General News
How AI is transforming the financial services industry
By Ibrahim Youssry – Regional General Manager, North, West, East, Central Africa, Levant & Pakistan, Microsoft
Digital transformation is remaking the world around us, and artificial intelligence (AI) is a frontrunner. No industry will be left untouched by this digital journey, but one sector that is seeing the fastest and most fundamental effects is the financial services industry (FSI).
FSI players are geared to be dramatically disrupted by the power of AI – both internally (in the ways they operate) and externally (in terms of dealing with clients and customers).
A 2018 report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) on The New Physics of Financial Services unpacks this phenomenon at length, but one high-level take-away is that the AI changes here cannot be overstated. The long-term impacts of AI are radical and transformative, putting the FSI ecosystem into a period of reorganisation.
Competition from the underdogs
FSI has traditionally been dominated by large and established corporations, often with extensive heritage and market dominance. Through this, many FSI companies have enjoyed relatively low competition for customers, and have been slow to innovate and change ‘with the times’. Enter the leveling power of the cloud, accessible analytics and machine learning, and we see how a scrappy, determined fintech startup can disrupt a whole market or sector.
Many of these startups offer alternatives for banking, payments, transfers, payroll, credit, and other financial services. These digital-first businesses are highly agile, and are creating a whole new customer base that was underserved by established FSI companies – putting the pressure on older firms.
As a result, many FSIs have started embracing cloud technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their own agility, their array of service offerings, and their customer experiences. Recent studies suggest that approximately 40 percent of African banking customers prefer to use digital channels for transactions over branch channels.
Added competition is good for the entire industry, and customers will benefit from new and improved technologies that change the way the industry interacts with them and meets their expectations.
AI at the core of digital transformation
But just what form do these advances take? AI lies at the heart of things like chatbots, advanced customer credit assessment, relationship management, security, anti-money laundering and fraud detection.
Chatbots draw from big data and machine learning to respond to customer queries and concerns. They can streamline customer support on routine services like banking transactions, and make product recommendations. This is customer-facing AI that helps FSI companies be ever-present for their clients, while reducing the resources required to do so.
For fraud detection, AI-powered technology enables computers to mimic, extend and amplify the thought process of a human analyst, at a pace and scale unmatched by humans. It can review trillions of transactions in every possible portfolio in the organisation. Because of this, banks, fintechs and payment facilitators are able to detect or be alerted to potential fraud – receiving fast, efficient and accurate alerts of the likelihood of an individual’s card or account being compromised, for example.
Foresight beats hindsight
AI and analytics can draw inference from vast stores of data and spot trends that are often beyond the possible scope of human sight, driving insight to analysts, investors and the like. AI is also able to evaluate an organisation’s public remarks and documents, bundle that up with sentiment analysis, and cross-correlate this with historical data to predict the performance of upcoming stocks, in literal split seconds.
These functions provide agility and resilience in an increasingly risky global market. In short, they inject a new level of intelligence into our organisations. Pairing this with our unique human capabilities of relationship management and creativity, and we unlock huge potential for our FSI companies.
Safe as houses, and more democratic
Through Microsoft’s security solutions (in which we have invested more than $1 billion year-on-year), we are working with FSI organisations to improve their security standards globally. Solutions such as the Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Azure, for example, assists customers with controlling and auditing support engineers’ access to compute workloads on Azure that may contain data while resolving the support issue.
These solutions have a proven success record, evidenced by our work with Interswitch, a payments and fintech innovator in Africa. Through partnering with large banks and corporates in Nigeria, Interswitch has been able to build a bank-guarantee service on Azure that extends the reach of banking systems to non-traditional players, corporate suppliers and borrowers – allowing them to manage their supply chain financing under objective terms and transparency.
Within the next decade, Africa’s objective is to ensure that the next 100 million Africans are financially included. AI has the potential to achieve this. As AI adoption increases, we’re constantly thinking about how we can help institutions make the transition to modern innovations, while still taking advantage of legacy investments.
Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the Federal Government and the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to suspend the proposed increase in Nigeria’s mandatory pension contribution from 18 per cent to 21 per cent, warning that the policy would raise the cost of doing business, threaten jobs and undermine enterprise sustainability at a time of mounting economic pressures.
Dr. Chinyere Almona, director general of the LCCI, said while strengthening retirement security remains an important policy objective, increasing mandatory pension contributions by three percentage points would impose additional financial burdens on businesses already grappling with high borrowing costs, persistent inflation, foreign exchange volatility, rising energy prices and multiple taxes.
According to the chamber, the proposed increase comes at a period when many businesses, particularly micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), are struggling to remain profitable amid Nigeria’s challenging operating environment.
The LCCI noted that Nigeria’s existing mandatory pension contribution rate of 18 per cent comprising 10 per cent by employers and 8 per cent by employees is already broadly aligned with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 18.8 per cent.
It argued that raising the contribution to approximately 21 per cent would place Nigeria above several comparable economies, including the United Kingdom, where mandatory contributions stand at 8 per cent; the United States at 12.4 per cent; Kenya at 12 per cent, subject to earnings caps; and South Africa, where there is no equivalent mandatory private-sector pension contribution.
The chamber warned that implementing the proposed increase would significantly raise employment costs for employers, discourage new recruitment, constrain wage growth and place disproportionate pressure on MSMEs, which account for a substantial share of employment in Nigeria.
According to the LCCI, the higher payroll obligations could also reduce Nigeria’s competitiveness as an investment destination, encourage non-compliance with pension regulations and push more businesses into the informal sector.
“A stronger pension system cannot be built on weaker businesses,” the chamber stated, stressing that economic sustainability and business growth remain critical to expanding pension coverage over the long term.
The LCCI therefore called on the Federal Government to defer the proposal until a comprehensive Nigeria-specific actuarial and economic impact assessment is conducted to determine its implications for businesses, workers and the broader economy.
It also urged policymakers to engage in extensive consultations with organised private sector groups, labour unions and other key stakeholders before implementing any changes to the country’s pension contribution framework.
According to the chamber, the government’s immediate priority should be restoring business confidence, preserving existing jobs, encouraging investment and expanding the formal economy, which it described as the most sustainable pathway to improving retirement savings.
As an alternative to increasing contribution rates, the LCCI advised PenCom to focus on developing more innovative investment instruments capable of generating stronger returns on pension assets.
The chamber said improving investment performance would enhance contributors’ retirement savings without imposing additional financial obligations on employers and employees already facing difficult economic conditions.
Nigeria and the African Development Bank (AfDB), on Sunday, called for stronger African ownership of the continent’s vast mineral resources and advocated greater data sovereignty, regional collaboration and strategic financing to ensure Africa derives more economic value from its natural assets.
They spoke at the Ministerial Forum on Critical Minerals, Value Chain and Beneficiation: Pathways for African Transformation, organised by the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
Speaking at the forum, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake, urged countries to embrace data sovereignty, regional collaboration and strategic financing to ensure mineral wealth translates into sustainable economic growth across Africa.
Alake urged ministers from Africa’s mineral-producing nations to pursue greater regional cooperation rather than isolated national strategies, arguing that coordinated action would enable the continent to derive greater value from its abundant mineral resources.
Alake said Africa must move beyond exporting raw minerals and adopt practical measures to secure full control of its natural assets through value addition and local processing.
He said: “While the mantra of value addition has ushered in an era of economic independence for mineral-producing nations, we need concrete actionable strategies to take charge and be in full control of our natural assets to ensure total economic freedom.”
The minister, who chairs the Africa Mineral Strategy Group (AMSG), said Nigeria had continued to champion a common continental agenda on mineral development through collaboration with more than 30 member countries focused on promoting value addition.
He also advocated greater African control over mineral resource data, describing the continent’s long-standing dependence on the Australia-based Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) reporting standard as outdated.
