Changing consumer expectations, technological advancements, and regulatory reforms have seen digital transformation become an integral part of the modern banking industry. Global banking software provider, Temenos, hosted an exclusive Southern Africa Digital Leaders Summit in Sandton on 14 November 2023 to discuss how the banking industry in the region needs to respond to these rapid and evolving changes for sustained success.

The Summit agenda was directed by findings from a recent Economist Impact report for Temenos which found that new technologies will have the most significant impact on banks over the next five years – more than customer demands and evolving regulation – and that unlocking value from artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI has been identified as a key differentiator. 

One-in-five banks globally see their business models evolving over the next 12-24 months towards offering banking-as-a-service to brands and fintechs, while nearly twice as many banks envision acting as a true digital ecosystem themselves. Customer centricity is also driving banks to offer more embedded ESG propositions, while the focus on lowering their carbon footprint, as well as the increasing use of data-intensive AI, has prompted half of the world’s banks to expect these activities will inevitably lead them to move to the public cloud and do away with owning any private data centres.

The Africa Digital Leaders Summit has been a series of regional events hosted by Temenos to engage with banking institutions and industry players across the continent and promote open dialogue on how global trends are influencing local banking industries. The Southern Africa leg of the Summit series consisted of thought-provoking discussions, interactive panels, and live demonstrations led by seasoned experts from Temenos alongside industry leaders from BankservAfrica, Nedbank, Liberty Group South Africa, Bidvest Bank Limited, Standard Bank Group, Tyme Bank, Barko Financial Services, EY and Microsoft. The half-day session topics included banking trends and navigating the modernisation journey; enhancing the customer experience through smart, personalised digital banking and seamless payments; wealth management opportunities, and more.

“Banks across the region are increasingly adopting digital technologies to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations, and offer innovative financial products and services. The Summit saw the coming together of visionaries and innovators who are leading the charge for digital change in banking in Southern Africa. The next wave of banking trends that are already in motion and shaping the industry were discussed - setting the stage to redefine the future of banking across the region,” said William Moroney, Managing Director – Middle East & Africa, Temenos.

The keynote presentation from Sean Berrington, Partner - Technology, Consulting at EY highlighted the shift to digital as a universal imperative for banks on the continent. In this environment, banks require a platform that helps them build for change while still delivering a broad set of banking capabilities across multiple segments. With the shift to digital being more important than ever, it has become a business imperative for banks to change if they are to remain relevant against rapidly growing fintech startups.

Banks are aware that they need to transform to survive. Our research shows that two-thirds of global banking executives considered their organisation's ability to transform as 'extremely important' for their future survival – and this expectation is mirrored in Africa,” said Berrington. “There is also a clear need for banks to change in ways that drive accessibility, affordability, and trust when it comes to payment mechanisms in Africa.”

Tielman Walters, Chief Technology & Information Officer at Barko Financial Services, a Temenos customer, also spoke at the Summit and stressed the crucial role that technology has played in assisting it in transitioning from a microfinance institution to become a new potential mutual bank with a wider range of digital services.

“To achieve our growth objectives, we needed a much more advanced and scalable back-end platform, which would enable us to develop and launch new banking services quickly. Temenos provides us with a platform to deal with any spikes in business volumes without any problems. Using the resources available in the Temenos Learning Community, we have also developed an extensive knowledge base on the solutions as we continue on our journey,” said Walters.

The Southern Africa event forms part of Temenos’ pan-Africa Digital Leaders Summit roadshow, which has already been East and West earlier this year and next will travel to Morocco on 28th November 2023, to explore the impact of these themes and trends on the Northern Africa banking industry.

Temenos consistently tops the IBS Intelligence Sales League Table for digital and core banking. Temenos also ranked #1 in Regional Sales Awards for the Middle East and Africa in the most recent IBSi Sales League Table 2023.