A keynote speech by Lyle Horsley, Head of Fintech at the South African Reserve Bank and Chairperson of the Inter- governmental Fintech Working Group, at the 8th Africa Fintech Summit last November in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Africa Fintech Summit is pleased to announce that its 10th edition will be hosted in Lusaka, Zambia on November 2-3, 2023. The summit will bring together entrepreneurs, investors, regulators, and other stakeholders to explore, debate, and pave the future of the financial technology industry across the African continent and the globe.
This November’s summit comes after the 9th AFTS which took place in Washington DC this past April where the ‘Tech for Trade Alliance’ was launched by the US government’s Prosper Africa initiative along with several US-Africa partners focused on supporting cross border trade and e-commerce innovation on the continent.
Since its inception in 2017, the Africa Fintech Summit has become the premier bi-annual summit of Africa’s fintech industry. The summit has been held in several cities across the continent, including Lagos, Addis Ababa, Cairo, and Cape Town, and has attracted thousands of participants from over a hundred countries from across the world.
This November’s summit will feature Africa’s largest annual financial technology exhibition, keynote addresses, panel discussions, networking opportunities, and will feature an array of industry topics, including digital payments innovation, blockchain use cases, lending for individuals & MSME’s, commodity supply chain, and fintech regulation.
Zambia is an ideal location for the 10th edition of the summit, as the country has a rapidly growing fintech ecosystem and sits at the crossroads of several key industries and economic communities such as COMESA. According to a report by the Ministry of Technology & Science and the UNCDF published in 2022, mobile money penetration in Zambia reached 69.4% in 2020, up from 53.3% in 2015. Despite this, there is still much room for growth and innovation within Zambia, particularly in the areas of financial services, connectivity, commerce, and digital infrastructure.
Honourable Felix C. Mutati, Minister of Technology and Science for Zambia stated, “We are excited that the Africa Fintech Summit team has selected Lusaka, Zambia as the host of this November’s edition. This summit comes at an important moment in Zambia where the Ministry of Technology & Science continues to work diligently to implement our national digital transformation strategy. The summit’s focus on the advancement of financial inclusion and sustainable economic development via the fintech industry will play a key role in driving digital transformation not only here in Zambia, but across the African continent.”
“We are thrilled to bring the 10th Africa Fintech Summit to Lusaka, Zambia,” said Zekarias Amsalu, Co-Founder of the Africa Fintech Summit. “Zambia hosts substantial potential for the fintech industry and will continue to play an increasingly crucial role in an array of sectors across the global economy. Financial technology is actively being leveraged to support more sustainable mobility, more productive agriculture, more efficient cross-border trade, and more sustainable mining operations, just to name a few. AFTSLusaka will take a step beyond simply discussing fintech-powered financial inclusion and explore how fintech-adjacent industries are witnessing structural changes and powering digitization across Africa. We look forward to welcoming the entire African fintech industry in Lusaka this November.”
