AfricaONE and the Moroccan Central Bank, along with the African banking and fintech community, invited Matthew to give the opening keynote at the African Banking Summit in Marrakesh, where the focus was firmly on the future of financial services across the continent.
Africa is a clear example of a continent innovating and adopting new technologies at very different rates. On one hand, 66% of Africans in the Sub-Saharan Sahel have no internet access and struggle to take part in financial services at all, let alone its future. On the other, communities in crypto, DeFi and payments are quite literally leading the world.
"Agentic AI will help create new banking business models and concepts such as the fully autonomous, adaptive bank."Matthew Griffin, Marrakesh, February 2025
The keynote was not recorded on the day, so Matthew re-recorded it in his studio. He examined the impact that mobile financial solutions are having on individuals and businesses across the continent, many of them life changing.
He then turned to Bank 5.0 and the impact of AI on everything from the user experience to core banking infrastructure. Finally he explored Bank 6.0, which he had also shown in Saudi Arabia a few months earlier: the point when agentic AI helps create new banking business models, such as the fully autonomous, adaptive bank. Provided regulators allow it, this new breed of bank could selectively aggregate different DeFi services and present them to customers as the ultimate in personalised experiences and services.
