Africa’s largest lender by assets, is planning to scale-up some of its operations on the continent and further digitize its systems to fend off fintech firms encroaching on its client base. Companies such as Ant Group’s Alipay unit are seeking to tap emerging markets like Africa and its 1.2 billion people through financial-services offerings. This is complicating the strategies of South African banks that have turned to the rest of the continent for growth, as their home market grapples with a recession, corruption and high joblessness.
What really worries is you’ve got Alipay in partnership with some of our clients talking about the continent. IT is going to continue to be a major expense item. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is privatizing state assets, while opening large swathes of the economy to foreign investors. Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are poised to expand above the sub-Saharan African average next year, according to International Monetary Fund estimates. Standard Bank’s digital investments enabled it to adapt its systems to allow most of its non-branch staff to work from home following the onset of Covid-19, Tshabalala said. IT spends accounted for almost 30% of Standard Bank’s operating expenses in the six months through June. It started an app to keep track of staff working from home and to help with daily symptom checks, arranged transport for essential staff, and paid customer-facing employee’s bonuses.