African banks could accelerate innovation by getting more out of existing payment systems instead of investing in costly replacements.
That was a key theme at BPC Client Conference 2026 in Cape Town, on Wednesday, where bankers, payments specialists and cybersecurity experts examined how financial institutions can extract more value from existing technology while meeting demand for faster digital services.
Jonathan Bautista, Asia-Pacific regional solution director at BPC, a Swiss-based payment technology company providing digital banking, payment processing and mobility solutions worldwide, believes modernisation does not have to mean a costly overhaul.
“One of the key lessons we have learnt in Asia-Pacific is that modernisation does not necessarily mean replacing an entire platform,” Bautista told TechCabal on the sidelines of the conference.
Getting more out of existing payment systems could help banks introduce products faster, improve customer experiences and expand into new markets without the cost and disruption of replacing entire platforms.
“Technology is important, but modernisation should ultimately be driven by business priorities and opportunities,” Bautista said.
African banks face growing pressure to deliver the speed and convenience customers expect from digital financial services. Many are investing in technology and expanding beyond traditional banking, but the opportunity to improve services may also lie in making better use of payment systems they already operate
African banks are already spending heavily on technology and generating substantial revenue from digital payments. TechCabal reported that eight major Nigerian banks earned ₦514.82 billion ($386.5 million) from electronic payments in the first nine months of 2025, while six banks spent ₦268.7 billion ($201.7 million) on IT infrastructure in 2024, including core banking upgrades. Banks are also expanding into adjacent digital services, with lenders such as FNB, Capitec, Standard Bank and Nedbank moving into mobile connectivity.
A payment may appear to a customer as a simple approval or rejection. Behind the scenes, an issuing platform can evaluate spending limits, fraud risks, customer behaviour and transaction-specific rules, Bautista explained.
These capabilities can help banks develop products for different customer groups. During his earlier presentation at the conference, Bautista described how existing issuing technology could support specialised corporate, supplier and procurement cards, with rules tailored to how businesses manage 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,” stated Bautista.
Meanwhile, AI-based fraud detection is becoming increasingly important in digital payments, as banks seek to identify suspicious transactions without unnecessarily blocking legitimate ones.
Nasdaq Verafin’s 2026 Global Financial Crime Report estimated that cyber-enabled scams, including phishing, business email compromise and data breaches, caused $14.3 billion in losses in 2025, up 19.6% over two years. In a survey accompanying the report, 90% of financial crime professionals said AI-driven attacks had increased at their institutions over the previous two years.
Payment companies such as Visa already use behavioural analytics to assess transaction risk, making the technology part of a wider industry shift. BPC is incorporating similar capabilities into its fraud and risk management systems, according to 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 said.
Other AI applications, including transaction approval, routing and switching, and natural-language product configuration, remain in development, he said.
African banks’ wider opportunity lies in understanding which capabilities their existing payment systems can support and how to connect them to the services customers use. As demand for faster, more flexible digital banking grows, extracting more value from existing infrastructure could be as important as investing in new technology.
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