African Business Review : Tell me a little about your role with Econet Wireless Zimbabwe .

Vinod Sharma : You can find everything on my blog , but here ’ s a brief word or two about where I am right now . I have extensive experience in IT networks , telecom services , and the financial technology space , now exploring artificial intelligence to add value to myself and add to my skills , as machine learning is the future of every business and technology of today . I sit in a very key position to oversee the entire changing landscape of the financial IT i . e . fintech services sector .

ABR : In our previous issue of African Business Review , you discussed the challenge that banking and financial organisations face in trying to keep costs low while ensuring the same high quality of services - is this still the case ?

VS : Unfortunately it ’ s the same case and I believe fintech will settle its score in the next couple of years . Keeping costs low is the prime idea , as this is a low margin business for low value transactions , if the cost at any time starts looking north , customers immediately start running south .

ABR : With the continued growth of mobile payments , how has this impacted the industry ?

VS : The continued growth has made a positive impact to the industry

144 October 2017