During three days (6th to 10th of July) Terrapin arranged the annual Banking Outlook Africa conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Bearing was there, represented by Richard Shaw, Lars Egstam and Jörgen Eriksson. The venue was the impressive Sandton Convention Center.
The conference was a high level event with many CEO´s of African Banks attending. This year the attendance level was higher than in 2008, most likely due to the starting recovery after the financial crises.
The speaker list was impressive, including Mervyn E. King presenting The King Report on Corporate Governance and the CEO of Mauritius Commercial Bank Anthony Withers.
Africa has an undeveloped banking sector with only 25% of Africans having bank accounts, with competition entering the banking sector through mobile banking and with a strong drive by the largest banks to achieve to regional expansion.
Richard Shaw of Bearing Consulting gave a speech and also contributed a whitepaper to the conference. Both the presentation and the speech can be downloaded or viewed below.
[slideshare id=13001768&doc=bankingoutlookafrica2009presentation-richardshaw-120520113452-phpapp01]