A two-day financial technology (FinTech) dubbed the Afro-Asia Fintech Festival, co-hosted by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) kicks-off in Nairobi today.
The festival which will be held at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies (KSMS) along Thika Road in Nairobi, will be opened by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Cocktail for the guests was held yesterday, but the main event starts today at 8.30 a.m. The Festival draws inspiration from the 3rd annual Singapore FinTech Festival that was hosted by the MAS in November of 2018.
There will be varied speakers at the function, each speaking about key sectors of their interest; for example, just to mention a few, the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank Ms. Sheila M’Mbijjewe, will be on Tuesday afternoon discussing ‘Digital Infrastructure for the Future: Identity, Data and eKYC’
Aurelie Zoumarou, Benin’s Minister of Digital Economy and Communication will be discussing ‘FinTech and the Capital Markets’ in tomorrow’s mid morning panel.
These is a section of women in Tech. There are many other speakers in the same category.
Centum PLC Group CEO, James Mworia will be speaking on the ‘Investec Company Expectations: A Reality Check panel discussions today from 2pm.
The banking sector in Kenya has continued to invest in technology even as noted by the recently released state of the banking industry in Kenya report.
The event is sponsored by local and international companies mostly in the banking and technology sectors, some of which are KCB Bank Group, Enterprise Singapore, Singapore Fintech Festival, Singapore Fintech Association, SingEx, NIC Bank Kenya, Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya, Microsoft among others.
FinTech in Kenya
Kenya has seen the rise of firms offering financial and technology services since the launch of the most popular FinTech service, Safaricom’s MPESA.
Kenya is among the top 3 African countries which are innovators in the financial sector followed by South Africa and Nigeria.
Some of the FinTech firms in Kenya include: 3G Direct Pay Group for e-commerce payments, BambaPos for merchant automation, PaymentGate for receipting and ledger solutions, JamboPay an online payment gateway, Tala for credit access, etc.
Key speakers at the event will be CBK Governor Dr. Patrick Njoroge, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the Chairman of MAS, also Senior Minister in the Singapore Cabinet. Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Jonathan Larsen Chief, Officer of Ping An Group and Chairman and CEO of the Ping An Global Voyager Fund among others.
Featured image courtesy of cbronline dot com
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