E-Financial
Temenos Digital Leaders Summit Series Explores the Next Evolution of Banking in Africa
Changing consumer expectations, technological advancements, and regulatory reforms have seen digital transformation become an integral part of the modern banking industry.
Global banking software provider, Temenos, hosted an exclusive Southern Africa Digital Leaders Summit in Sandton on 14 November 2023 to discuss how the banking industry in the region needs to respond to these rapid and evolving changes for sustained success.
The Summit agenda was directed by findings from a recent Economist Impact report for Temenos which found that new technologies will have the most significant impact on banks over the next five years – more than customer demands and evolving regulation – and that unlocking value from artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI has been identified as a key differentiator.
One-in-five banks globally see their business models evolving over the next 12-24 months towards offering banking-as-a-service to brands and fintechs, while nearly twice as many banks envision acting as a true digital ecosystem themselves.
Customer centricity is also driving banks to offer more embedded ESG propositions, while the focus on lowering their carbon footprint, as well as the increasing use of data-intensive AI, has prompted half of the world’s banks to expect these activities will inevitably lead them to move to the public cloud and do away with owning any private data centres.
The Africa Digital Leaders Summit has been a series of regional events hosted by Temenos to engage with banking institutions and industry players across the continent and promote open dialogue on how global trends are influencing local banking industries.
The Southern Africa leg of the Summit series consisted of thought-provoking discussions, interactive panels, and live demonstrations led by seasoned experts from Temenos alongside industry leaders from BankservAfrica, Nedbank, Liberty Group South Africa, Bidvest Bank Limited, Standard Bank Group, Tyme Bank, Barko Financial Services, EY and Microsoft.
The half-day session topics included banking trends and navigating the modernisation journey; enhancing the customer experience through smart, personalised digital banking and seamless payments; wealth management opportunities, and more.
“Banks across the region are increasingly adopting digital technologies to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations, and offer innovative financial products and services.
“The Summit saw the coming together of visionaries and innovators who are leading the charge for digital change in banking in Southern Africa. The next wave of banking trends that are already in motion and shaping the industry were discussed – setting the stage to redefine the future of banking across the region,” said William Moroney, Managing Director – Middle East & Africa, Temenos.
The keynote presentation from Sean Berrington, Partner – Technology, Consulting at EY highlighted the shift to digital as a universal imperative for banks on the continent. In this environment, banks require a platform that helps them build for change while still delivering a broad set of banking capabilities across multiple segments.
With the shift to digital being more important than ever, it has become a business imperative for banks to change if they are to remain relevant against rapidly growing fintech startups.
“Banks are aware that they need to transform to survive. Our research shows that two-thirds of global banking executives considered their organisation’s ability to transform as ‘extremely important’ for their future survival – and this expectation is mirrored in Africa,” said Berrington. “There is also a clear need for banks to change in ways that drive accessibility, affordability, and trust when it comes to payment mechanisms in Africa.”
Tielman Walters, Chief Technology & Information Officer at Barko Financial Services, a Temenos customer, also spoke at the Summit and stressed the crucial role that technology has played in assisting it in transitioning from a microfinance institution to become a new potential mutual bank with a wider range of digital services.
“To achieve our growth objectives, we needed a much more advanced and scalable back-end platform, which would enable us to develop and launch new banking services quickly. Temenos provides us with a platform to deal with any spikes in business volumes without any problems. Using the resources available in the Temenos Learning Community, we have also developed an extensive knowledge base on the solutions as we continue on our journey,” said Walters.
The Southern Africa event forms part of Temenos’ pan-Africa Digital Leaders Summit roadshow, which has already been East and West earlier this year and next will travel to Morocco on 28th November 2023, to explore the impact of these themes and trends on the Northern Africa banking industry.
Temenos consistently tops the IBS Intelligence Sales League Table for digital and core banking. Temenos also ranked #1 in Regional Sales Awards for the Middle East and Africa in the most recent IBSi Sales League Table 2023.
World Bank has approved an additional $65 million loan for Nigeria to support the Sustainable Procurement, Environmental, and Social Standards Enhancement (SPESSE) project, increasing the total financing for the initiative to $145 million.
The approval was granted on June 24, 2025, according to details posted on the World Bank’s website, which also indicates that the project’s status has moved to “active” following the approval.
The SPESSE project, initially launched with an $80 million loan approved in February 2020, aims to strengthen institutional capacity for managing procurement, environmental, and social standards in both the public and private sectors across Nigeria.
