BusinessTech Digital Banking Conference Johannesburg: March 5, 2020

The Conference was focused on the impact of digital transformation in the banking, financial services, and insurance industry sectors. A lot of visibility has been given to disruption and disruptors and with good reason. This conference was on trends related to how organizations are gearing up for the high growth of fintech. Rand Merchant Investments, Vodacom, Discovery, FNB Connect presented the Fintech trends while Fortinet provided a view of Cybersecurity.

The Digital Transformation era seems to have a natural advantage for banks and big technology companies compared to telecom operators. Many of the banks and big technology companies seem better geared for dealing with fintech opportunities than telcos, with the exception of Vodacom / Safaricom. There seems good reason to believe that telcos will become more network operators (provide the information superhighway) while industry vertical sectors such as banks & financial institutions, healthcare, and others start looking to MVNOs & Cloud Service Providers to offer the personalized value proposition.