LAST week, the Institute of Bankers of Zimbabwe (IoBZ) held its annual conference in Cape Town, South Africa. The conference sought to address the macro-level challenges confronting the financial sector.
The agenda featured critical discussions on the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in banking and finance, the future of card payments, AI-driven compliance tools and the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into banking operations. These topics are not merely trends but fundamental pillars that will define the sector’s trajectory.
A central and powerful contribution came from robotics scientist, Arthur Mutambara, who underscored the urgent need for financial institutions to embrace AI.
He issued a stark warning, stating that any financial institution not actively utilising AI or serving AI-driven companies is simply “not doing modern banking”. In his view, such an entity is languishing in the past.
The economic data he presented was nothing short of staggering. AI is projected to contribute a colossal US$11 trillion to the global gross domestic product (GDP) this year. With global GDP standing at nearly US$110 trillion, this means a single technology is accounting for a full 10% of global output — a monumental figure that commands attention.
Mutambara specifically highlighted the disruptive force of generative AI, which alone is contributing US$4 trillion. To contextualise this, he noted that this sum is larger than the entire GDP of economic powerhouses such as the United Kingdom or France and it decisively eclipses Africa’s total GDP, estimated at US$3,4 trillion. The primary driver of this seismic impact, he reiterated, is “productivity, productivity, productivity”.
AI acts as a formidable multiplier and escalator, driving per capita productivity to unprecedented levels. For the banking sector, he listed immediate and transformative applications in risk management, fraud detection, customer service and credit scoring, concluding with the sobering forecast that “no function in your sector will remain untouched by AI”.
We are in complete agreement with this assessment. AI is not just the future; it is the very fabric of the modern economy. This technological revolution is upon every sector and it is incumbent upon Zimbabwean banks — often dogged by high operational costs and endemic inefficiencies — to adopt these tools. AI presents a tangible solution to streamline operations, reduce costs and enhance service delivery.
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Beyond institutional adoption, we urge the IoBZ to take a leadership role by developing and accrediting specialised AI courses. This is crucial both for cultivating new talent and for retraining the existing workforce.
Concurrently, the nation must move with alacrity to formulate a coherent national AI policy or strategy. The adage that the early bird catches the worm has never been more pertinent; the global community will not pause for us. Without a clear policy framework, our economic sectors will struggle to integrate AI effectively and compete on the world stage.
