My thoughts on Connected Banking West Africa, Accra Ghana

The 6th edition of the Connected Banking played out recently in Accra, Ghana and brought together leading organisations, thinkers and central banks from West Africa. It was telling that just over a month ago at the inaugural MWC Africa in Kigali, Rwanda the country of Ghana was recognised as the only country in Africa to achieve 100% access to financial inclusion on the continent, after my trip to Kigali it was thus paramount to visit Accra and listen and learn. Having spent most of my career in the telecommunications space the past decade has seen the rapid rise of financial services from the telecommunications industry and I wanted to share and learn lessons learnt to the financial institutions in Ghana as well as learn how the telecommunications industry can collaborate more with financial institutions. My key take aways from the event below (many thanks to the many presenters across all institutions across West Africa for some of the sound bites below)0-o0

• In Sub Saharan Africa while 2017 to 2022 saw somewhere in the region of 456 million bank accounts opened and about 300 million mobile money accounts about 500 million people are left behind with no bank accounts.
• Bank, Governments and Telcos need to work closer together to build out internet infrastructure in rural areas.
• A strong agency network consisting of banks, fintechs, micro financiers and Telco's are a must to assist the unbanked.
• Collaboration is key now that API's and cloud services are available between all parties, again special attention to security in this era.
• In countries where there is a strong mobile money ecosystem say via a telco it is important for banks to create value on top of this system and potentially leverage what has already been built, immense value can be created through this strategy.
• The role of the central banks cannot be under estimated, what Ghana is getting right is the influence of a central bank that is regulating the sector well whilst also creating an environment for banks, fintech's and telco's to co-exist and leverage of each other, many countries should pay special attention to how fintech's, banks and telcos are given an equal playing field by a central bank that is promoting digital financial inclusion.
• The importance of risk and regulation will play a greater role and organisations must adhere to the rules of the game in the markets they operate in.
• Simplicity is key and an area the telco's have got right with mobile money is the ease of onboarding as opposed to what banks have done, in an age of disruption a simple process can disrupt an entire value chain so the customer experience becomes pivotal in the initial design process. As we discussed in the session there is no one size fits all and a mobile money strategy in one country can not be cut and pasted in another, there are may factors at play for a service such as this to succeed indeed one with a strong banking environment may make the service not as prevalent as we have seen in different markets on the continent.
• A mix of AI/ML, analytics, block chain all could be the future of core banking, as one delegate put it so eloquently "Continuous innovation is imperative for survival".
• Skills in market is very important and telco's and banks need to develop leading technology skills with the right partners, software centre's of excellence in countries like Ghana can help power Africa's digital agenda.
• As we think of disruption Web 3.0 could potentially provide many opportunities for banks and telcos ignore this at your peril, organisations must look outside the box and observe the impacts and understand the impacts of this, to me as mobile money exploded in certain African countries years ago the advent of blockchain with crypto's could do the same, time will tell however it is important that central banks stay close and regulate what will happen, in my view I feel left unregulated in African markets this could be a recipe for disaster.
• The age of the super app is here and this could be leveraged in our markets in Africa, the trick again are the services (e-commerce, financial services ect )that are provided and the ease and simplicity of the user experience.
• Re-inventing business models between banks and telcos is fostering greater collaboration, at present the likes of Apple, Google, Alibaba and others are creating competing services to both telco's and banks and the telco and banking industries need to leverage from each other when thinking of new offerings, even partnering with these players is an interesting option, the entire telco to techco move is premised on some of this.
• In Africa bearers like USSD persist especially in 2G/3G markets and based on current trends even until 2025 5G will be in its infancy however one has to start thinking of a more evolved experience as the infrastructure becomes more pervasive one has to design for the dominant spectrum in market and cater for all relevant usage patterns, in developed markets the design and fluidity of the app will be heavily dependent on the smartphones ability to connect to the right band.

In conclusion what I learnt from the event and the many participants is that collaboration is becoming more key and the dominant players of tomorrow will collaborate, innovate and learn together. For many years there has always been talk of industry convergence and now more than ever I do see banks and telco's starting to follow this pattern, this is good news for you and I as consumers. Lastly a special thanks to the ICSA team for putting the event together and our wonderful hosts in Ghana thank you ever so much for your warm welcome.

埃森哲 Accenture in South Africa International Center For Strategic Alliances

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