Cardano Foundation CFO Stephen Wood explains how blockchain-based reporting allows financial records to be independently verified and how programmable tokens can enforce transfer restrictions, as common standards and interoperability become increasingly important.

Digital banks serve customers far more cheaply than incumbents, but most generate less revenue for every dollar spent on servicing. Nubank and WeBank stand out, generating 4.1x and 3.8x their servicing cost in revenue respectively, outperforming leading incumbents. Most other digital banks fall short of incumbent benchmarks, showing that lower cost-to-serve alone does not guarantee stronger economics.

At Finance West Africa 2026, banking and technology leaders questioned whether recapitalisation would translate into productive lending, challenged the commercial viability of serving Nigeria’s next 40 million potential banking customers and identified persistent barriers to regional payments. Competition between banks and fintechs, alongside AI-enabled financial crime, is adding pressure to rethink business models and risk management.

BNY completed a tokenised Treasury financing transaction, while CPMI–IOSCO clarified financial safeguards for market infrastructure operators. State Street reported servicing-fee growth and new mandates.

First Bank of Nigeria was named Best SME Bank in Africa, Best SME Bank in Nigeria and Best Retail Bank in Nigeria, recognising its SME financing capabilities, extensive distribution network and investment in digital banking services.

As banks move mule detection, account validation and real-time payments further into production while exploring tokenised money, ACI Worldwide’s Scotty Perkins and Marc Trepanier say the modernisation case is shifting from infrastructure savings towards faster innovation, new services and stronger controls.

Standard Chartered’s Gareth Hughes, CIO for Markets discusses how the bank is combining global platforms, flexible computing capacity and centrally governed AI to support markets growth. Local requirements and operational controls shape how far those efficiencies can extend.

TAB Africa Weekly Brief: Standard Bank backs OPay, Airtel Money lists in London, Ecobank expands renminbi links and Zambia nears IMF programme.

Retail Finance Weekly: Visa gains preliminary approval for China card clearing, India delays merchant fees and US banks report contrasting consumer results.

The key difference between banks that scale AI and those building isolated use cases is not access to the technology, but the ability to deploy it repeatedly on shared platforms with governance built in.

Executives from Ripple Prime, Chainlink, FalconX and Nasdaq discussed how tokenised collateral could encourage banks and prime brokers to finance onchain activity and reduce upfront margin requirements, while highlighting operational, security and regulatory challenges to institutional adoption.

Wise Platform is moving beyond individual payment corridors as banks use its direct access to domestic clearing systems to improve speed, predictability and customer experience. The bigger test is whether that infrastructure can become a broader operating layer as payments move towards an always-on model.

TAB Middle East Weekly Brief: QNB’s $2.5 billion loan draws Asian backing, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank raises equity and deposit competition intensifies.

Transaction Finance Weekly: Singapore Gulf Bank joins BNY’s 24/7 dollar transfers, OCBC and Ant International tokenise deposits and Citi funds IndiGo’s aircraft.

Standard Chartered sees agentic payments advancing in stages: first using richer data to provide visibility, then recommending actions and eventually allowing authorised agents to execute them. Sunday Domingo sees governance, permissions, auditability and trust as critical to how far corporate treasurers are prepared to delegate.