AFRICA REGTECH HORIZON DEBUTS: A DEDICATED RESOURCE TO SHAPE AFRICA FINANCIAL SERVICES ECOSYSTEM

As RegTech Africa Conference 2023 is set to explore the nexus between financial inclusion, consumer protection and cybersecurity

 

LAGOS – NIGERIA: Harnessing the power of big data, artificial intelligence and even blockchain, the regtech sector works to reduce financial risk, increase regulatory compliance and stamp out laundering and fraud — all of which contribute to an estimated $2 trillion yearly loss for the global economy.

 

Recognizing the power of regtech in creating transformative solutions that support and scale quality financial services, the Alliance for Digital Innovation in Africa (AADi) is developing Africa RegTech Horizon (www.regtechhorizon.com), a first of it’s kind data-driven repository for regtech companies and solutions providers in Africa to showcase the solutions, services and technologies they are offering.

 

The directory is a dedicated resource aimed at illustrating the factual value that regtech solutions can deliver to businesses and designed to help financial institutions, regulators and governments in need of solutions to local pain-points, to easily identify Africa focused regtech companies with proven solutions transforming the financial services landscape.

The regtech (regulatory technology) industry has experienced rapid growth over the last two years as financial institutions dealt with rising tide of regulatory changes and rules updates brought by remote working and increased use of digital channels post Covid-19 pandemic.

The repository further seeks to provide an invaluable source of information for investors, a buyer’s guide for financial institutions and the definite reference for regulators interested in collaborating with credible regtech companies.

 

To take full advantages of these benefits, target organizations in the following two categories will be required to register on www.regtechhorizon.com:

 Indigenous startup/scaleup regtech solution providers with innovative homegrown solutions to the real challenges facing financial institutions, regulators and consumers in emerging countries of Africa.

 Glolal regtech startup/scaleup with focus in Africa and a proven solution to the real challenges facing financial institutions, regulators and consumers in emerging countries of Africa.

This epic initiative is coming ahead of the next edition of the RegTech Africa Conference billed  to hold between 24th – 26th May 2023, in a Hybrid format in Lagos, Nigeria . The hugely successful premier edition attracted over 1,000 delegates across 75 countries with a line-up of 60 inspiring speakers from diverse backgrounds.

The leading African regtech ecosystem event will provide unrivalled insight, networking and business opportunities for anyone interested in and connected to the African regtech ecosystem. For registration, sponsorship and partnership opportunities, contact: info@regtechafrica.com.

“The regtech supply channel is changing at a faster pace than ever before, but you don’t need to navigate these changes alone. The directory would help filter through curated list of quality solutions in the market by highlighting the leading companies in sectors such as identity verification, risk management, communications monitoring, information security and financial crime prevention”, said Cyril Okoroigwe, CEO, RegTech Media.

According to Cyril Okoroigwe, helping startups grow their profile and attract more customers through the directory, is a clear demonstration of Alliance for Digital Innovation in Africa’s support for homegrown innovation, leveraging tools and technologies to solve business challenges for African ventures.

“The Africa RegTech Horizon was therefore conceived to address the need for a trusted source of information to stimulate a thriving ecosystem”, he concluded.

 

About: Africa Regtech Horizon
Africa Regtech Horizon (www.regtechhorizon.com) aims to provide data driven insights on Africa focused RegTech companies who are providing solutions to real regulatory and compliance challenges for informed decision making.

 

About: RegTech Africa Conference

The RegTech Africa Conference (www.regtechafricaconference.com) provides the definitive platform for regulators, innovators, ecosystem builders, investors, businesses and other key stakeholders with the power to influence change; to engage, collaborate and share knowledge around new technologies and practices that support better regulations.

About:

Alliance for Digital Innovation in Africa (AADi) is a Limited by Guarantee, not for profit organization on a unique mission to accelerate Africa’s digital transformation through regulatory technology.

