-points and frictions across cross-border remittances, bill-to-pay and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments via blockchain technologies. Governments and regulators are also catching up with cryptocurrency technology; for example, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) in South Africa recently classified cryptocurrencies as ‘Financial Asset’ in Oct 2022. This panel brings best minds in the African cryptocurrency industry to discuss, debate, and make predictions for the future of cryptocurrency.

The driving theme behind the Africa Fintech Summit in 2022, ‘the Africanization of Global Fintech,’ encompasses a wide array of trends being experienced across the African fintech industry. This panel conversation brings together the continent’s top fintech executives to debate and discuss Africa’s ever-evolving role in the global financial technology ecosystem and explores how African innovations are serving as use cases for business and life across the globe. Furthermore, this panel will discuss how African fintech has established itself as an attractive asset class for investors with patient capital and the long-term game, while also exploring the impact that being a global asset class brings for fintech entrepreneurs.

As fintechs and other technology companies across the globe accelerate their innovation and digital transformation, tech talent has become a critical differentiator between the success or failure of many firms. Now, industry experts are highlighting that the lack of digital tech talent has become an ‘Existential Threat’ to businesses’ growth and innovation in some markets. Some tech companies are acquiring tech talent providers, a strategy coined ‘Acqui-hire’, to their talent pools internally. This panel brings thought leaders and talent experts to shed light on the African tech talent landscape and provide insights into what firms can be doing to win the battle for talent and develop the next-generation talent pool.