Johannesburg, South Africa: BankservAfrica will host a National Payments Systems (NPS) workshop on Thursday, 21 June at the SWIFT African Regional Conference (SWIFT ARC) in Kigali, Rwanda to discuss the region’s progress over the last 12 months for developing a payments system of the future.

“At last year’s conference in the Ivory Coast, BankservAfrica started the conversation on the need for a national payments design for enabling modernised economies while addressing key socio-economic issues such as financial inclusion, which is a recurring issue for many African countries, including South Africa,” says Chris Hamilton, CEO of BankservAfrica. “At this year’s workshop we will share feedback on our progress as well as the insights and learnings gained from our various engagements across the region since SWIFT ARC 2017.”

Expanding on this – and the other benefits of a modernised payments system such as accessibility, affordability and ability to process real-time payments – Martin Grunewald, Chief Payments Officer at BankservAfrica emphasises the need for industry to maintain momentum on the payments revolution drive. “We need to keep the conversation going on payments infrastructure as it underpins all transactional activities that are vital to driving the economy.”

In 2017, BankservAfrica and the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA) embarked on a joint research initiative on the state of low-value, high-volume payments infrastructure across the globe and how it can be built and mobilised collaboratively.

The NPS workshop will cover the various dialogues that have taken place across the continent. BankservAfrica embarked on workshops and discussion across a number of African countries including Botswana, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Seychelles, Mauritius, Mozambique and Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Congo Brazzaville. While regulation, affordability and reliability are concerning, it was found that many  countries have a greater intention to adjust their current payment strategies for a more liberal and futuristic national payments system model that is interoperable and suitable for the industry.

BankservAfrica’s 2018 NPS Workshop involves industry experts, such as the South African Reserve Bank’s Head of National Payments, Tim Masela; The Centre for Financial Regulation and Inclusion’s Technical Director, Barry Cooper and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Senior Programme Officer, David Lubinski. They will discuss global payment systems designs and their commitment to this and making connected economies in Africa a reality. Economic policymakers, central bankers, banking and payments associations, senior banks and all other decision-makers and industry bodies involved in payments and digital innovations, will also be in the audience.

Chris Hamilton will also be one of the speakers at ‘2018 – The year of instant payments in Africa?’ on Wednesday, 20 June at 11:30.