Afro-Asia fintech festival announced

Fintech stakeholders from Africa and Asia are preparing to attend the recently announced Arfro-Asia Fintech Festival. It is the first event of its kind and will seek to connect Africa and Asia to network, exchange ideas and build upon Fintech systems in both countries. The inaugural event, dubbed FinTech in the Savannah, will take place in Nairobi, Kenya on 15-16 July 2019.

The event is being organised by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. (MAS) The CBK is responsible for formulating monetary policy and promotes financial stability to its clients. MAS is Singapore’s central bank which specialises in non-inflationary economic growth through appropriate monetary policy formulation.

Dr Patrick Njoroge, Governor, CBK said, “CBK is honoured to partner MAS in co-creating a unique platform for policy-makers, technology entrepreneurs, financial industry leaders and other players to come together and tap their diverse knowledge and experiences. Cross-border cooperation is increasingly important as global problems cannot be resolved in isolation. We need to come together as a global community to learn from each other and co-create solutions that will improve the lives of our people.”

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Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director, MAS, said, “Some of the most exciting developments in technology-enabled financial inclusion are happening in Africa and Asia. The central banks of Kenya and Singapore share a vision to build an Afro-Asia platform to synergise efforts in FinTech innovation. With Kenya and Singapore as the starting points, we hope to bring our two regions closer together to innovate and make financial services more accessible and affordable for our people.”

FinTech in the Savannah attendees can expect a Fintech Conference, exhibition and cultural highlights sharing the best work from the two regions. According to MAS, this years theme is ‘Sustainable Finance: Inclusive and Green.’ Key topics of focus will include:  “Technology for Tomorrow”, “Social Impact” and “Spirit of Innovation.”

The event is both modeled after, and in collaboration with the Singapore Fintech Festival, the world’s largest festival, which takes place this year from 11-15. November. The week-long event attracts some 45,000 attendees from acros 130 countries. In their 2018 festival participant demographics, the top ten key influencers, decision makers and investors were from Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan. These are promising statistics when predicting the attendance and outcome to be generated from the Savannah Conference.