VALLETTA, Malta, September 19, 2018/ -- What kind of solutions can blockchain technology offer the continent? Is Africa on the road to becoming a blockchain hub?
Africa
is rising and technology is at the forefront of our growth as a
continent. We have seen the explosion of the mobile space in the
continent and how it has allowed a number of services and solutions to
become easier. Blockchain is about to help solve a number of issues we
are currently facing in the public and private sector. Pockets of
blockchain innovation are fast springing up in innovation hubs across
Africa, as the public and private sector alike seek effective new
systems of record with trust embedded.
With Kenya, Nigeria,
Uganda and South Africa among the countries taking the lead in
blockchain experimentation, the financial sector looks set to be the
continent’s earliest big adopter. However, development and trials are
also underway to apply blockchain technology to virtually every industry
sector – from health and social development to retail and agriculture.
Governments are exploring ways of using blockchain to aid corruption
across multiple verticals and also to push value to service sectors.
One
company planning to maximize blockchain’s potential in Africa is
Ecobank, a pan-African banking conglomerate with operations in 36
African countries. Ecobank’s Fintech Challenge actively seeks out
fintech innovations harnessing Blockchain, artificial intelligence,
machine learning and other next-generation technologies.
Other
countries like Kenya and Nigeria have either setup a blockchain
committee or advisory programs to explore the opportunity. Some of the
happenings in the private sector around blockchain education are also
key to use case of the technology, i.e IBM research on blockchain and
movement of trade in Africa. ITEX, a payment solution company servicing
multiple POS solutions and software for banks across Africa is
exploring blockchain for security and trust.
From my perspective
Africa is looking at blockchain as a solution to solve some of the
multiple problems we have, as we pioneer digital payment technologies in
Africa as well.
As we move into the African future in technology
blockchain represents a perfect decentralized and incorruptible ‘truth
engine’ that cannot be hacked growth for payment, SME trade and a number
of identity management and transactional problems we have in Africa.
Nairobi
and South Africa have implemented crypto-friendly laws and Kenya’s
president Uhuru Kenyatta has launched a blockchain and artificial
intelligence task force. Do you think other African countries will
follow suit?Yes, more countries will follow and create
other types of structures that will work for their economy based on
their market need.
Some momentum has been gathered around the use
of blockchain in Africa so far and throughout 2018. But what could be
unusual is the role that governments and public sector organisations
could play in raising its profile further. Typically, the development
and application of emerging technologies is championed by the private
sector before the public sector tends to take notice. Given that the
potential use cases for blockchain align so closely with many public
services, this is a technology where the public sector cannot afford to
be sat in the passenger seat.
For example the Blockchain
Association of Uganda was established earlier this year to create a
credible vehicle for driving standards for blockchain across industries
in Uganda. The membership organisation also aims to make
blockchain-related resources available to government and public-sector
consumers.
We also see the evolution of the Blockchain centre for
excellence positioned to provide education and train young developers
on blockchain and how to build solutions that can solve African
problems.
Do you foresee any difficulties with the
implementation of blockchain systems? There are some concerns about the
risk of crypto asset crime, including tax evasion and money laundering.Bitcoin’s
wild skyrocket last year may well have turned the world’s interest on
to cryptocurrencies, but in Africa we “still have a long way to go”
before they will be considered legal tender, and as such are not of
major interest. Governments are still struggling with how to manage
crypto space and this is affecting the conversation around blockchain.
Any decision to buy into a new cryptocurrency would be guided by the
same criteria as other investment decisions, with a focus on avoiding
the “cloud” created by the crypto buzz.
African Cryptocurrency
exchanges – allowing people to trade various digital currencies against
African currencies – may present a more valuable prospect in the short
term, but overall, he leans away from the crypto proposition in favour
of blockchain solutions. These, he says, will be far more attractive
investment opportunities: It will not be as straight forward as it may
sound.
A lot of African banks and government run when they hear
the word crypto because of the effect they feel it will have on the
economy and also loss of control. Issues around tax evasion are real and
have to be discussed with clarity for us to find a way forward.
What
potential does this have to revolutionize the lives of the unbanked,
does it represent an opportunity to democratize the economy?On
the private sector side it is a huge opportunity for the fintech and
private sector space. Also, the drive for financial inclusion is one
that bodes well for the crypto space in Africa. We can already see a
number of exchanges setting up in Africa to take advantage of this
growing opportunity.
Just as Africa skipped the early
fixed-line telecommunication phases of the 20th century and moved
straight on to mobile phone usage, could new blockchain tech provide it
with a similar opportunity to bypass inefficient systems and leap into
the future?Yes, 1000% – blockchain is going to
revolutionize the way we look at tech and solutions going forward in
Africa. And blockchain on mobile is the next frontier.
There
is certainly a lot of buzz around blockchain tech and its potential to
bring about change in Africa. In your opinion, is this sense of optimism
realistic or are we jumping the gun a bit?It is
optimistic but needs guidance and clarity. It’s also a huge educational
opportunity for various private sector companies to create a whole new
revenue and income stream. Africa is the land of milk and honey at the
moment and blockchain is another form of milk that is going to become
huge. Some interesting things happening in blockchain in Africa:
ITEX,
one of the top payment solutions in Africa and specifically, Nigeria
(over 14 years old), has exposure in over 23 countries throughout Africa
and is currently working on an integrated Pan-African settlement
platform on the blockchain.
Paxful has announced plans to
establish a blockchain incubator hub in Lagos, Nigeria, as well as to
run Blockchain and cryptocurrency events in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon.
AID:Tech
and PharmAccess are harnessing AID:Tech’s blockchain platform to
collect and verify digital health data to make antenatal care more
effective in Tanzania.
Kenyan real estate firm Land Layby Group
plans to use blockchain to store land registry records, eliminating the
existing real estate challenges of fraud, double ownership and false
documents.
Kenyan startup ‘Nurse in Hand’, has signed a MoU with
Apla Tech Company to build a blockchain-based accident and emergency
response platform.
Blockchain start-up TariLabs has launched in
Johannesburg, South Africa, with the aim of building the open source
Tari blockchain protocol. The protocol is being constructed as a
platform for the management, trade and use of digital assets, and will
be merge-mined with the Monero blockchain.
The South African
Reserve Bank (SARB) ran the Project Khokha proof of concept trialling a
distributed ledger technology-based wholesale payment system in a ‘real
world’ environment. It reported that the typical daily volume of the
payments system could be processed in less than two hours with full
confidentiality of transactions and settlement.
Jamborow, the Pan
African B2B platform for financial inclusion in Africa is also building
a blockchain solution to help secure data, transactional information
and identity management for her clients in Africa.
These
developments prove that the private sector and governments are taking
blockchain seriously in the continent. The proof is in the drive of our
private companies to explore and deploy funds into blockchain research
as well as projects.
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