The 2023 Annual Bankers’ Conference scheduled on the August 14th and 15th of 2023 will focus on discussing how trends and innovations in the fintech space are changing the face of banking and financial services, officials have said.
The conference is geared under the theme: ‘The trends and innovations in the fintech space, changing the face of banking and financial services.’
The two-day conference will take place at the Kampala Serena Hotel, with Mastercard returning as the title sponsor for the sixth consecutive year. MTN Uganda, Raxio Data Centre, Interswitch, Check Point Software, iFortify and eLAAB are the other sponsors.
Sarah Arapta, UBA Chairperson and CEO Citibank Uganda, said this year’s event will take stock of the contribution that fintechs and other players in the financial ecosystem such as mobile network operators make towards the growth and transformation of banking and financial services.
The conference will speak about the trends in the fintech space, the regulatory environment, and opportunities within the entire spectrum, she said.
“Fintech has opened unprecedented space and continues to grow, expand, and drive change. These dynamics present a great opportunity for partnership and collaboration to drive financial inclusion and enable all individuals and businesses to have access & use affordable and appropriate financial products and services, ultimately promoting socio-economic transformation,” Arapta said.
She said the two-day conference will include an opening address by the Deputy Governor, the Permanent Secretary of the ICT Ministry, as well as panel sessions anchored by other regulators, banks, fintechs in the telecom space, data centre managers and cyber security experts.
Wilbrod Owor, the ED at UBA, said: “The industry as a whole with no doubt recognises the huge contributions that fintechs and all the other players in the ecosystem have played. They are enablers, using technology for the financial sector to reach previously unserved areas.”
“This year’s session will be rich, not just because of the trends in fintech but also coping with the regulatory space and the changes brought about by technology. This change has also come about with risk and cyber and other forms of fraud and the banking sector is under constant attack with people attempting to penetrate the systems 24/7. We shall have different speakers not just sharing experiences but shaping the discussions from a way forward point of view,” he added.
“We think that in this part of the world, technology can leapfrog our countries and we do not have to go through the various stages of development. Just the fact that we can bring people who were outside the money economy is itself a benefit for our country,” he added.
Richard Yego, CEO MTN Mobile Money Limited, said, “This is the first time we are participating as both MTN MoMo and MTN Uganda. This year’s theme resonates with us because we are a technology company but specifically a fintech. This to us is very dear because we are building the largest fintech platform. The banks under UBA remain our key pillar to the delivery of financial services to the last mile. It is very crucial that we do collaborate and this comes in handy with the Annual Bankers’ Conference starting on the 14th and 15th of August.”
“We look forward to actively supporting the initiatives that the financial sector is going to pursue going forward today and beyond. In terms of the impact we have seen in the ecosystem we provide, we have been able to ease access to liquidity to over 30,000 bank agents countrywide, thanks to the Agent Banking Platform that was introduced in 2018,” he added.