The Africa Fintech Summit has announced that Ecobank Group, one of Africa’s pioneering Fintech enabler banks, is Gold Sponsor for this year’s Africa Fintech Summits (AFTS), slated for April 21 in Washington, D.C., the US and in November in Cape Town, South Africa.

Established in 1985 and headquartered in Lomé, Togo with a founding vision of an African bank for Africans, today the Ecobank Group is a world-class pan-African institution and a torchbearer for Africa with banking operations in 33 sub-Saharan African countries.

It was named the 2020 African ‘Bank of the Year’ by The Banker, and 2021 ‘African SME Bank of the Year’ at the African Banker Awards.

Widely acclaimed for its open banking strategy and for nurturing fintech as partners, Ecobank runs several initiatives to foster fintechs’ development across Africa, including its flagship annual fintech challenge competition, the Ecobank pan-AfricanBanking Sandbox, Ecobank Marketplace eCommerce and EcobankPay solutions, among others.

Djiba Diallo, Ecobank Group’s Senior Fintech adviser said, “We are absolutely delighted to be the Gold Sponsor of the Africa Fintech Summits for 2022.

“We see our Open Banking strategy as a huge opportunity for Fintechs to access the 33+ African markets in which we operate, especially with the advent of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

“This initiative will accelerate intra-African trade, and with our digital payments’ ecosystem, Ecobank is in the best position to facilitate financial transactions and boost business opportunities across the continent.

“Our participation at the Africa Fintech Summits demonstrates our continuous support for Fintechs to help transform digital finance and banking across Africa.”

While commenting on the sponsorship, Zekarias Amsalu, Co-Founder of AFTS and MD of Ibex Frontier noted, “As we are focusing on the theme of Africanisation of the Global Tech in this year’s summits, we are very excited to welcome Ecobank as our Gold Sponsor as its open and borderless banking strategy is going to be crucial for the African Fintech ecosystem that is growing globally as well as for the seamless cross-border and cross-currency transactions under AfCFTA.”

The 7^th edition of AFTS will focus on the Africanisation of Global Tech, Fintech Regulation best practices, Diaspora Banking and Remittance, use-cases for decentralised finance (Defi), fintech funding trends, cross-border payments under the AfCFTA and the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), among other spotlight topics.

African Press Organization