Phumlani presented to his Corporate Services team at Sasfin in October 2019 - on the fintech conferences he attended recently.

1. Corporate Services Presentation
on Recent FinTech Conferences
By Phumlani M. Majozi (Sasfin, Group Information Technology)
Phumlani M. Majozi

2. Finnovex Conference on FinTech, Fourways, Johannesburg, August
2019
• Organized by Exibex, a management consulting
company headquartered in Fujairah, United
Arab Emirates.
• Entirely focused on financial services
innovation – what is today called – in short –
fintech.
• Topics: Payments System, Blockchain & Digital
Currency, Trending technologies (Blockchain,
AI, ML, AR-VR, IoT etc), Cybersecurity,
Regulation & Compliances, Cybersecurity
Phumlani M. Majozi

3. Key takeaways from the Finnovex Summit
• Digitization seems central to the success of financial
institutions.
• Smart adoption taking shape even in the developing
world.
• Financial institutions always under cyber attacks.
• Mechanisms to withstand cyber attacks crucial.
• A great deal of cooperation between business,
governments and citizens in the fight against cyber
attacks is crucial.
• It will take a collective effort to achieve an integrated
digital ecosystem.
• AI revolutionizing the world of banking.
Phumlani M. Majozi

4. Africa Liberty Forum, Nairobi, Kenya, August 2019
• Annual conference organized by Atlas
Network.
• Topics: Private property (including digital
private property) rights, fighting corruption in
Africa, human freedom and social media, the
future of trade in Africa, bringing into the
issues of human freedom, how Africa can
achieve shared prosperity.
Phumlani M. Majozi

5. LeaderEx Summit, Sandton, Johannesburg,
September 2019
• Over 750 speakers
• Speakers include respected CEOs, successful
entrepreneurs, industry experts and business school
faculty. Learn from Africa's top thought leaders.
• Topics: Digital Transformation, Futures Thinking,
Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Data Science,
Devops, AITech, EdTech, FinTech, HRTech, InsurTech,
Impact Investing, Savings and investment
Phumlani M. Majozi

6. Takeaways from LeaderEx Summit
• A wonderful talk on transforming business operations
through AI, data science, IOT.
• Data is now material for AI.
• The challenge for businesses is how to maintain data
integrity.
• Traditional barriers to IOT: hardware costs, battery Life,
monthly fees, integration complexity.
• Technology transforming agriculture – farmers
becoming more and more technologically smart.
• AI differentiates the company from its competitors.
• Very important for business to apply a strategy on
data.
Phumlani M. Majozi

7. Using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and
Workforce
• One of the advantages of RPA is that it integrates
between systems.
• Digital Workforce is creating bots workforce equivalent
to human beings.
• Petroling House dishes out work to bots.
• Bots are capable of working 24 hours; humans not
prepared to work for 24 hours.
• Very important to go for value when implementing
bots.
• The objective at the end is to make business entirely
operational using bots.
• Innovate your processes to capitalize on RPA.
Phumlani M. Majozi

8. Experts divided over impact of automation on
banking sector – IOL
Andrea Tucker, Research and Development Head at
e4, a technology company specialising in
digitisation, said:
“New entrants to the local market say they are able
to scale quicker, without being hampered by legacy
systems, and in customer-speak, promise to deliver
a seamless online client on-boarding experience
without ever having to set foot in a branch.
“Incumbent banks have taken on the challenge
head on - and have invested heavily in digital
strategies and new technologies, all in the interest
of becoming more competitive.”
Phumlani M. Majozi

9. Ruchir Sharma, author, and global investment
strategist at Morgan Stanley
“AI is coming now to augment, in terms of
what the human capability already is, not to
replace it.”
Phumlani M. Majozi

10. New York Enterprise Technology Meetup, New York City, USA,
September 2019
• The meetup takes place monthly.
• First, start-ups present on their businesses
and then a panel discussion follows.
• September’s topic was: Modernizing IT
Infrastructure.
• Two start-ups presented: RippleMatch and
Tilt.
• Panelists believe start-ups must persistently
engage potential investors. A long-term
relationship is very important.
• Modernizing infrastructure should not leave
human resources behind.
• Most of the time (99% of the time), choose
to buy then to build when modernizing
infrastructure.
Phumlani M. Majozi