ICICI Bank reported strong retail banking performance with improvements in profit growth, return on equity (ROE) and cost to income ratio (CIR) in 2021. The bank’s performance is also supported by its strong digital capabilities developed over the years, and initiatives to deliver better customer experience and digital engagement.

Crosby Mkhwanazi, group head, transactional products & services, wholesale clients, Standard Bank, speaks on cross border payments, remittances and modernisation of payments in Africa. He also shared Standard Bank's priority initiatives.

Diane Karusisi, CEO of Bank of Kigali discussed with Emmanuel Daniel, Rwanda's current economic boom and its development path over the last 20 years. With the changes happening in this east African country, it shows that Rwandans manage to grow and become better. She believes that “its possible to transform Africa into a better place for Africans”.

Diane Karusisi, CEO of Bank of Kigali discussed with Emmanuel Daniel, Rwanda's current economic boom and its development path over the last 20 years. With the changes happening in this east African country, it shows that Rwandans manage to grow and become better. She believes that “Tax revenues are now supporting infra buildup in Rwanda”.

When it comes to Indonesia, we see it's still very early days to start with. So, open banking, open finance, those terms are just starting to make the rounds. It's kind of like started somewhere last year, and now everyone has heard about it. But there's still a lot of education that needs to be done across the board, to customers to fintech platforms, and also to banks of what it actually means and what it entails. I do believe there's an opportunity for everyone involved in any value chain, even banks are starting to realize that this actually provides great opportunities to tap into additional customer segments, additional #monetisation channels. But there's definitely a learning curve attached to it. And I think as always, Southeast Asia essentially finds its own way. And it's going to be probably a bit of a hybrid of what we've seen in other markets.

Andi Taufan and Aria Widyanto of Amartha shared how their fintech social enterprise is supporting women entrepreneurs in Indonesia to expand their microenterprises. Founded as a microfinance cooperative in 2010, Amartha transformed itself into a financial technology company with a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending model in 2016.

BIDV, Techcombank, TNEX, TPBank, Vietcombank, VietinBank, VPBank and VPBank NEO were recognised for their exceptional performance in retail and digital banking despite a challenging year at The Asian Banker Vietnam Awards 2022.

Jakob Rost, CEO and co-founder of Ayoconnect, one the largest open finance platforms in Southeast Asia discussed the use of common APIs, the potential to forge industry collaboration and accelerate the digitalisation of Indonesia’s financial services sector and economy. He also explained Ayoconnect’s business model, new product roadmap and growth opportunities.

Diane Karusisi, CEO of Bank of Kigali discussed with Emmanuel Daniel, Rwanda's current economic boom and its development path over the last 20 years. With the changes happening in this east African country, it shows that Rwandans manage to grow and become better. She believes that “its possible to transform Africa into a better place for Africans”.

In this wide-ranging briefing on the impact of the #RussianUkrainewar on the #finance industry, Emmanuel Daniel and Mathew Welch discussed the complexities private banks face in complying with sanctions on Russian oligarchs.

In recent years, #China has carried out supply-side structural reform. This is one of the critical points of China’s economy. Since the reform and opening up, especially after China joined #WTO in 2000, the growth of China’s economy has accelerated significantly, and the size of the #economy has become increasingly large, forming many relative advantages in many areas.

Leading fintech entrepreneurs in Uganda spent an evening with Emmanuel Daniel to share how Africa will transform finance to focus on the community.

Ntoudi Mouyelo-Katoula and team spoke with Emmanuel Daniel about returning to Rwanda to build the Kigali International Financial Centre, and connecting Pan African businesses and fintechs to the global financial system.

Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games (YGG), spoke with Emmanuel Daniel about how YGG and the gaming industry adopted blockchain technology and how it helps people make a living. With over 2.8 billion gamers around the world, Dizon sees more companies such as banks getting into the metaverse virtual world. He also discussed how YGG and Union Digital Bank started their partnership.

Ricky Rapa Thomson, co-founder of Uganda’s first ride-hailing app SafeBoda, talked about how digital technology is helping the boda boda (motorcycle taxi) industry bridge the service gaps created by poor infrastructure and inadequate public transportation. As the company expands into other services like payments and e-commerce, it contributes to the recovery of Uganda’s pandemic-battered economy.