PODCAST: Effective tech strategies for African banks in 2024

Strategies around banking technology, in the service of greater financial inclusion, in this edition of the Business Day Spotlight. 

Host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Heidi Custers, digital transformation director at Backbase. 

The discussion highlights how banks could reimagine the way in which they operate using technology. 

Backbase is a financial technology (fintech) company, founded in 2003 in Amsterdam, with regional offices in Atlanta, Cardiff, Dubai, Hyderabad, Kraków, London, Mexico City, Singapore, Sydney and Toronto.

Custers highlights new findings from a recent report, outlining the journey of financial services on the continent and the technology investment behind it.

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According to the firm’s 2024 edition of The African Banking Digital Transformation Report, 76% of banks rank digital transformation as either their top priority or among the top three, while the remaining 24% also view it as important. 

She explains that a growing African population — forecast to be 2.49-billion by 2050 — coupled with spectacular increases in the number of devices such as smartphones and tablets (mobile phones now account for 75% of web traffic in Africa) is the perfect recipe for an explosion in digital banking. 

The discussion examines some of the fundamental shifts banks can take towards servicing customers better; demographic factors working in favour of Africa; the mobile money revolution; ways in which finance houses can make use of technologies such as artificial intelligence; and an outlook for the sector.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production. 

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