African banks might speed up innovation by getting extra out of present payment programs as a substitute of investing in expensive replacements.
That was a key theme at BPC Client Conference 2026 in Cape Town, on Wednesday, the place bankers, funds specialists and cybersecurity consultants examined how monetary establishments can extract extra worth from present technology whereas assembly demand for quicker digital companies.
Jonathan Bautista, Asia-Pacific regional resolution director at BPC, a Swiss-based payment technology company offering digital banking, payment processing and mobility options worldwide, believes modernisation doesn’t must imply a expensive overhaul.
“One of the key lessons we have learnt in Asia-Pacific is that modernisation does not necessarily mean replacing an entire platform,” Bautista instructed TechCabal on the sidelines of the convention.
Getting extra out of present payment programs might assist banks introduce merchandise quicker, enhance buyer experiences and increase into new markets with out the fee and disruption of changing complete platforms.
“Technology is important, but modernisation should ultimately be driven by business priorities and opportunities,” Bautista mentioned.
African banks face rising stress to ship the velocity and comfort clients count on from digital monetary companies. Many are investing in technology and increasing past conventional banking, however the alternative to enhance companies may additionally lie in making higher use of payment programs they already function
African banks are already spending closely on technology and producing substantial income from digital funds. TechCabal reported that eight major Nigerian banks earned ₦514.82 billion ($386.5 million) from digital funds within the first 9 months of 2025, whereas six banks spent ₦268.7 billion ($201.7 million) on IT infrastructure in 2024, together with core banking upgrades. Banks are also expanding into adjacent digital services, with lenders equivalent to FNB, Capitec, Standard Bank and Nedbank shifting into cell connectivity.
A payment may seem to a buyer as a easy approval or rejection. Behind the scenes, an issuing platform can consider spending limits, fraud dangers, buyer behaviour and transaction-specific guidelines, Bautista defined.
These capabilities can assist banks develop merchandise for various buyer teams. During his earlier presentation on the convention, Bautista described how present issuing technology might help specialised company, provider and procurement playing cards, with guidelines tailor-made to how companies handle spending.
“Banks need to be able to launch new products quickly, introduce new services, apply different controls for specific customer segments, and integrate effectively with digital channels,” acknowledged Bautista.
Meanwhile, AI-based fraud detection is changing into more and more essential in digital funds, as banks search to determine suspicious transactions with out unnecessarily blocking official ones.
Nasdaq Verafin’s 2026 Global Financial Crime Report estimated that cyber-enabled scams, together with phishing, enterprise e mail compromise and knowledge breaches, induced $14.3 billion in losses in 2025, up 19.6% over two years. In a survey accompanying the report, 90% of economic crime professionals mentioned AI-driven assaults had elevated at their establishments over the earlier two years.
Payment corporations equivalent to Visa already use behavioural analytics to evaluate transaction danger, making the technology a part of a wider trade shift. BPC is incorporating comparable capabilities into its fraud and danger administration programs, in line with Bautista.
“While a payment platform cannot necessarily prevent a deepfake itself, it can analyse the transaction associated with it and assess whether the activity is consistent with the customer’s usual behaviour,” Bautista mentioned.
Other AI purposes, together with transaction approval, routing and switching, and natural-language product configuration, stay in growth, he mentioned.
African banks’ wider alternative lies in understanding which capabilities their present payment programs can help and methods to join them to the companies clients use. As demand for quicker, extra versatile digital banking grows, extracting extra worth from present infrastructure might be as essential as investing in new technology.
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