Insights from Davos: Absa's Christine Wu on opportunities AI offers to create financial inclusion rather than more inequality

The World Economic Forum entered Day 4 on Thursday, with a focus on leadership, climate action and economic direction.

And, the South African delegation has been presenting a strong investment case, of course amid stiff competition from other countries, reports Christine Wu who's Interim Chief Executive for Personal and Private Banking at Absa.

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"I think what we're seeing is how - as Canadian PM Mark Carney put it quite well, the world order has come to a rupture point. Typically in these situations there are always new opportunities and South Africa, by virtue of our geographic location, our resources, and the abundance of people capital, is certainly a destination not to be ignored."

Wu also highlighted the conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) at Davos, and how developments in this fast-advancing field further link up with green energy projects (despite Donald Trump's aversion to renewable energy).

The most important discussion is around AI disruption and the huge surge in energy demand this brings with it, she says.

"Across the board there's been strong support voiced for green energy... and what we're seeing is the different countries are all articulating very ambitious plans in terms of energy generation, but most of those are actually around SUSTAINABLE sources. Across the globe many countries are pledging these aggressive plans to ramp up renewable energy to cater for AI demand."

Commenting on fintech growth in Africa she says it may feel like all the players are competing for a shrinking pie, but the reality is that the continent is underpenetrated when it comes to a holistic set of financial services - "If we look at penetration of mortgages, of insurance... These all speak to the opportunity for us to leverage technology to drastically improve everybody's financial inclusion."

While this changing world in terms of both geopolitical risk and technological advances brings a lot more complexity to navigate, at the same time she feels these are exciting changes to look forward to.

"It's estimated that through AI we can unlock $15 trillion of value globally by 2030, so that means the way we look at creating value in AI has to go from being experimental to being systemic. This places a huge amount of burden on the leaders, to think about how to unlock value at an enterprise level, but also as a country - how do we use this as an opportunity to pivot and actually unlock a lot of the social issues. Through this process we can use AI to create financial inclusion, rather than creating more inequality."

Click here to watch a panel discussion the Absa team took part in at the WEF.

For more insight from Absa's Christine Wu at Davos, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article