The continent’s financial industry will be out in force for AFIS’ private sector sister event – the Africa CEO Forum in May. Discover the key topics of discussion in finance and the decisionmakers in banking, insurance and fintech attending.
Dubbed by media outlets the ‘Davos (World Economic Forum) of Africa’, the Africa CEO Forum will take place in Kigali, Rwanda on 14 & 15 May this year.
The event – organised by Jeune Afrique Media Group, convener of AFIS – will gather 2,800 business leaders, investors and policy makers from Africa and around the world.
The Africa CEO Forum is co-hosted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and is the largest international meeting of the African private sector.
AFIS Supervisory Council meeting
Our thirty member AFIS Supervisory Council – made up of central bank governors, regulators and executive leaders from the continent’s leading financial institutions – will also hold a meeting at the Africa CEO Forum.
The Council is a consultative and strategic body that helps determine the strategic direction of the AFIS platform. Members include the chairman of Access Holdings & Coronation Group, the CEO of General Insurance at SanlamAllianz and the CEO of Bourse de Casablanca, Morocco’s stock exchange.
The meeting, coordinated by AFIS Supervisory Council Secretary General Olivier Noel – who sits on the Boards of Rawbank and Bank of Africa – will include insights from Absa’s chief economist Jeff Gable.
Reinforcing acquisition finance
Strengthening bespoke acquisition finance repaid in line with the acquired company cash flows will also be part of the conversation at the Africa CEO Forum.
A roundtable will gather leaders from Standard Chartered, Barclays, Nedbank, Standard Bank and MCB to discuss how more flexible, deal-linked lending could encourage African M&A activity and promote consolidation across the continent’s private sector industries.
MCB’s facility backing Invictus Investment Company’s $200–300m acquisitions show the model can work, but few African banks offer such financing, many firms are unsure how to qualify, and DFIs that could provide the long-tenure instruments view it as too close to investment banking.
Elsewhere, in a separate session, Visa’s VP and Managing Director for East Africa Chad Pollock will join Charles Russon, Group Executive for Africa Regions at Absa to examine how to engineer consolidation in the tech and fintech industry.
The cost of corporate & SME lending
Finally, Africa CEO Forum TV will feature a special segment publicly available live on the Africa CEO Forum LinkedIn page and app titled “Has Africa’s cost of corporate & SME credit become too high?”
Guests include Dr. Diane Karusisi — CEO, Bank of Kigali; Jeremy Awori — CEO, Ecobank; Dalu Ajene — CEO and Head of Coverage, Africa, Standard Chartered and Hannington Namara — Managing Director, Equity Bank Rwanda.
The segment will ask if high commercial bank interest rates for business credit are sustainable or if companies could instead turn to private credit, fintech and other non-bank sources.
Lending is the largest revenue base for African banks, projected to hit $52bn by 2030. But the latest data from Kenya’s central bank suggests average commercial bank interest rates on business loans are around 17%, compared with 3.6% for corporate borrowing in the euro area.
Discover the full Africa CEO Forum programme HERE.
Register for the event HERE (registration will close shortly).
