Introduction
African banks have a great challenge in overcoming their heritage of colonial banking, which was designed to serve government, corporate and high-worth individuals. The bottom part of the pyramid has been badly neglected, as illustrated most extremely in Nigeria, where many of the banks squandered their capital on unsecured loans for the families and cronies of top managers. Now commercial banks are scrambling to catch up with mobile operators, who are setting the pace in terms of providing low-cost banking services. This they can do not only through technological innovation, but also through a customer-oriented corporate culture and service innovation.

The Challenge and Opportunities of Mobile
Mobile banking is the future, not a fad. Because most central banks are also tied into the old banking paradigm, they don’t fully understand the dynamics of mobile banking, worry about the risks involved and therefore resist it. No doubt they are also encouraged to do so by the banks who don’t want mobile operators encroaching into their space. Kenya is a notable exception. There, the Central Bank has taken the risk of allowing mobile operators to provide money transfer services – and it has benefited millions of Kenyans and reduced money transfer costs substantially. Money moves around the economy far more efficiently and quickly and in that sense, a higher level of financial inclusion has been achieved. Nigeria still has to liberate the market sufficiently to unleash the power of mobile financial inclusion.

Regulation vs Innovation
Regulation and innovation have to find an optimum coexistence. In order to encourage innovation and financial inclusion, positive, creative regulation is needed, rather than restrictive regulation. And communication is the key, in order to avoid the growth of misinformation and misconceptions in the market. Kenya’s enabling regulatory environment didn’t happen overnight. It took months, even years, of creative dialogue, negotiation and lobbying. But for this to happen there had to be enlightened leadership in the Central Bank that kept the door open – and didn’t allow the threat of uncertainties and unknown consequences block out wider societal considerations like financial inclusion.

Conference Format
The conference provides a valuable educational forum for the financial services sector, updating CXOs and IS managers on latest international developments in payment technologies, best practices in IT project deployment, and latest trends in customer service delivery.
Bankers will be asked to share their insights into optimizing customer service, operations and delivery of banking services. From 2011 we will be encouraging peer discussions and audience participation though employing a panel discussion format for the vast majority of the sessions.