The World Bank described the project’s development objective as the establishment of sustainable capacity in these areas.
This latest approval is part of a broader wave of financing expected from the World Bank to Nigeria in 2025.
The bank is scheduled to approve loans totalling $1.61 billion over the coming months, supporting various development initiatives.
Among these is a $300 million loan for the ‘Solutions for the Internally Displaced and Host Communities Project,’ expected to be finalised by the end of July.
This project aims to improve access to basic services and economic opportunities for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities in selected local government areas in northern Nigeria.
In September, the World Bank plans to approve four additional loans: a $10.5 million facility to support technical assistance for the Central Bank of Nigeria, a $300 million Health Security Program targeting Western and Central Africa (Nigeria – Phase IV), a $500 million project for building resilient digital infrastructure (BRIDGE), and a $500 million loan under the Nigeria Sustainable Agricultural Value-Chains for Growth project aimed at promoting sustainable growth and job creation within key agricultural sectors.
Earlier in March 2025, the bank approved three financing requests amounting to $1.13 billion.
These funds are directed towards projects focused on enhancing quality education, boosting household and community resilience, and improving nutrition.
Among the approved loans were $80 million for the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria 2.0 project, $552 million for the HOPE for Quality Basic Education for All programme, and $500 million for the Community Action for Resilience and Economic Stimulus Programme.
In February, the Nigerian government announced expectations of new World Bank loans totalling $2.2 billion for six different projects in 2025. This follows a $1.5 billion loan disbursed in 2024 aimed at strengthening Nigeria’s economic stability and resource mobilisation efforts.
Ecobank, a pan-African financial services group, has partnered with Google Cloud in a deal to improve financial services with advanced analytics, AI and driving digital empowerment across Africa.
This collaboration will focus on leveraging Google Cloud’s advanced technologies and AI to enhance Ecobank’s digital offerings to accelerate the digital transformation of the Bank.
The partnership agreement is designed to empower individuals, support the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the region, and contribute to the overall economic development of Africa.
“Our collaboration with Google Cloud is a leap forward in Ecobank’s digital transformation journey. We look forward to leveraging Google Cloud’s world-class technology to unlock new possibilities for individuals and businesses to grow and scale across Africa,” said Jeremy Awori, group chief executive officer of Ecobank.
“This collaboration signifies our shared intent to explore building a more connected and financially inclusive future for the continent.”
Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, stated that Google Cloud and Ecobank have a shared vision for using technology to help deliver financial empowerment to more people and businesses in Africa.
“We look forward to exploring the ways our cutting-edge AI, powerful data analytics, and scalable infrastructure can support Ecobank’s efforts to fuel the continent’s economic development and digital future.”
The collaboration aims to simplify and streamline money transfers, both domestically and across borders. By leveraging Google Cloud’s capabilities, including its powerful data analytics platform, BigQuery, for AI-driven insights, Ecobank will aim to develop solutions that improve access to finance for SMEs, simplify payment acceptance, and provide valuable data-driven insights to help businesses scale across more than 33 countries in Africa.
Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc has announced the successful close of the N148.7 billion Rights Issue subscription exercise following the completion of the verification exercise by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and final clearance by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Stanbic IBTC Holdings said the Rights Issue was oversubscribed by 21.9 percent, adding that the holding company has injected N140 billion into Stanbic IBTC Bank.
Kunle Adedeji, acting Chief Executive, Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc while commenting on the just concluded rights issue programme said that “The turnout and participation of existing shareholders taking up their rights was impressive such that the rights issue was oversubscribed by 21.9percent to the tune of N181.4 billion. Our shareholders’ interest shows the confidence they continue to have in the brand,” he said.
“We appreciate the support of the Central Bank of Nigeria, The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Lead Issuing house, Joint Issuing houses and other stakeholders in the successful completion of the recapitalisation exercise.
“We are optimistic about future opportunities, as the injection of new capital will position us to take advantage of them to enable us to deliver to our shareholders. To all shareholders, we are grateful for your unwavering belief and support for the Stanbic IBTC Brand and your willingness to continue this journey with us,” Adedeji said.
Having received an injection of N140 billion from the parent company, the Chief Executive of the Banking subsidiary, Wole Adeniyi, remarked that “the injection of the new capital into the banking subsidiary is a positive development. This will enable the Bank to seize additional opportunities within the industry and enhance our Single Obligor Limit (SOL).
“We deeply appreciate the dedication and hard work of our regulators, issuing houses, and all other stakeholders. We extend our sincere gratitude for your continued support.”
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