Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that a 21-day national lockdown will be enforced from midnight on Thursday, Standard Bank says it is exempt from the lockdown as an essential services provider.

The bank has implemented robust business-continuity measures, including provisions for employees to work from home wherever possible, and has ensured that its systems will be supported, maintained and continuously improved throughout the lockdown period.

While its branches will remain open and ATMs operational, the bank encourages all customers to use digital channels wherever possible to transact. Customers can make payments and purchases, access loans, open accounts and perform other tasks online.

The annual initiative is driven by Singularity University’s mission to educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges. Now in its second year, the summit showcased 33 African and world-renowned speakers, and attracted over 1 900 African industry leaders, c-suite executives as well as public sector representatives. Speakers and delegates engaged on exponential technologies that will help the African continent leapfrog into the future.

“There is a huge potential for economic and technological growth in Africa. Many African countries still face challenges related to infrastructure, security and education, among others. Exponential technology is an opportunity for Africa to forge ahead towards sustainable development across all sectors and industries,” says Mic Mann, Founder of Mann Made and SingularityU South Africa Summit co-CEO.

Themes unpacked at the summit included the future of work and the professional, as well as what to expect of the gig economy. While many fear the rise of automation and mechanisation, as well as its impact on employment, Valter Adão, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at Deloitte, shared research that “for every job lost, 1.74 new jobs are created”.

Other talking points included education and the future of learning; banking in a cashless future; additive manufacturing in space; and what it takes to decode democracy. Speakers included: Fred Swaniker, who aims to groom three million leaders for Africa by 2035; author of Stealing Fire Jamie Wheal; Dr Tiffany Vora, who talked about how to programme Africa’s future using digital biology; as well as Phathizwe Malinga, who shared his insights on IoT and information abundance. This year’s summit also included a second track, presented during the coffee and lunch breaks, that allowed delegates to delve deeper into the most topics.

The summit co-organisers also announced that SingularityU South Africa is the first Singularity University country partner on the African continent. It now offers online and offline programmes for individuals and corporate members, including a newly appointed, South African-based faculty: www.singularityusouthafrica.org.

Another highlight was witnessing Richard Browning, Founder and Chief Test Pilot of Gravity Industries, showcase human flight in his Jet Suit flight. Its five gas turbine jet engines generate 147kg of thrust that allows for vertical lift and directional propulsion at speeds of up to 70km/h, that can cover a distance of 1.4km for up to eight minutes.

The winner of SU Ventures 2018, Benji Coetzee of Empty Trips, won the opportunity to go to SingularityU in Silicon Valley to take part in the SU sprint programme. She will also have the opportunity to get funding for her start-up.

Fifty super early bird tickets to the third SingularityU South Africa Summit, to be held on 16-17 October 2019, were already sold within an hour of announcement. The summit trended across social media under the theme “#futureproofAfrica and inspired South Africans to take action and make impact to create abundance for all. Through technology advances and the proper adoption thereof, a beyond brighter future is possible for the entire African continent.

We are fortunate to have formed part of the event, our thanks go to the SingularityU Team.

Standard Bank has today unwrapped its new – and a first for Southern Africa – Instant Messaging service with private banker assist add real-time SMS chat, letting you speak chat directly to an agent for your everyday banking, trading or even more complex transaction queries. The service is powered by Standard Bank in conjunction with WeChat.

According to Sibongiseni Ngundze, Head of Retail Banking at Standard Bank, the hassle of having only limited contact with your bank, through physically going into branch and standing in queues, or calling call centres and sending emails is now truly in the past.

Given that you’re either a Prestige and/or Private customer, you’ll simply need to phone or email your bankers, or speak to your banker in-branch and provide them with your WeChat ID before being taken through a verification process, after which you’ll be registered on the network and then simply need to log in to WeChat and search ‘Standard Bank’ under ‘Official Accounts’ to have access to chat to the team of virtual bankers anytime, anywhere. To sweeten the deal, Standard Bank will throw in the benefit of 3GB of free WiFi, valid for three months, through AlwaysOn in AlwaysOn zones.

‘But why WeChat?’ you may ask. With research showing there are over one hundred million people sending instant messages worldwide, while there are 5 million WeChat users in South Africa – it is the most accessible platform for SB users.

“These days most relationships are conducted via instant messaging, so why not your banking relationships?” asked Standard Bank’s Ngundze.

The Relationship Banking Instant Messaging service will run uninterruptedly (given, you know, there are no glitches in the system) 24/7/365. Not convinced? See the video after the jump while you decide. 

[youtube link=” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiFnvcUqlOs” width=”590″ height=”315″]

In a statement released to Engadget earlier in March, machine designer NCR said that only a third of banks will upgrade their ATMs to a newer OS before official XP support ends on April 8th. Failure for these banks to update their systems will leave them little choice but to pay Microsoft for an extended contract if they still want support.

Not all faith is lost, at least some local banks plan to update. We sent out comment requests on the updates to the five major banks; Absa, FNB, Capitec, Nedbank and Standard Bank.

Capitec Bank is in the process of upgrading all ATM software.

A spokesperson for Capitec Bank confirmed that they’re in the process of upgrading all of their ATM software. “This process will be completed before the deadline set by Microsoft” said Capitec. Nedbank has also not fallen short of the upgrade, “Nedbank is currently migrating it’s ATM network from Windows XP to Windows 7, which will mitigate the risk of not having adequate support on Windows XP.”

But it’s not all smooth sailing, as banks are facing both technical backlogs and steep transition costs and Absa has backed this notion; “To ensure that there is no impact during this period we have an extended support agreement in place with Microsoft that will see us through to the end of the program.” said Absa. Estimates suggest the big SA banks might pay up to R100 Million each to make the leap. “All desktops and laptops within the Barclays Africa Group will be upgraded and this change process has already begun,” says Peter Rix – Acting CIO: Barclays Africa.

Whether or not your bank joins the modern era, you shouldn’t be surprised of you end up footing some of the bill.

*FNB and Standard Bank Could not be reach for commenting by the time this story was published