The Bank of Namibia has revealed that it has adopted technology in some of its functions, including the deployment of virtual bots to improve its financial intelligence monitoring function.
“In the past year, we have redesigned processes within the Bank deemed to be tedious, mundane, and repetitive and have undertaken an automation drive to enhance operational efficiency. As a start, we have deployed virtual bots in our financial intelligence environment. This has enabled us to free our analysts from cumbersome and manual work which took days to complete. These days they can focus on value-adding trend analysis,” BoN Governor Johannes !Gawaxab told the innovation investment readiness (iir) week.
He said the central bank had also introduced chatbots and other automated technology tools to improve its stakeholder experience.
“And that’s not all, we are also making use of chatbots and other tools to improve the stakeholder experience for our regulated entities. These are just some of the many initiatives that the Bank is implementing. We remain open and flexible to input and suggestions to improve and enhance the effectiveness of these new initiatives because we believe this is good stewardship. These are just some of the many initiatives that the Bank is implementing,” !Gawaxab said.
A virtual bot is an artificial intelligence application used to provide automated service or guidance to humans, while a chat bot is a computer program that simulates and processes human conversation, allowing humans to interact with digital devices as if they were communicating with a real person.
!Gawaxab said the proliferation of financial technology innovations has a profound bearing on the Bank’s mandate and its role as a regulator in the financial system.
“In this regard, and in demonstrating our agility, we have crafted a Fintech Regulatory framework focused on innovation through which enterprises and individuals with innovative business concepts can present their ideas to the Bank for consideration against the relevant frameworks of the Bank and incubation. The Bank will subject such business concepts to the relevant regulatory framework to ensure that such concepts are within the ambit of the law. For this purpose, the Fintech Regulatory Framework aims to identify whether an innovation qualifies as a FinTech innovation followed by a phased-approach Regulatory Programme (i.e., Test and Learn; Sandbox, etc.) to understand and evaluate and test the innovation before the regulatory outcome on the innovation can be determined,” he said.
The Governor also called on other Namibian sector regulators to swiftly undertake reforms to ensure their adaptation to changing technological trends.
“We would like to encourage and appeal to other regulators and stakeholders in other sectors, to embark on similar initiatives, such as digital business hubs and digital sandboxes (even outside the finance sector). I urge you to remain agile to swiftly undertake reforms in the regulatory space to ensure that we do not stifle the emergence and development of start-ups that could create jobs, growth, and export earnings in these new engines of growth. In addition, a regional and global approach must be encouraged. This means that we need to encourage and support business ideas that could provide solutions for the domestic market, to the region, the continent, and even the world. This could be in the area of payments systems such as payment of remittances across neighbouring countries, customs and other tax payments, and many more. We are prepared to share our work and lessons from our domain area and even partner with some of the stakeholders to make that happen,” he said.
This comes as BoN has started exploring the establishment of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CDBC) and measures to regulate cryptocurrency.
