Oliver Alawuba, group managing director (GMD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of United Bank for Africa (UBA), has cautioned banks against adopting artificial intelligence (AI) without fully understanding the risks associated with the technology.
Alawuba spoke on Wednesday at the 64th quarterly general meeting of the Association of Chief Audit Executives of Banks in Nigeria (ACAEBIN), themed ‘Internal Audit Function in the AI Era,’ and hosted by UBA.
He said the AI era demands a new level of urgency from banks and auditors, noting that financial institutions are entering a landscape where decisions can be made in milliseconds and algorithms can approve, decline, flag, recommend or exclude transactions with little human intervention.
The CEO, represented by Ugo Nwaghodoh, executive director of finance and risk management at UBA, added that the rapid adoption of AI is creating new risks, as cyber threats and fraud can be automated and scaled, while deepfakes can compromise identity, and data can become both a strategic asset and a major liability. Cable
