African Regional Preparatory Conference for the WSIS

1. African Regional Preparatory Conference for the WSIS e-Banking and Financial Services

2. ICT & the Financial Service Industry: Nature of the Interface FI delivery tools / financial products & services ATM, internet banking, mobile banking, home banking e-wallet or e-cash ( cash card, payment card, credit card, smart card) e-financial information (securities, loan rate, mortgage rate, analyst, ..) e-BPP e-clearing and collections (checks, drafts, receivables) e-borrowing, investment, advisory services

3. e-Finance Landscape

4. ICT & the Financial Service Industry: Nature of the Interface FI back-office system Transaction processing Credit administration Investment administration FI financial decision-making perspective Informational finance Computational finance (pricing, risk modelling) KM and CRM Treasury integration Netting, X-currency pooling Trading (securities, derivatives) FSI is one of the most ICT-intensive industry among all non ICT industries. (above $200 Billion in ICT spending in 2005)

5. Financial Institutions� ICT Portfolio

6. Defining an e-Strategy for the African Financial Service Industry Challenges Strategic objectives Strategic action plan

7. Challenges of the African Financial Service Industry Low banking / financial services penetration Low savings mobilization, Limited institutional term-finance Limited functional efficiency Limited allocation efficiency Limited depth and width, rudimentary financial infrastructure Limited access to international capital and risk management market Limited cross-border capacity of national economies Huge financial industry gap compared to advanced and other emerging economies Repression against SMME Limited access to SMME information Fragile and non-integrated national financial systems

8. Action Plan for the African e-Finance Strategy Building the foundation of an e-Finance industry: Information infrastructure (network layer & service infrastructure) Human resources (engineers, technicians, skilled workers, and ICT economists) Promoting the functional efficiency of the FSI: Incentives for back/front office ICT investment Global, regional and national ICT connectivity and compatibility (e.g. FinNet in Hong Kong) of the FSI Dematerializing financial securities and other trade finance related papers / documents Supply of ICT solutions

9. Promoting the allocation efficiency of the FSI: Benchmark and adopt ICT-enable SME financing schemes (e.g. SMEloan scheme in Hong Kong, Pride Africa, CitiBusiness Direct) and Micro-finance schemes (e.g. Planet Finance, ACCION International, Gemcard , Standard Bank) Promoting policy / regulatory / judiciary measures to preserve and deal with information security issues Violation of personal information e-signature Promoting e-Finance related know-how transfer through Industry and competitive intelligence Benchmarking of good practices within and outside Africa Capacity building Action Plan for the African e-Finance Strategy

10. Developing clusters of ICT-based businesses that would support the e-Finance industry Targeted FDI and JV ICT business parks Mobilizing financial resources regionally and globally to implement the strategy with the following precautions: Funds mobilized for Africa must be earmarked and effectively disbursed for Africa Disbursement and programme / project management activities must be managed by Africans or Africa-based institutions Action Plan for the African e-Finance Strategy