Dr. Eng. Kombe Kaponda is a leading SADC regional financial technologies architect professional, financial inclusion advocate, thought leader, Public speaker, and Published author with over 20 years of experience in the industry. He is a self-driven FMI specialist, currently leading the Digital transformation initiatives and adoption of Emerging technologies such as AI, ML, Blockchain, DLT in the Central Bank. He is the current chairperson of the Zambian Financial Sector interagency technology working group comprised of the Central Bank of Zambia (BoZ), the technology regulator, Pensions and Insurance Authority (PIA) and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) responsible for developing Fintech frameworks, guidelines, capacity building in the industry and regulations, a harmonized regulatory sandbox and the evaluation of all other financial technology proposals for the Zambia Fintech, Regtech, Suptech and Insutech industry. Dr. Kombe Kaponda is an active contributor to SADC and the global fintech and digital innovations agenda, participating in the IMF-World Bank Technology Community of Practice (CoP), a CBDC technology CoP which is a private and informal community focusing on payments efficiency, R&D and research about CBDC technology for mutual global learning. He has also served on the ITU Architecture Interoperability Committee, Taxonomy on CBDC, and Digital Currency Ecosystem Global Initiative Working Group.

Dr. Kombe Kaponda is a certified Digital Finance practitioner (CDFP), by DFI and Tufts University, holds a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA), with a research thesis, focused on the feasibility and possible use cases, interoperability of FMI on CBDC implementation, Master’s Degree in ICT Regulation, Policy and Management (MEng.), certifications from the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, Executive Education on Cambridge FinTech & Regulatory Innovation Programme, Data Science, machine learning and R programming from HarvardX University, FinTech Professional certification from the University of Hong Kong and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (BSc.).

He is a thought leader, published author and a public speaker on financial technologies developments in SSA and has facilitated several Digital Financial Services (DFS), Artificial intelligence (AI) in Finance, Cybersecurity training workshops and seminars around the world.

Central Bank of Zambia.

The promise of Artificial Intelligence in Finance: Case for developing Economies

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize the financial industry, especially in developing economies. AI-powered financial services can help to improve financial inclusion, reduce costs, and increase efficiency. AI can also help to reduce the costs of financial services through AI-powered chatbots can automate customer service tasks, and AI-powered fraud detection systems can help to reduce fraud losses. Developing economies like Zambia is well-positioned to benefit from the promise of AI in finance because of the increasing populations of underserved individuals and businesses, and they are also often early adopters of new technologies