Embassy of Kenya, Washington, DC

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Bankers give Kenya a mark of confidence

Nairobi City

March 28, 2008: Organisers of a regional banking conference that had been relocated to a neighbouring country because of post-election violence have returned to Nairobi.

The move offers Kenya’s battered tourism industry the mark of confidence it needs to recover. The conference will also greatly boost Kenya’s efforts to diversify into conference tourism, away from game and beach tourism that have been the bedrock of the country’s product range.

Organisers of the African Banking Technology Conference that opens this morning, said Nairobi had the technological support that is needed to stage the event that runs alongside an exhibition.

“We are happy to report that none of the sponsors, event participants or speakers have cancelled their bookings. We are therefore promising our clients a comprehensive banking and technology programme,” said Sean Moroney, the chairman of event organisers AITEC.

This year’s talks has attracted twice as much the usual sponsorship — netting Sh3 million. The number of delegates has also risen to more than 200 delegates compared to last year’s 117.AITEC said participation in the conference had been helped by the recent lifting of negative travel advisories that many countries had issued on Kenya at the height of the post-election turmoil.

Until December, last year, conference tourism had become one of Kenya’s fastest growing products, with Nairobi as the main beneficiary.

Nairobi has also developed as a regional financial hub helped by the launch of new products such as electronic money transfer systems that have revolutionised the way banks interact with their customers.

The mobile phone’s growing popularity as a financial tool has seen more banking institutions turn to technology to attract new customers.

“Interest in the conference reflects the support that technology is offering the financial services sector,” said Bernard Mathewman, the managing director of Paynet — the main sponsors of the event for the third year running.

Conference organisers will discuss the rise of mobile banking and its ability to pull in the un-banked into the formal financial system.The financial sector deepening report that was published two years ago said that just 26.4 per cent of the Kenyan population is formally served by financial institutions. This represents only 4.6 million of the estimated 17.4 million adults.

Analysts say the growing interaction between technology and banking remains the only viable channel to extend the reach of financial services to more users .

Mr Moroney said ample time had been allocated to mobile banking because of the emerging challenges in managing new payments systems such as ATMs or cards.