Can AI Be the Catalyst for Financial Inclusion in Africa?

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OPINION PIECE: Artificial intelligence (AI) could create a turning point for financial inclusion in Africa by Lillian Barnard

It’s difficult to imagine a time before the widespread adoption of mobile technology in Africa – particularly where financial services are concerned. For millions of unbanked people, transactions were limited to cash, postal services or even the barter system. Now, in much the same way as mobile payments completely disrupted the status quo, AI has the potential to propel the fintech industry into a new era of financial inclusion.

The net result in Kenya, for example, is that the adoption of digital payment solutions helped increase financial inclusion by as much as 25 percent , is a case in point, having recently shifted its legacy infrastructure to Microsoft Azure with a view to expanding its operations and processing high volume payments at scale. As one of the continent’s safest and most reliable payment companies, Flutterwave has been at the forefront of Africa’s payment revolution.

Already, fintech companies are helping their customers to improve their financial literacy by using these same chatbots as affordable advisors. Drawing on the power of AI, these bots can produce personalized recommendations such as budgeting strategies so that the user can make a more informed financial decision. Mosabi , for example, leverages Microsoft’s AI services to manage lending risk and provide financial forecasting.

It’s for that exact reason that Microsoft continues to make significant investments to bolster the continent’s digital capacity – from new connectivity solutions through our Airband Initiative to essential cloud infrastructure through our enterprise-grade datacenters in the region. Through key partnerships, such as our collaboration with Safaricom, we’re upskilling hundreds of thousands of developers to build new entirely new digital ecosystems.

 

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