Absa Group has entered into a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to advance its migration to the cloud in South Africa. The agreement is intended to strengthen Absa’s digital transformation efforts and support the delivery of agile, secure, and customer-focused financial services.
The two companies have been working together since 2015. This new phase will see AWS become Absa’s preferred cloud provider, which aims to increase technological agility and improve customer experience. By adopting AWS services, Absa seeks to utilize emerging technologies and provide innovative solutions across its markets.
Johnson Idesoh, Group Chief Information and Technology Officer at Absa, stated, “This partnership reflects our ambition to be a digitally powered financial institution that delivers exceptional value to our customers. We are excited to leverage AWS’ industry-leading banking and finance expertise for our digital transformation. Moving additional services to AWS will modernise our infrastructure, enable us to innovate faster, strengthen our resilience, enhance security, and offer more personalised, intuitive customer experiences.”
The collaboration also extends beyond technology by supporting initiatives for digital skills development and community investment. Absa continues its involvement with the Women in Tech initiative alongside AWS. In 2025, the program will provide free AWS Cloud training and an exam fee sponsorship for 150 unemployed women from South Africa and other African countries including Kenya, Botswana, Uganda, and Ghana.
“Our partnership with AWS goes beyond technology; it’s about driving continuous transformation. Together, we are investing in people, communities, and the future of inclusive digital economies across Africa. Choosing a cloud provider with a data centre on the continent is a deliberate decision to support investment in local communities. It’s also a step in our AI transformation journey as a financial services provider, by enabling smarter decision-making, hyper-personalised customer experiences, and greater operational efficiency—driving innovation while enhancing trust, speed, and scale,” added Idesoh.
Tanuja Randery, Vice President of Sales for Europe, Middle East, and Africa at AWS said: “We are excited to deepen our collaboration with Absa Group. This partnership exemplifies our shared commitment to driving innovation through cloud technology while building digital capabilities and equitable access to learning across Africa. Through our comprehensive training programmes and AI solutions, we’re supporting Absa’s technical transformation and helping to create a skilled workforce that supports the population as it embraces the digital future. The success we’ve seen with initiatives like Women in Tech demonstrates the powerful impact of combining cloud technology with skills development. We look forward to continuing our work with Absa to accelerate its cloud adoption and foster inclusive growth across the continent.”
Idesoh concluded: “With a customer-obsessed mindset, we are committed to enabling SMEs, retail clients, and corporate partners by leveraging the benefits of scale and innovation ecosystems to meet their unique needs across Africa.”
Absa Group operates in several African countries where it owns majority stakes in banks such as Botswana (Absa Bank Botswana), Ghana (Absa Bank Ghana), Kenya (Absa Bank Kenya), Mauritius (Absa Bank Mauritius), Mozambique (Absa Bank Mozambique), Seychelles (Absa Bank Seychelles), South Africa (Absa Bank South Africa), Tanzania (Absa Bank Tanzania & National Bank of Commerce), Uganda (Absa Bank Uganda) as well as Zambia (Absa Bank Zambia). It also has insurance operations in Kenya and South Africa plus offices or operations in China (People’s Republic of China), Namibia (Namibia office), Nigeria (Nigeria office), United States (US office & securities entity), United Kingdom (securities entity) along with technology support teams based in Czech Republic.
Amazon Web Services provides over 240 fully featured services covering compute power storage databases analytics machine learning artificial intelligence IoT mobile security hybrid media application development deployment management available from 117 Availability Zones within 37 geographic regions worldwide according to information on their website https://aws.amazon.com/. The company plans further expansion into Chile New Zealand Saudi Arabia Europe Sovereign Cloud Region.
