Artificial Intelligence has significant potential to benefit Nigeria’s financial services sector, according to Hajiya Rakiya Shuaibu Mohammed, the former ICT director at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Hajiya Rakiya was one of the panellists in the July Nairametrics webinar which was tagged “How to Make Money Using AI: Value Creations for Businesses, Entrepreneurs, and Governments.”
As part of her contributions, she highlighted the use cases of artificial intelligence in the agriculture, healthcare, and financial services sectors.
About the financial services sector, she talked about the use of AI in fraud detection to reduce losses, highlighting JP Morgan as an example.
She said, “If we’re able to proactively look at patterns and prevent this fraud, you can imagine the amount of money we’ll be saving, not just the loss we incur as a result of the fraud, the legal fees, and so on. You can eliminate all this so you can focus on your core business.”
“In fraud detection, JP Morgan Chase, one of the largest banks in the world, was able to reduce fraud losses by 75 per cent as a result of applying AI in their fraud detection systems.”
JP Morgan Chase is one of the largest users of artificial intelligence in the financial services sector, with the bank generating about $1 billion in revenue from AI in 2023. It is noted that the bank has over 400 use cases of AI, including fraud detection.
Hajiya Rakiya also mentioned the use of AI in improving the consumer lending system in the country. She noted that AI can be used to develop a credit scoring system in Nigeria, highlighting this use case in China.
She said, “In Nigeria, only a few people can get access to credit, as we don’t have what the advanced world has like in terms of credit scores.”
“As long as we’re able to harness the data and apply AI, banks or financial institutions can tell whether I’m credit worthy. In China, AI-powered credit scoring system has been used. A financial service company was able to extend credit to over 100 million people that were previously underserved in the financial sector.”
“In Nigeria, there was one company that experimented with an AI-powered system that gave loans to 1000 people who previously were underserved, and they had a 95 per cent repayment rate.”
Nigeria is on track with its AI policy framework
In response to questions about AI policies and regulations, Hajiya Rakiya noted,
“I know we’re on track. A lot of work is going on in the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy.”
Since assuming office, the Nigerian Communications Minister Bosun Tijani has unveiled a series of strategic initiatives in artificial intelligence, including the Nigeria Artificial Intelligence Research Scheme (NAIRS) which featured N5 million 45 AI researchers. He also launched the National Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR).
Hajiya Rakiya highlighted the importance of investing in AI education and training, highlighting the incorporation of AI into normal school curriculum.
