Huawei has advocated for a nonstop digital future for Africa’s banking industry, believing that such a move would allow banks to boost revenue and customer base, reduce operational costs, and improve financial inclusion.
The technology firm revealed its “Non Stop Banking” project during the Huawei Intelligent Finance Conference for Africa, 2023.
The programme encourages collaboration between the information and communications technology (ICT) and banking industries to enable a digital future of “non-stop” services, “non-stop” development, and “non-stop” innovation.
Leo Chen, president of Huawei Sub-Saharan Africa Region, said in a keynote speech introducing the programme that there is an even greater urgency for banks to embrace digitisation since it allows for more financial inclusion.
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While Chen praised many African banks for their pioneering work in embracing digitisation, he pointed out that all industry players needed to go further if they were to embrace the “non-stop” approach that would characterise the future of banking.
According to Jason Cao, Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Global Digital Finance, financial services are rapidly becoming mobile and intelligent.
“The banking industry must pay close attention to people and their needs while also embracing change,” he said.
Cao assured his African financial customers that they were committed to assisting them in addressing challenges and accelerating change in six areas: shifting from transaction to digital engagement, cloud-native and agile businesses, data democratisation, secure and reliable infrastructure, hybrid multi-cloud and Lego-style modular services, and automated and predictable operation.
“In this way, Huawei will facilitate financial digitalisation and innovatively improve productivity in Africa,” he said.
“Revolving around stability, agility, and intelligence, Huawei aims to build ‘non-stop’ financial services and achieve ‘non-stop’ development alongside ’non-stop’ innovation,” he added.
Huawei has already served over 2500 financial customers in over 60 countries and regions, including 50 of the top 100 banks in the world.
Several Huawei technologies, according to Chen, were beneficial in this regard.
Huawei’s Programmes
Over the years, it has served as the basis and backbone for Africa’s banking industry’s digitalization by assisting in the development of the continent’s IT infrastructure and digital connectivity in rural areas.
Meanwhile, because of its strong concentration on research and development (R&D), it is well-positioned to assist in shaping the industry’s future as well.
From a technical standpoint, Chen stated that their strengths in storage, fibre optic networks, IP networks, and data communication enabled multi-domain collaboration solutions for banks.
Huawei Cloud, the world’s fastest-growing major cloud service provider, can also handle banks’ hybrid multi-cloud requirements.
Beyond technology, Huawei has issued a call to all industry stakeholders to collaborate in order to build a more robust ICT infrastructure, implement more measures and policies to encourage digital finance innovation, cultivate a strong innovative ecosystem, and train more digital talent for the industry.
Huawei Cloud’s Spark programme has committed to assisting 1000 small and medium-sized businesses over the next three years.
After teaching over 80 000 digital talents in Africa, it has launched the ‘LEAP’ digital talent training project in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the goal of training another 100 000 people over the following three years.
More than 200 people attended the Huawei Intelligent Finance Summit for Africa 2023, including prominent industry thought leaders and executives from major African institutions.