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Source:

RegTech Africa

Contact Email: info@regtechafrica.com

RegTech Africa and NayaOne Organize RegTech4Good Challenge To Boost Homegrown Innovations For Consumer Protection in Africa.

Participants worldwide came together to showcase their passion and talent for solving next-generation real-life problems.

The RegTech Media Group, Africa’s leading regulatory innovation hub in partnership with NayaOne, a global digital innovative sandbox provider, launched the inaugural RegTech4Good Challenge. This RegTech Africa hackathon enables innovators to collaborate intensively in solving real-life challenges. Teams used creativity, technology, and mentoring, resulting in prototypes, fresh new concepts, and innovative solutions.

The hackathon was at the 2-Day RegTech Africa Conference 2022 (https://www.regtech.africa/), which witnessed the massive participation of over 5,000 attendees. The event brought together thousands of next-generation innovators, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and regulators worldwide with the shared vision of transforming the financial world by building solutions and bringing together innovative technologies.

With the growing demand for digital services across Africa, where financial inclusion is badly lacking, weak consumer protection and data privacy frustrate socio-economic development. Therefore, this widespread uptake of digital services has heightened consumer risks and raised new policy concerns for the regulators.

The hackathon aims to develop viable outcomes for inclusive innovation and boost homegrown solutions that would disrupt and tackle the industry’s fundamental challenges. The challenge is mainly to protect vulnerable financial service consumers in Africa.

Open to teams globally, the RegTech4Good challenge saw over 300 registered participants above 18 years from 32 locations across four continents of Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.

The participants split into teams and were required to work together ahead of a 3-day intensive booth camp, brainstorming and ideating new concepts leveraging the NayaOne integrated Digital Sandbox platform.

Each team pitched its ideas to a Jury of experts who are some of the industry’s best with decades of experience in technology, business management, marketing, media, and others. The carefully selected panel of judges comprised Kevin Mutiso, Chairman of the Board Digital Lenders Association of Kenya, Osioke Ojior, Co-Founder & Chief Risk Officer, Covenda (UK), Sujata Rastogi, Director, Financial Services at NayaOne, and Tunde Ogungbade, Group Managing Director, Accelerex Holdings.

Using the platform, the participants were able to leverage technology and bespoke datasets in a secure sandbox environment to explore multiple solutions to best address the challenge. Having all participants in a collaborative platform enabled participants to communicate and collaborate when building solutions and get in touch with mentors on the platform as needed.

The top three shortlisted teams participated in a 5-minute pitch on the first day of the conference, with the team of Faidat Abdullahi and Nonhlanhla Nkosi (Finofrica) taking the top spot on the finale of the hugely successful conference.

The Finofrica team, whose ‘Play to Earn’ financial literacy solutions targets vulnerable youths in Africa, displayed exceptional creativity in their idea and use cases for implementation.

RegTech Africa will promote the winning solution and concept through a global network of ecosystem accelerators to boost visibility and attract equity investment and funding opportunities.

At the event, Cyril Okoroigwe, CEO RegTech Media, said, “we are delighted to host the maiden edition of the RegTech4Good hackathon. It has brought together hundreds of talents dedicated to protecting vulnerable financial service consumers. We look forward to discovering more talents in the years ahead to drive the next growth phase for Africa’s homegrown innovative solutions”.

On his part, Karan Jain, CEO, NayaOne, stated, “The impressive performances of the teams who were painstakingly selected provide an excellent example of what is possible when people with the right mix of skills are enabled with technology. The technical hackathon demonstrated the passion and hard work of participants who worked together towards a common goal and shared purpose”

About: RegTech Africa

RegTech Africa (www.regtechafrica.com) is an emergent global digital tech media platform with a niche focus on regulatory technology innovations across Africa and beyond. RegTech Africa provides insights into enterprise innovative regulatory efforts and trends to the most discerning professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, and decision-makers.

