API Asia Conference to be hosted in Sri Lanka for the first time

The API Asia Conference 2019 is to be hosted in Sri Lanka for the first time on 2 October at the Shangri-La, Colombo, organised by the Federation of Information Technology Industry (FITIS). It is by far one of the largest multifaceted conferences within the Sri Lankan IT industry, attracting over 700 local and foreign delegates, professionals, business leaders, CXO’s, and both international and local software experts. The setting is to facilitate for policy-makers and decision-makers to “Connect, Collaborate and Transform” together with the best industry experts, to reach the interested groups, to create opportunities, and to deliver business value. 

Ernst & Young (EY), Sri Lanka and Maldives Partner Arjuna Herath, commenting on the conference, stated that EY Sri Lanka is happy to be associated with the API Asia Conference 2019 as its Knowledge Partner at a critical juncture in our country where we have the opportunity to leapfrog and leverage on the technological revolution that is taking place around the world and position our country for the next phase of development and growth. 

EY Advisory (Africa, India, and the Middle East) Partner – Digital, and fintech, cloud & tech. transformation leader Sachin Seth, who is to address the forum, further stated that Sri Lanka’s economy has transitioned from a predominantly agrarian to a services economy owing to the wide range of economic reforms and liberalisation laws introduced by the policymakers. Today, it poses a substantial threat to the developing and emerging South Asian economies with regard to their sustenance and has pushed countries such as Sri Lanka to re-evaluate their markets and offerings. He further stated that in the services sector, the Banking and Financial Services Industry (BFSI) plays a pivotal role and has experienced drastic technology-led disruption from the birth of online banking to universal adoption of mobile banking in the current decade. As digitalisation becomes more widespread, it brings an opportunity for the financial services and fintechs to build an exceptional level of convergence between technology and finance. Every new technology brings with it new risks and uncertainties, but also the potential of open banking platforms to completely rewrite the relationship between banks and their customers – whether those customers are major corporations, SMEs or everyday depositors – which means it’s too big an opportunity for Sri Lanka to ignore. 

The Platinum Sponsor of the Conference is WSO2 Lanka Ltd., Axway Inc., and Microsoft while Ernst & Young is the Knowledge Partner. Dialog and Cinnamon Box office are the event partners of API Asia Conference 2019.