Technology has transcended race, culture, and class and has become a powerful tool to revolutionize businesses across the African continent.
In particular, the rapid penetration of the internet in regions across Africa and the digitization of businesses across the world have been major catalysts in the new technology-driven era, offering the potential to catapult the socioeconomic growth of many countries in Africa. In today’s world, it has become essential for the banking industry to challenge traditional business methods and adapt to modern-day technology to advance the financial ecosystem in the African region.
Currently, in countries across Africa, banking institutions are leveraging advances in technology and are increasingly adopting digital transformation technologies such as AI, ML, and cloud computing across their banking systems. Banking infrastructures can benefit from digitization of processes ranging from documentation, to payments, to customer engagement, and AI, ML, and the cloud each play crucial roles in achieving this.
Let’s take a look at how these three technologies can help banks manage, secure, and protect their banking operations.
Artificial intelligence
AI has been around for a long time; however, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated its adoption among enterprises across the world. Consumers have largely turned towards online channels during the pandemic, including in their banking habits. In turn, demand grew for digital banking channels, new products, and services to transfer funds and manage debt. In response, banking institutions adopted AI into their operations to offer immediate solutions to their customers.
Various AI-driven applications have optimized challenging tasks and increased efficiency by speeding up processes. For instance, the use of chatbots powered by AI is one of the most common examples of how AI can improve the customer experience in banking. Common customer requests such as viewing their balance, viewing statements, and transferring funds can be carried out by typing in a few words or choosing from a few options. These chatbots are simple and save time for customers by helping them find the information they need in fewer steps.
Another concern is that, with the increase in online banking channels, cybersecurity threats have also evolved. Just like any other developing region, countries in Africa have seen a rise in reports of malicious activities and data breaches. To help with this, AI can monitor logs from previous incidents, learn patterns of activities from these incidents, and use them to predict and prevent future attacks.
Use cases of AI are vast in the banking sector. However, in Africa, AI is still in its early phases of adoption; but banks and financial institutions in the region are starting to see that incorporating AI can be highly beneficial.
Machine learning
ML, a branch of AI, learns from data and experience to improve how it functions. It uses previous data outcomes as input to predict new data outcomes. In banking, this is useful in predicting consumer behavior through active monitoring of their transactions and purchasing patterns to forecast future spending and income. With the cashless economy gaining momentum in many countries in Africa, technology manages and secures countless transactions; this financial consumer data can help in evaluating the credit of consumers when offering loans and other financial services.
ML helps in analyzing large amounts of data to provide a personalized customer experience by learning customer behavior. It also uses predictive analysis to detect anomalies and fraudulent transactions. In today’s technology-driven world, traditional methods of risk management, customer service, and fraud detection aren’t sufficient anymore and require ML solutions that offer fast, efficient, and accurate predictions.
Cloud computing
In the banking sector, cloud computing has been a catalyst in driving digital transformation and giving banks access to the industry specific-solutions they need to become future-ready.
Adopting cloud solutions can help banks across Africa in many ways. Cloud computing offers computer services such as data storage, servers, and software over the internet with the help of data centers distributed over multiple locations. Not only are these solutions easily scalable, but they have higher levels of fault tolerance than on-premises solutions, providing customers with higher levels of availability.
Cloud services also help banks cut back on heavy investments in nonessential new hardware and software. Banks can save on large capital costs by choosing services offering pay-as-you-go subscription models as well.
Finding the right solutions
To survive in today’s global market, banks in the African region must adopt solutions that embrace new and reliable technologies.
Banks in Africa can now get complete visibility of their IT infrastructures, ensuring top security, network performance, and compliance with ManageEngine’s comprehensive IT management solutions, including solutions for IT service management, operations management, Active Directory management, IT security, analytics, endpoint management, and more
By Staff Writer.