About: NayaOne

NayaOne revolutionises innovation in financial services. We provide banks with a single point of access to hundreds of fintechs and datasets, through our Digital Sandbox and Fintech-as-a Service offering. Regulated firms are able to discover, build, evaluate and scale with fintechs in a matter of weeks instead of months.

RegTech Conference 2022: Panelists Call for Rapid Adaptation and Collaboration between FinTech Companies and Global Regulators

Africa’s foremost fintech regulatory platform, RegTech Africa has held the maiden edition of its virtual conference themed ‘REGULATORY INNOVATION: BOLSTERING AFRICA’S ROLE IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY’. The event had an impressive turnout as over 1,000 global thought leaders, policymakers, C-Level executives, financial regulators, and policymakers were present, while 5,000 virtual streamers joined and were active throughout the conference.

Matteo Rizzi on the opening day of the conference spoke extensively in the breakout session entitled “Regulatory Innovation for Financial Inclusion and Consumer Protection”. In his words, “ We are on the verge of another huge wave of innovation and investments, and regulators have a huge role to play.” This acknowledges the fast-rising number of startups in Africa, hence the regulators need to align all players to achieve the goal of achieving financial inclusion in Africa. There are lots of iterations happening in the fintech space that banks globally can collectively learn from.

Dr. Ritesh Jain while addressing the need for the global financial sector to unify faster recommended that financial institutions open up their services through API. According to him, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, financial organizations need to adapt to the emerging market. Trends like crypto trading, digital banks, NFTs, and other iterations in the financial space, must be speedily incorporated where necessary to ensure that these long-standing banks are still competitive and relevant to meet their consumers’ needs.

Reiterating the essence of RegTech Africa, during his panel session, Pattison Boleigha, GCCCO Access bank stated, “In today’s world, there is hardly anything you can do without technology so the regulatory arena cannot be left out.” During the Roundtable entitled, “Regtech and its impact in empowering Public and Corporate Governance, Risk & Compliance”, Gary Lyons also corroborated this statement by highlighting the powerful role that RegTech Africa can play in ensuring good governance. In his words, “I passionately believe that Regtech can empower good governance by increasing transparency, harmonizing standards, and empowering better timely compliance and collaboration.”

To address the problem of identity in the financial sector, Legal Identity Identifier (LEI), a software that helps small and enormous businesses to create a globally recognized identity was introduced. LEI helps financial organizations gain insight into the global marketplace, finetune their processes and improve data integrity. With its introduction, small fintech companies can also play on a global scale.

All the breakout panel sessions adequately addressed seminal themes on Financial Technology like Consumer Protection, Financial Inclusion, Digitization, Privacy, and Data Protection among others. Professor Olayinka David-West, Associate Dean, Lagos Business School, during one of such breakout sessions stressed the importance of creating Fintech Associations. According to her, these associations are essential bridges that engender conversations between regulators and new fintech companies on risks and compliance. She opines that associations can also serve as self-regulatory tools and mechanisms that allay the fears of regulators concerning breaching market regulations and structures.

Expressing optimism about RegTech Africa’s global impact, Conference Convener, Mr. Cyril Okoroigwe, said the media platform remained resolute in its drive to engage upcoming fintech companies, and create a stronger platform for dialogue and collaboration between financial organizations and regulators so that like a well-oiled machine, effective systems will be established in the African financial space, and organic growth will rapid enough to meet up with global standards.

About:
RegTech Africa
RegTech Africa (www.RegTechAfrica.com) is an emergent global digital tech media platform with a niche focus on regulatory technology innovations in Africa and around the world. We leverage our strong local knowledge of the African regulatory technology environment and access to the closely-knit community of top-level decision-makers, Chief executives, strategic stakeholders, and other industry subject matter experts to provide valuable and insightful content on news updates, statistics, case studies, analysis, reviews, polls, and events.

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The Regtech Africa Conference is a social enterprise initiative focused on promoting innovative regulatory technology as a force for common good. The annual conference and exhibition connect thousands of executives, regulators, decision makers and thought leaders from across the globe.

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