12
NEWS
African countries embracing digital as fintech transactions flourish
A
frica will experience a financial technology revolution, and can expect its fintech industry to be worth more than $3 billion by 2020. That is according to research published by
pan-African banking group Ecobank.
More than 57% of the world’s 174 million active registered mobile money accounts are located in Sub-Saharan African. The bank uses Rwanda as a case study, in which the number of digital transactions rose by 11% in the first half of 2017.
The country has also experienced a 26% growth in transaction volume in 2016/17 – an increase of a third in value. Point of sale transactions in the country also experienced a surge, doubling in volume from 270,000 to 523,000.
“Digital technology is central. Technology offers great opportunities to open up new markets, increase choice and speed delivery of services,” said Nshuti Lucy Mbabazi, assistant vice-president of the push payments division at Ecobank.
Speaking at the Africa Tech Summit, Mbabazi added: “Going digital provides not just better services and connectivity, but enables banks and businesses to unlock productivity and play a role in development.”
Fintech is certainly flourishing in terms of annual salary. Data from The numbers game: digital technology use is on the up in Africa
the Digital Frontiers Initiative (DFI), reported by Africa Business Daily, found that executives and senior managers working for Kenyan fintech companies earn an average annual salary of $238,509 and $137,303 respectively.
Nigeria, which has the next-highest levels of compensation, pays an average base salary of $213,731. Tanzania and South Africa follow close behind, with average salaries of $177,947 and $152,806.
UK watchdogs plan punishment for FIs making Open Banking excuses
T
he Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that it will “intervene” if banks attempt to delay the implementation of PSD2 standards by arguing about customer security.
Five of the nine largest currency account providers in the UK missed the January deadline for PSD2 and Open Banking. For some banks, their customers won’t be able to access the benefits of the schemes until 2019.
Barclays, Bank of Ireland, RBS and HSBC were given a “maximum” of six extra weeks by the CMA in December.
Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), told lawmakers that security concerns would not be tolerated as an excuse not to innovate.
“One thing that we and the CMA will be very alert to (is) that if the banks seek to use the security argument to suppress competition as opposed to raising standards of security, then clearly that would require intervention by one or both of us,” he said, according to Reuters. Bailey did admit that it would take “a while to take off” despite his warnings.
Open Banking is being spearheaded by the CMA, which got the project underway following an investigation into competition within the country’s retail banking sector.
The Revised Payments Service Directive, or PSD2, is an EU directive that will enable bank customers, from both the retail and corporate side, to use third-party providers to manage their finances.
The legislation was conceptualised in 2013 and ratified in 2016.
www.ibsintelligence.com | © IBS Intelligence 2018
geralt / pixabay
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
