As the global payments industry transforms itself to take advantage of new technologies, some services offer the prospect of real change, but others are simply hype. Telling the difference will be the key to success in the next five years …
The Innotribe Start-up Challenge attendees selected the five finalists from the African leg of the Start-up Challenge to compete at Sibos Singapore in October. The showcase was held yesterday alongside Swift’s African Regional Conference.
Africa and Asia are the centres of innovation in payments, with the developed markets of the US and Western Europe lagging behind, but the trend is towards domestic offerings rather than regional or international ones, says the latest Payments Innovation Jury Report.
West Africa’s capital markets are changing fast as regional integration and local stock exchange initiatives combineto transform its infrastructure. Increasing adoption of FIX and a promising demographic profile help too, according to speakers at the FIX Trading Community conference in London this week.
Swift is planning to open two new offices in 2015 in Accra, Ghana and Nairobi, Kenya as the organisation seeks to expand its presence in east and west Africa.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has made a series of internal promotions in its EMEA Global Transaction Services team.
A pan-African vision has inspired the African Stock Exchange, which has ambitious plans to tap the potential of the continent using hosted technology and a secure base in Mauritius.
Do banks still need branches, or does the smartphone make a physical presence obsolete? Panellists disagreed during a spirited debate hosted by ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf in Istanbul last week.
A new exchange focusing on sub-Saharan Africa is preparing to target international investors through a partnership with Germany’s Deutsche Börse. The African Stock Exchange, based on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, plans to bring together blue chip dollar-denominated African stocks and other products such as government bonds.
The rise of an emerging middle class in Africa is transforming the continent as a group of 11 African nations power past the $1 trillion GDP mark. With tens of millions expected to rise out of poverty in the next decade, it is also providing compelling new opportunities for banks, according to Standard Bank of South Africa.
Telecoms company Millicom has stepped up its push to gain ground for its mobile money service in the Tanzania as competition heats up between operators in the region
As demand for Islamic banking services continues to rise, Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt has overhauled its risk management to better handle the unique needs of ethical banking.
From Senegal to the Seychelles, and Botswana to Uganda, new demands and new opportunities are emerging in Africa, but there are still challenges
Italian financial infrastructure company SIA has inked a deal with mobile commerce provider Swish Payments to support mobile payments in Africa and Europe. The two firms claim the deal will help to bring more efficient forms of payment to both regions.
Three African financial services start-ups have signed to use a cloud-based core banking platform from Berlin-based Mambu as their launch platform business.
South Africa’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange has begun a massive overhaul of its clearing and trading systems, which will see its siloed clearing platforms replaced by a single engine from vendor Cinnober and its derivatives market shifted onto the London Stock Exchange’s MilleniumExchange platform.
Why are different parts of Africa experiencing widely different levels of success with mobile banking, despite years of experience in Kenya? Panellists at the IPS conference in London offered a range of explanations
Four Middle Eastern exchanges – Amman, Beirut, Tunis and Muscat – are to migrate to Euronext’s Universal Trading Platform, replacing the older NSC trading engine they are currently using.
Luxembourg telecoms company Millicom has launched an African cross-border mobile payments service in Rwanda and Tanzania, which it claims is the first to automatically include currency conversion.
Hong Kong-based carrier services firm PCCW Global has banded together with 16 other high profile international network operators, including China Unicom, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat and Ooredoo, to construct a high capacity submarine cable system between Asia, Africa and Europe.
Ghana. The word means ‘warrior king’, but it also describes a booming country of 24 million people living on the coast of West Africa. It is here that three African financial institutions – City Investments Company, NDK Financial Services and The Royal Bank – are turning to new technology to realise their plans.
Arab Investment Bank Egypt has chosen Temenos T24 as its technology platform as it draws up its expansion plans for North Africa’s largest economy.
Standard Bank of South Africa has launched a major expansion drive in West Africa, starting with the opening of a new representative office in the Côte d’Ivoire. The bank plans to use the Abidjan office to become familiar with the region and identify further opportunities within it.
The UK High Court has ruled against Barclays in a case brought by remittance provider Dahabshiil, granting an injunction preventing the bank from closing Dahabshiil’s account.
MasterCard has formed a deal with electronic payments processing company Emerging Markets Payments to sponsor issuers in Egypt and other African markets, in a move intended to help small issuers reach the region’s unbanked population.
South Africa’s Nedbank has opened a bank branch powered entirely by renewable energy, a move that it claims is the first of its kind in Africa.
Uganda’s Crane Bank has chosen a core banking system from Temenos, together with various add-on systems, to support the bank’s Uganda head office as well as its expansion into neighbouring Rwanda.
Standard Chartered has completed the rollout of its corporate actions platform across 39 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, which the bank says will help clients cut costs and reduce their corporate actions risk exposure.
Tanzania’s CRDB Bank has migrated its Burundi subsidiary to software provider CR2’s BankWorld platform, in a bid to bring self-service banking to customers across the East African country.
South African central securities depository Strate and Belgium’s Euroclear are planning a new collaboration to make South Africa’s mutual fund transactions more electronic –including the creation of a centrally hosted mutual fund settlement and custody platform.
Telecoms firm Orange is planning to launch a set of mobile payment services in Botswana and other countries in Africa and the Middle East, which it says will easy access to funds around the clock and bring new point of sale, online and ATM transaction options to customers.
Western Union has launched a mobile money service in Nigeria, which it says will help boost financial inclusion and provide new methods of money transfer for people sending and receiving money to Africa.
At a passionate debate in Westminster this week MPs, led by Rushanara Ali, member for Bethnal Green & Bow, called for government action in the wake of Barclay’s recent decision to close accounts for a large number of small payments businesses in the remittances sector.
Moroccan investment bank Casablanca Finance Group has installed a new banking system from Swiss technology company Avaloq, as the Moroccan financial services industry spreads its wings across Africa.
South Africa’s Standard Bank has introduced a new mobile banking tool called AccessBanking, which aims to reach unbanked customers in the country.
The newly created East Africa Exchange, which is currently taking its first steps in Rwanda, is part of a regional integration project between Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda that aims to boost liquidity and provide a commodities market for 130 million people across the region.
Mobile phones may have revolutionised the way of life of the African population, but when it comes to mobile banking there are a variety of technologies circulating which each provide precise services and levels of connectivity and functionality, writes Simon Pont, chief executive of ECR Retail Systems.