Alake added, “For the overall interest of the continent, and to efficiently and effectively safeguard its resources, Africa should take charge of the coding mechanisms utilised to assess its mineral assets.”
He urged African countries to adopt the Pan African Resource Reporting Code (PARC), developed by the Africa Minerals Development Centre (AMDC), saying the framework would promote transparency, consistency and ethical reporting while reflecting Africa’s unique geological and environmental realities.
Alake further proposed the establishment of a West African minerals processing hub and corridor stretching from Lagos to Dakar, modelled after the Lobito Corridor, to reduce infrastructure costs, encourage collaborative investment and enable participating countries to specialise in processing specific minerals.
According to him, the regional model would lower financial burdens on individual countries while promoting shared risks, increased trade and stronger value chains.
He also lamented the low level of intra-African trade, which he said stands at about 16 per cent, compared to roughly 60 per cent in Asia and 70 per cent in Europe.
In his remarks, AfDB President Dr. Sidi Ould Tah, described Africa’s mineral sector as a paradox, noting that despite the continent’s vast mineral endowment, it has yet to achieve corresponding gains in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or attract sufficient Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
Tah said Africa must overcome the disconnect between its enormous natural wealth and its limited global economic influence by strengthening financing mechanisms and developing integrated mineral value chains.
The forum concluded with the adoption of the Abidjan Declaration, which commits African countries to coordinate policies on critical minerals, regional infrastructure development, value-chain expansion and capital mobilisation.
Under the declaration, the African Development Bank pledged to deploy its financing instruments, technical expertise and capital mobilisation capacity to support mineral-producing countries, reduce investment risks, finance strategic infrastructure and accelerate the development of competitive and sustainable mineral value chains.
A statement by the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Lara Owoeye-Wise, said the declaration also urged African countries to strengthen national and regional capacities capable of attracting investment, financing viable projects and creating quality jobs through local value addition.
The forum brought together more than 20 ministers responsible for mining, energy, industry, natural resources and the green economy, alongside representatives of the African Development Bank, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), the U.S. Export-Import Bank and mining companies from Germany, Canada and the United States.
Participants reaffirmed that stronger African cooperation, regional processing infrastructure, strategic financing and greater control over mineral resources remain essential to transforming the continent’s mineral wealth into broad-based and sustainable economic development.
Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, governor, Anambra State, has approved an indefinite ban on graduation ceremonies in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools across the state as part of efforts to reduce the financial burden on parents.
Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, governor, Anambra State,
The directive was confirmed by Dr. Law Mefor, commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, in a statement issued on Friday.
According to the commissioner, the government deemed it necessary to clarify the policy following public inquiries and concerns over the scope of the ban.
Mefor explained that the directive applies to all graduation-related ceremonies in both public and private schools across the state.
He said the ban covers events described as graduation, passing-out, crossover or any other ceremony organised to mark the completion of kindergarten, primary or secondary school levels.
The government said the decision was taken to discourage unnecessary financial obligations often imposed on parents through elaborate school celebrations.
The commissioner clarified that students completing Senior Secondary School (SS3) are exempt from the directive.
However, he stressed that graduation ceremonies for SS3 students are not compulsory and may only be held without imposing any financial burden on students or their parents.
According to him, schools choosing to organise such ceremonies must ensure that no levies, compulsory contributions or hidden charges are demanded from parents.
Mefor warned that the state government would not hesitate to sanction any school that violates the directive.
He said schools found organising prohibited graduation ceremonies or imposing illegal charges on parents risk severe penalties, including possible closure.
The commissioner urged school proprietors and administrators to comply fully with the directive in the interest of parents and the education sector.
The state government said the policy is part of broader efforts to make education more affordable and eliminate unnecessary expenses associated with school activities.
Many parents have previously complained about the increasing costs of graduation ceremonies, including compulsory levies for gowns, entertainment, souvenirs and other related expenses.
The government expressed optimism that the directive would ease the financial pressure on families while encouraging schools to focus more on academic excellence than ceremonial activities.
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