Access Bank South Africa CIO Hemu Choonilal says he is passionate about digital transformation and business growth through technology enablement.

He is a “hands-on” IT leader whose career spans more than 25 years in financial services, insurance and systems integration in South Africa and Europe.

TechCentral asked Choonilal a few questions as part of its IT Leadership Series.

What does your company do?

Access Bank South Africa, formerly known as Grobank (and Bank of Athens South Africa before that), is a fully fledged commercial bank in South Africa. It offers transactional accounts, online banking, commercial and asset finance, offshore investments, foreign exchange, and deposit solutions.

What do you see as an IT leader’s top priorities in 2023/2024?

IT security remains a top priority, followed closely by regulatory compliance. Another priority is addressing the constant struggle to procure and maintain a highly skilled resource pool to remain competitive. Lastly, continuous multichannel and ecosystem partnerships remain a priority in servicing an evolving generational client base.

Who do you most admire in business and why?

Any ethical leader that puts their heart and soul into driving the South African economy so that people’s lives are improved and the next generation is better off.

How do you attract and retain talent?

I employ individuals based on talent and attitude. Talent is retained by constantly imparting knowledge and experiences in the team whilst challenging staff with more complex business problems to solve using technology. This approach actively shapes the culture and results in a retained workforce with skilled individuals.

If you could go back and give your 18-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Understand yourself first and do things that you you’re naturally good at. Never give up until you have achieved your goal.

What’s your favourite productivity hack?

Apply the Pareto principle by prioritising 20% of the most important actions to achieve 80% of the result.

What occupation (other than your own) would you like to try?

Formula 1 pit boss.

Where do you see the technology industry heading in the next three to five years?

Ecosystem	The ecosystem race: client, product and transactional growth through a broader ecosystem that extends outside banking and payments
Automation	Robotic process automation will replace existing manual processes in product and service areas
Dynamic decisioning	Dynamic risk identification and response (AI-driven decision making)
Decisioning through insights	We will see an increase in the use of data across the bank
Personalisation	Date derived from client and market behaviour will drive personalisation of client experience and product parameters as well as individual pricing
Open banking	API-driven enablement of fintechs and partners to participate in banks’ ecosystems and platforms
Banking as a service (BaaS)	We will see smaller and new banks opting to use BaaS for their core banking capabilities

Name one book you’d recommend and say why?

Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution (2016), by Jeanne W Ross, Peter Weill and David C Robertson. Although dated, the book is an invaluable resource to assist C-suite executives in getting IT done right based on the unique challenge that their respective organisations might face. Get the foundations right and the organisations can pivot easily to meet the demands of any customer while remaining competitive. — (c) 2023 NewsCentral Media