By Ifeoma Asika

Huawei Enterprise Business Group (EBG) will host the Huawei Southern Africa FSI Summit online 2020 on May 29th, from 10.00am – 12.00pm, with the theme : “Accelerating Digital Transformation, Enable Business Growth Again”.

The online summit will include presentations from President of Huawei Southern Africa Region, Chen Lei and Huawei Chief Digital Transformation Officer, Chen Kun Te. Speaking on Huawei’ experience in working with corporate leaders on their digital transformation, Lei said “The world is still battling against the Coronavirus. The pandemic not only threatens the humanity but the global economy. This transformation is happening when the banking sector is shifting from phase 3.0 to 4.0, where Banking is Everywhere, Never at a Bank. ”

Author of Bank 4.0, Brett King will also speak on “How Mobile will Lead Banks out of COVID-19”. C-suite executives from the African and Chinese banking sector also presenting include Group CEO & MD, KCB Bank Group, Chair of the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) Joshua Oigara and Director of Big Data & AI lab, ICBC, China, Xia Zhiyuan.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global black swan which has severely impacted the global economy. The banking sector is also undergoing challenges from sharply declined economic activities, decreased deposits and loans, as well as higher unemployment rates and non-performing loan ratios. In the crisis, banks will quickly shift from offline operations modes, such as branches and merchants, to online modes including mobile banking.

In this new normal, emerging technologies are used to upgrade business scenarios such as account opening, approval, credit, and risk control. The pandemic will accelerate the digital transformation of the banking sector. When traditional offline services are affected, FinTech becomes prominent. The pandemic prevention and control efforts help move offline services to online platforms. Financial institutions have increased financial IT investment, strengthened mobile banking service capabilities, and accelerated innovation to drive digital transformation. Huawei firmly believes that digitalization will be rapidly and widely used in this process.