West Africa Banking Summit Marks Silver Jubilee with Focus on Digital Transformation
Accra's Kempinski Hotel hosted the 25th Connected Banking Summit – West Africa, a landmark event celebrating a quarter-century of shaping financial innovation across the region. The summit gathered government officials, banking CEOs, and fintech pioneers under the theme of digital transformation, AI integration, and cybersecurity resilience.
Keynote speakers included Hon. Samuel Nartey George, Ghana's Minister of Communication, Digital Technology & Innovations, and Dr. Gillian Hammah of GradePoint AI. Panel discussions featured Universal Merchant Bank CEO Dr. Philip Oti-Mensah and Access Bank Plc's Regional CIO Emmanuel Morka, highlighting West Africa's leadership in embedded finance and financial inclusion.
The silver jubilee edition underscored the region's accelerating adoption of blockchain infrastructure and institutional-grade crypto solutions, with particular emphasis on regulatory frameworks for digital assets like BTC, ETH, and XRP. BRIX365 CEO Aleksey Trefilov presented case studies on interoperable payment systems, while Azentio's Yuvraj Kumar demonstrated AI-driven risk management tools now being deployed across exchanges including Binance and Bybit.