Page 26 - GENIUS MAGAZINE AFRICA 7TH EDITION

Peter
eter Matlare, deputy CEO of Absa, unlike
Shabalala and Maluleke, works for a
Ptraditional bank. But one that is
repositioning itself for the future as it prepares
to complete its managed separation from
Barclays, in Botswana, Zambia, Namibia,
Seychelles, Mauritius, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania,
Mozambique, Nigeria and Uganda, by June
2020. This follows the British parent bank’s
decision in 2016 to dispose of its African
operation post strategic review (see box-out on
the following page for more).
Once the separation is complete, Matlare
believes that the bank’s ability to compete will
be strengthened.
Absa is one of those traditional banks delving
deeper into digital banking.
he offering Absa foresees will be beyond
an app, reveals the critical thinker. The
Ttechnology architecture it is putting in
place through the separation will allow it to do
things in a more efficient and effective manner
Matlare also recognizes that this path to digital
banking won’t stop after June 2020. “As part of
this change, this digitization is about what
should be in your toolbox and how do we
change culturally how people interact a) with
each other and b) with a customer out there in
order to become this agile, digitally-enabled
bank that will hopefully succeed.”
25
Matlare
imilar to TymeBank and African Bank, Absa is
not looking at entering the future alone but
Swith fintech or technology platforms that
allow it to compete in the areas it wants to, for
example, in Kenya, it has a platform called Timiza.
“Timiza is a saving and lending and payment
platform that allows you to get an instant
unsecured loan or to make a bill payment or to get
an insurance product, you can get all of those. We
partnered with a company called Craft Silicon, on
the one side, and they’re the kind of tech partner
in getting this product up and running but we also
partnered Safaricom that owns the M-Pesa
[ecosystem], so that we can do the credit vetting
and screening, the screening of the individuals
who come on to look for that loan and, of course,
we use the national credit bureau data. When you
put all of those together… you have got to be able
to manage all of these partners in this venture in
order to deliver this capability so if you are an old-
fashioned thinker, who thinks in a linear manner
you’re not going to get that right, you have got to
be able to think in a distributed fashion.”
eter imagines that “whilst technology might
change, whilst the enablers might change,
Pthe central function of providing capability,
enabling customers to effect that which they need
to is absolutely where banking will be. Does that
mean you will have investment-banking?
Absolutely yes. Does that mean you will have retail
banking? Absolutely yes, but it may no longer be
bricks-and-mortar retail banking, it could be a
combination of bricks-and-mortar and something
else”.