EXCLUSIVE: At Seamless Africa 23 the future of African fintech is bright

There’s tremendous opportunity in Africa. That’s according to speakers at the Seamless Africa conference which took place this week in Johannesburg, South Africa.

We sent our ‘man in South Africa’, Maurice Enslin, to check it out.

The two day conference, which the website says is “Africa’s most important payment, fintech, retail and e-commerce event” was held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg and had over 3000 people attending. The 200+ speakers included representatives from the likes of J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered, Terrapay, Uber Eats, various national banks, ABSA, Jumia, Paymentology and more.

With over 65 countries also represented, there’s an international footprint and there felt like a huge welcome to all nations. Of course, this was very much a BRICS event, with those countries having a big presence at the conference, with the notable exception of Russia.

India’s booming economy and growing financial and technology sector meant they had a lot to offer and Brazil have debuted some interesting and innovative payment technologies in the last few years that have seen them leapfrog many established economies in the area of payments.

Most importantly though this was South Africa’s time to shine and as a proud countryman it was great to see the financial ecosystem here show what they can offer.

Some of the other key takeaways from the various speakers at the event were:

Africa is ready to go: This was a trend that a lot of speakers picked up on. Many African nations have a rising population and a developing economy and the feeling is that there is a huge revenue opportunity here. A captive market that is ready to do business. There’s also a lot happening in the cross-border payments space, due to the amount of business that is done with other countries. All that’s needed is the implementation of first world systems. Once this happens, it could be huge.

Cashless continuing: More and more African nations are moving away from cash and alternative payment methods are coming to the fore. Many physical merchants are now using contactless and mobile payment systems so there is not only business opportunity here but a shift in customer expectations.

Customer experience: In fact that was another big concern for banks such as FNB, one of SA’s big four, who pointed out a huge focus on improving customer experience. This is vital especially with increasing challenges from digital competitors.

AI implementation: Of course, we can’t not mention another topic that unsurprisingly got mentioned – The implementation of AI in the banking sector. There was some level of excitement about the potential opportunities presented by AI as well as understandable caution about how it’s used appropriately.

The conference also played host to a lot of great conversations. Personally, it was really interesting to talk to Tessa Wolhuter from Zoho, who whilst not a fintech company had a lot to say about operating in the fintech space.

It was also great to touch base with Luqmaan Abrahams from Payfast, Felci Fernando from NeoStats, Kishore Kumar from Webengage and many more. That’s what makes these kinds of events worth attending and I look forward to staying in touch.

Of course the other thing that makes these events what they are is the atmosphere and the welcome… and the food. Which was fantastic.

The welcome and hospitality was traditionally African. That is to say, super friendly and jovial. It made the whole experience great and honestly, the event as a whole was very well organised. Of course, there was a large African contingent but this is a global event and there were representatives from European countries such as Germany and some from the US as well.

Coming away from Seamless Africa, one overriding theme stood out; Africa is in good hands. There are an increasing number of exciting companies operating in the fintech space and speaking for everyone, we’re excited to see what happens in the next few years.

We’ll be back at Seamless Africa for sure and of course, they are hosting other events in Europe, the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and North Africa, so be sure to keep an eye out for those.