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Absa has entered into a strategic partnership with Huawei to implement an innovative Private Cloud Solution, accelerating the bank’s evolution into a digital-first, cloud-native organisation. This initiative marks a significant milestone in Absa’s journey to enhance customer experience, streamline operations, and advance financial inclusion across the continent.
The platform will enable Absa to deliver faster, more personalised financial services, while ensuring local data sovereignty and regulatory requirements across its Pan-African markets.
Speaking on the partnership, Absa Group Executive for Africa Regions, Charles Russon, said “This partnership reflects our ambition to lead with technology that delivers real impact. By building a secure, cloud-native foundation designed for Africa’s unique realities, we’re creating the ability to serve customers better with experiences that are faster, safer, and truly reflective of the communities we operate in.”
Developed on Huawei’s robust cloud infrastructure, the solution will be rolled out across Absa’s African markets and is designed to support rapid service rollout, and improved data governance, while fast-tracking innovation in payments, lending, and financial inclusion.
“Our collaboration with Huawei empowers Absa to deliver in a manner that supports our customers with technology that delivers high performance, reliability and flexibility as well as enhanced control and security, all within a flexible cost-effective environment,” said Muhammad Ali Bhikhan, Chief Information Officer for Absa Regional Operations (ARO). “This cloud infrastructure will further enable our ambitions to deliver digital solutions that are locally relevant, trusted, and tailored to the unique needs of Africa’s dynamic markets.”
This deployment will result in resilient services and systems that meet global standards, while setting new benchmarks for African banking. For customers, this deployment means greater reliability and consistency in digital banking interactions, anytime, anywhere.
Huawei echoed the sentiment: “We are proud to collaborate with Absa in building a robust private cloud infrastructure that drives innovation and regulatory compliance across Africa,” said Will Meng, CEO of Huawei SA. “This partnership reflects our shared vision of delivering secure, scalable, and intelligent financial services to communities across the continent.”
About Huawei
Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. With integrated solutions across four key domains – telecom networks, IT, smart devices, and cloud services – we are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world.
Huawei’s end-to-end portfolio of products, solutions, and services are both competitive and secure. Through open collaboration with ecosystem partners, we create lasting value for our customers, working to empower people, enrich home life, and inspire innovation in organisations of all shapes and sizes.
At Huawei, innovation focuses on customer needs. We invest heavily in basic research, concentrating on technological breakthroughs that drive the world forward. By December 31, 2024, Huawei had 208,000 employees, 54.1% of which were R&D employees. In 2024, our total R&D spending reached CNY179.7 billion, representing 20.8% of our total revenue. We operate in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people worldwide. In 2024, through the efforts of all employees, the company achieved an estimated annual sales revenue of CNY862.1 billion, aligned with forecasts. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.
For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com or follow us on:
https://www.facebook.com/HuaweiSAR
About Absa Group Limited
Absa Group Limited (‘Absa Group’) is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and is one of Africa’s largest diversified financial services groups.
Absa Group offers an integrated set of products and services across personal and business banking, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management and insurance.
Absa Group owns majority stakes in banks in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania (Absa Bank Tanzania and National Bank of Commerce), Uganda and Zambia and has insurance operations in Kenya and South Africa. Absa also has offices in the People’s Republic of China, Namibia, Nigeria and the United States, as well as securities entities in the United Kingdom and the United States, along with technology support colleagues in the Czech Republic.
For further information about Absa Group Limited, visit www.absa.africa.
