Theme: Strengthening E-Commerce for Regional Growth

For the estimated 230 million unbanked and underbanked households in Africa (African Executive 2008), e-banking in the form of electronic money transfer and branchless banking presents a great potential to participate in the regional economy. The enthusiastic adoption of the services that have been introduced in the region has been fueled by the exponential growth in the celluar technology usage. The ITU African ICT Indicators 2008 report (ITU 2008) estimates that Africa has 27 mobile phone users per 100 inhabitants, with a compound growth rate of 49.3%, and falling user tariffs. This has presented an opportunity for service providers to reach and provide interactive services to more people at a lower cost to the users, and it has already been adopted to provide new mobile-banking services amongst others.

In any new market, enablement requires a blend of legal and regulatory openness, so that providers have the confidence to invest the resources necessary (Porteous 2006). In a new market sector like mobile banking, where business models are not yet stabilized, enablement in the policy and regulatory sector drives the move towards greater certainty and greater openness. Due to the prevalence of fragmented markets in Africa, it is essential to consolidate these markets in order to attain and maintain a critical mass that is essential for economic growth and stability (USAID COMPETE). Critical to the formation of these consolidated markets is the adoption of regional standards and regulations to create the enabling environment that would facilitate such growth; hence the need to establish harmonzed regional standards and regulations for the operation of e-banking services in the region.

Furthermore, the new service providers have had to conduct business in a market that poses new risks, to themselves, their operations and clients. These include technological, process and environmental risks like SIM swaps, movement of funds beyond defined beneficiaries, low user knowledge and inadequate operator awareness of information security.

As the local chapter of the premier forum that brings together professionals from financial and banking, public accounting, telecommunications, government and the public sector to address information governance, control, security and audit, ISACA Kenya, in collaboration with ISACA Tanzania and ISACA Uganda, is organising the ISACA East Africa Conference 2010. The event shall bring together the ISACA chapters from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and the region’s stakeholders in e-banking service delivery to deliberate and reach concensus on mechanisms that address the issues required to make the integration and provision of these services regionally a success.