Microsoft Supports Digital Transformation Of Kenya’s Financial Sector

Microsoft has reaffirmed its commitment to assisting Kenyan financial services providers in their digital transformation by providing specialized Cloud solutions.

The commitment is made considering the current operating environment, which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a recent study by the African Financial Industry Barometer, which found that nearly 72 percent of banks have already launched digitalization programs as a priority for the coming year.

However, the majority of those polled believe their digital maturity is still in its early stages; these FSPs should prioritize change as a business priority.

Speaking during a virtual digital transformation roundtable for the financial services industry (FSI) today, Hoda Younan, Marketing and Operations Director for Microsoft Middle East and Africa, unpacked Microsoft’s Digital Transformation journey to accelerate meaningful transformation for Kenya’s financial services providers (FSPs).

“Microsoft is uniquely placed to empower Africa’s FSPs by bringing together existing and new industry capabilities to deliver a more seamless, customized cloud-based experience,” said Younan. “With deep security and compliance built in to meet the needs of the FSI, the proposed digital transformation roadmap future-proofs FSPs as they continue to manage unprecedented risks and grow rapidly with innovative business models.”

With this targeted solution, Microsoft has already helped many FSPs successfully embrace change and unlock new value creation on their digital transformation journey.

Speaking at the event, Kendi Ntwiga, Country Manager for Microsoft Kenya said there are several factors driving this urgency to digitize. “First, we’ve seen changes in employee work patterns that have shaped a hybrid workforce, as well as the increasingly sophisticated customer expectations for a 24-hour-a-day service at their fingertips with the same level of security as a physical vault,” she explained.

A huge focus is to help FSPs combat financial crime. Financial institutions must be able to innovate at the rate of financial crime to reduce operational costs while protecting the organization and its customers against losses and criminal activity. As such, users can employ the cloud’s enhanced data analytics to identify outliers faster to respond to the newest criminal topologies, and conduct ongoing risk scoring. Microsoft’s solution also helps FSPs enhance fraud-detection systems to add contextual information that will reduce false-positive alerts.

The other capability enabled benefit speaks to the need to modernize core banking systems and operations, such as payments, to boost customer experiences in an increasingly digitized data-driven economy. In streamlining operations and infrastructure, this benefit also helps FSPs save on costs and increase real-time business agility.

Understanding the driving factors to digitize gives context to the way that a trusted, tailored solution for Financial Services can deliver unique benefits to enhance competitiveness. “It’s clear that any FSP looking to modernize, automate, streamline, and secure processes and operations need to look no further than a robust cloud-based ecosystem to achieve it,” concludes Younan.