Why Financial Institutions Need To Marry 5G And IOT

The world is rapidly growing in terms of Internet of Things and 5G, and many industries are thinking about a marriage between the two to enhance efficiency.

At the dx5 Africa Fintech Summit, there was a heavy panel that delved deeply into the question of whether a marriage between 5G and IOT is one made in heaven. Given the benefits that other industries have reaped from the marriage between 5G and IOT, then BFSI will also benefit from the same.

Moderated by Andrew Munene, the panel comprised of Ben Roberts (Liquid Intelligent Technologies), Moses Okundi (Absa Bank Kenya), Jaine Mwai (Standard Chartered Bank), and Albert Mulei (KCB Bank Group). The panelists gave their experiences and thoughts on how IOT and 5G marriage can be beneficial to BFSI.

The Absa Bank CIO and current CIO of the Year, Moses Okundi, agreed that it is beneficial to any company and any industry to leverage onto these technological solutions as the benefits are seen.

“5G provides ultra-low latency that enables quick communication and brings a level of efficiency that any financial institution can benefit from,” Okundi said in the panel adding that there has also been a proliferation of IOT devices alongside other technologies.

When talking of 5G, Liquid Intelligent Technologies’ Ben Roberts said that the continent is only experiencing the early days of the 5G network. A lot of African nations that claim they are launching 5G are not actually rolling it out, according to Roberts. He however said that there are a couple of countries like Kenya and South Africa that are making important spaces towards 5G integration.

Jaine Mwai and Albert Mulei both talked about examples of when they used these technologies in their experience and how they benefited from the same.

In the panel discussion, a couple of benefits were listed that BFSI could reap from the marriage between IOT and 5G.

These include; real-time data analytics, faster and more secure transactions, personalized computer experiences, etc.

We’ll add the video footage of this panel here soon, be sure to come back.