African Pavilion: CO-Creating Africa’s payments future

Africa’s reputation as a hotspot for innovation is gaining ground through a united effort aimed at creating a payments future that connects economies, businesses and people.

BankservAfrica, Vocalink, Bluecode Africa and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) are bringing this unique African payments story to London at the inaugural African Pavilion, which will be launched at Sibos on 23-26 September 2019.

“Africa introduced many payment firsts such as Saswitch’s interbank ATMs, which are an indispensable part of our everyday lives, and there’s many more examples. As we’re entering an era of hyper-connected digital economies there’s a great need to enhance the payments plumbing to serve African economies in real-time and at a low cost. This is where the African Pavilion is a change maker – bringing the payments industry together and effecting the transformation needed to build competitive African economies and enable financial inclusion,” says Chris Hamilton, CEO of BankservAfrica.

“We’re combining our knowledge and expertise to co-create a payments future that can support African economic agendas,” says Gregor Dobbie, CEO of Vocalink, a Mastercard company. “We believe it’s more than payments; we want to offer people choice, making life simple, seamless and secure. It’s about changing lives and ensuring the ability to pay never stands in the way of growth in communities, development and strengthening Africa’s competitiveness.”

“Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are important drivers of growth in economies across Africa. Harnessing technology and innovation are key to unlocking access to affordable financial services for these SMEs, in a responsible and sustainable way. Further, leveraging cross-sector partnerships are essential to bring about new solutions to advance financial inclusion across the continent,” comments Suresh Chaytoo, Head: Global Financial Institutions Coverage, for Rand Merchant Bank.

“Inclusive banking requires a deeper understanding of community and people. Most families in Africa, particularly in rural areas, are businesses with every member contributing to the success of the whole. Banks and non-bank financial institutions that are in the business of financial intermediation understand the importance of SMEs and micro-enterprises. The family business is the source of economic development, wealth creation and jobs. Without local financial intermediation to ration savings to the best business proposal, there is no mechanism to build a healthy foundation for economic development,” says Murray Gardiner, Director at Bluecode Africa.
Existing data shows the challenges between African countries, which can be solved through regional payments integration. According to the United Economic Council for Africa, intra-Africa trade is amongst the lowest in the world at 16%. There’s 5.78 million micro, small and medium enterprises of which 14% are formalised. Within the Southern African Development Community (SADC), 45 million individuals are financially excluded.

“The common link between all of these has to do with the limitations of moving money between countries seamlessly and transacting easily. Without this, trade is restricted and individuals and businesses are inhibited from being active participants in the economy,” says Dobbie.

“The SADC region is but one trading bloc on the continent. By connecting to the others on the continent, we are able to achieve the integration required to offer a wide range of financial services to all citizens in Africa,” says Maxine Hlaba, Executive Secretariat of SADC Banking Association.

“BankservAfrica and Vocalink have jointly developed a regional payments solution in Africa that enables banks and other payment service providers to offer enhanced services to customers through greater connectivity and interoperability,” says Hamilton.

The African Pavilion’s supporting partners are the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and the SADC Banking Association.

“Having Africa showcase its payments landscape sends a positive message to foreign investors worldwide. Through investments in any of the African countries, investors are able to target market expansion continent-wide where these are made possible through payment infrastructure that facilitates trade flows,” says Nomwelase Skenjana, Divisional Head: Domestic and Regional Services at the SARB. She adds: “Platforms for information sharing and partnerships such the African Pavilion should be leveraged to accelerate actions that support growth initiatives of this nature that may assist Africa to rise.”

“The African Pavilion reflects who we are as a continent. It has been set up for us to come together as a collective to enable us to collaborate on payments. We can only best serve the continent if we work together,” says Hlaba.

The African Pavilion collective effort will continue after Sibos through partnerships and conversations aimed at changing the continent’s payments landscape and future for the benefit of all.