The curtains fell on the international conference on financial technologies (FinTech) in Dakar. The two-day meeting held at the headquarters of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), from 30 to 31 October, ended with the closing speech by Governor Tiémoko Meyliet Koné.

The Governor of the BCEAO thus welcomed the success of the meeting, which made it possible to discuss the important issue of FinTech with all the actors involved.

"What we wanted was to share this concern that everyone has, today, to go to financial inclusion, to make access to financial products as easy as possible. But let this be done in the ideal conditions so as not to create problems where they are not needed," said the Governor of the Central Bank of West African States in his closing remarks.

For Governor Koné, it is a real feat to have managed to "bring together in the same room those who wait and those who decide". He was referring respectively to the initiators of FinTech solutions and regulators.

Governors Roundtable

Previously, the closing ceremony of the International Conference was preceded by a round table of Governors. With at his side the Governors of the BEAC, Mauritania, Gambia and Sierra Leone, the Governor of the BCEAO, Tiémoko Meyliet Koné, highlighted two aspects that seem important to him in the use to be made of financial technologies (FinTech).

"There are important innovations that can bring a lot to our countries. (...) Two points seem important to me: firstly, regulation. That is an important element. The second thing we need to pay attention to is experimentation. We had the experience just now that experimentation is not so easy. (...) It is only the sharing of experiences that can enable us to achieve the goals we are aiming for. This exchange of experiences seems to me essential to progress, "said the Governor of the BCEAO.

The round table was chaired by the Governor of the Central Bank of Central African States (BEAC), Abbas Toli Mahamat.

For his part, the Governor of the Central Bank of Mauritania praised the "pragmatism deployed to avoid any decoupling between what technology allows to consider and what the regulations allow".

Indeed, according to Abdel Aziz Ould Dahi, "fintech must be seen as the ferment of new requirements that will become as general as they are pressing." Because, "they make possible more transparency and security, more traceability, reduced costs and secure document preservation".

Thus, for him, the Central Bank of Mauritania very quickly understood its "role of tutor and spur" in this field.

Welcoming the holding of this international conference and the great diversity of presentations that covered various fields, Governor Ould Dahi called for a greater frequency of such meetings.