Banks in the national system must quickly increase their knowledge and capabilities to be able to identify the potential risks of financial digitalization, according to the administrator of the National Bank of Angola (BNA), Pedro Castro e Silva.
Speaking at the closing of the 5th Digital Transformation Conference, under the theme “Telecommunications, digitalization and financial inclusion, the manager highlighted that the subject constitutes a challenge for central and commercial banks.
For Pedro Castro e Silva, reality presents a scenario in which the central bank competes with commercial banks and these with information technology companies.
He mentioned that the evolution of payment systems has been noted in Angola, especially alternative payment instruments to traditional banking, and that, despite these payment solutions, launched by commercial banks, there are also 16 companies providing payment services – a good part of them offering mobile wallet services, including two telecommunications companies.
"It is confirmed that because they are more agile, this type of companies quickly attracts customers, and one of them, based on the number of customers, is already larger than the majority of commercial banks licensed by the BNA”, highlighted the administrator.
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Talking about “mobile money” (mobile payment), within the scope of financial inclusion and digitalization, cited two aspects that he considered fundamental to being able, in fact, to fulfill its role and increase financial inclusion in Angola, being the business model and interoperability.
Firstly, he explained, “solution promoters must consolidate the expansion of this type of services to the unbanked population, given that the banked population uses instruments made available by local banks that are already mobile, such as cards and mobile solutions. banking”.
In the context of financial inclusion, he suggested that person-to-person transfers should be prioritized, similar to what happened in other markets, since a large part of national economic operations are informal and the agents who operate there are individuals.
