Zimswitch Payments Conference 2024: overview of what was discussed

From left to right: Zimswitch CEO Zabron Chilakalaka, Zimswitch Chairman Wonder Nyabereka and RBZ Deputy Director Financial Markets, Dr Josephat Mutepfa

The official part of the Zimswitch Payments Conference has concluded and what a conference it has been.

There were well-prepared presentations by the biggest players in the payments industry. Some of whom are critical to the functioning of digital payments in the country and yet the general public is unaware of their existence.

The floor was also opened to outsiders like ourselves and everyone in between and it made for interesting conversations.

Zimswitch pulled off gathering together every single important node in the space, and even included foreign experts to share insights from beyond our borders. In total, ten countries were represented.

It is always an interesting dynamic when competitors get to sit in one room and talk about possible ways to collaborate. And collaborate they must because that can lead to sharing capital costs and exploitation of other cost-sharing opportunities.

However, they must do this knowing full well that they are still gunning for each other’s business. Collaborating with an organisation that will gladly steal away your high value clients and celebrate that coup in your face would be a challenge for anyone.

Hence, it is commendable that there is some level of collaboration between these payments sector companies. They acknowledge that there is room for even more collaboration and I believe conferences like this one will help achieve that.

We will get into exactly what was discussed at the conference and what we thought were the main points of discussion later but for now here are the speakers and the topics of their presentations.

Day 1

• Zimswitch CEO, Zabron Chilakalaka gave opening remarks
• RBZ Deputy Director of Financial Markets, Dr Josephat Mutepfa gave the keynote address
• A Zimswitch team panel talked about 30 years of Zimswitch serving Zimbabwe and the future holds for the national switch
• Patson Gasura, CEO of Topline Research Solutions gave some valuable market insights including why cash remains king for most Zimbabweans
• Inlaks Group Executive Director, Olufemi Muraino came all the way from Ghana and talked about how to leverage digital identity
• Damon Madden, Solution Consultant Payments Intelligence at ACI Worldwide talked about using AI to combat fraud
• Rosemarie Pringle-Smith, SVP Sales Africa for Comforte AG tackled futureproofing business risk and regulation
• Stephen Linell, CEO of BankservAfrica talked about the future of payments as he implored: modernise, embrace and transform
• Chester Nziradzemhuka, Director Country Business Development for Mastercard got into streamlining value exchange across different flows, i.e. seamless payments
• Annah Masoga, Divisional Head: Policy and Regulation Department for the South African Reserve Bank talked about balancing innovation and regulation, a tricky balancing act as I’m sure we would all appreciate
• Hamilton Masakadza, popped in as a surprise guest speaker and shared business insights from cricket, or the gentleman’s game as it’s called.

With that, Day 1 was concluded and yet there was still more to come.

Day 2

• Professor Robert Ebo Hinson, Pro-Vice Chancellor at Ghana Communication Technology University gave a spirited talk about delivering with a customer focused mindset.
• Ruhling Herbst, Executive Head at BanservAfrica went into the opportunity of cross border payments in his Prime Time for Seamless Cross Border presentation
• Saul Chin’anga, MD at Solten Financial Services and Chairman of ZAMFI, adapted his presentation on digital transformation in microfinance leading to economic growth to also tackle the negative sentiments some still have of MFIs
• Willard Razawo, ESG Network Director talked about sustainability and how to deliver
• A panel tackled payments from the customer’s vantage point. Representatives from OK Zim and SMEs Association supplied the customer’s views and shared areas they felt payments providers need to improve on
• Another panel went into revolutionising e-commerce, including navigating last-mile delivery challenges
• Yet another panel tackled how to leverage payments business to maximise the bottom-line
• Lionel Slowe, the Business Development Manager of Finteq talked about how to accelerate digital payments growth. He touched on new and existing rails
• Colin Franco, Chief Information Security Officer at SFT Corporation talked about strengthening cybersecurity in the payment ecosystem

I know that some of the presentation topics may seem confusing or not interesting but I promise you, they were anything but. Like I said, we will be getting into the meat of what was discussed later but for now, that concludes an overview of what the conference packed.

Do note that there are other issues that were not part of the official programmed that were discussed and it got interesting.