Last week in Basel, Proto joined central bankers, innovators, and academics at the BIS Innovation Summit 2025, hosted by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The annual flagship event convenes leaders shaping the future of finance. This year’s theme — Future-proofing central banks — focused on how institutions can adapt in the face of unprecedented technological change.
As part of the roundtable Powering the next-gen technology compliance stack, Proto’s Managing Director for Africa, Noella Dushime Kajeneri, shared the company’s experience deploying localised and secure conversational AI system to strengthen financial integrity — especially in the face of rising rates of scams in the developing world. The session explored how emerging technologies such as machine learning, distributed ledger technology, and privacy tools can combat illicit finance. It also reflected on the lessons from BIS Innovation Hub projects like Aurora, Hertha, Mandala, Raven, Polaris, and Nexus – each offering building blocks for the global compliance stack.
Bridging the gap between compliance and inclusion
Representing Proto, Noella emphasised how AI-driven citizen engagement bridges the gap between compliance and inclusion:
- Building trust and inclusion – Proto’s multilingual AI assistants enable citizens to interact with regulators and banks in their own languages, such as Kinyarwanda and Tagalog. This ensures complaints are heard, transactions are traceable, and trust in financial services grows among underserved populations.
- AI-powered detection and early warnings – Proto’s systems monitor hundreds of thousands of citizen–institution interactions monthly across Africa and Asia, detecting anomalies that can indicate fraud or systemic risks long before they surface in transaction data.
- Collaborative analytics – With partners like FNA, Proto combines citizen interaction data with advanced network analytics, allowing supervisors to map out cross-border illicit networks. This approach aligns directly with BIS priorities for collaborative solutions, as seen in Project Aurora.
For Proto, the message from Basel is clear: inclusion does run parallel to compliance – it is an integral part of the next-gen compliance stack. By embedding multilingual AI and privacy safeguards into financial system infrastructure, regulators can expand access, protect citizens, and gain sharper tools to safeguard global finance.
