May 30, 2025
Africa is the birthplace of mobile money, which began with M-Pesa in 2007. Today the continent is alive with financial innovation activity focused on using technology to make people’s lives better, as a young, growing population creates new ways to solve old problems.
AIR is working extensively with African regulators and financial providers as they grapple with these enormous opportunities and challenges. My guest on today’s show is Aishah Ahmad, board member of the Financial Alliance for Women and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. She joins us to share deep insights drawn from her extensive career at the crossroads of finance, regulation, and inclusive economic policy.
In our conversation, Aishah explores the rapid growth of digital financial services across Africa, highlighting how mobile payments and digital banking have transformed economies, empowered small businesses, and expanded financial inclusion dramatically. She emphasizes the profound economic and societal benefits digital services have delivered, from increased transparency in government finances to enhanced financial resilience for households.
Aishah also candidly addresses the growing challenges accompanying this digital shift—including sounding the alarm on the flood tide of fraud that is hitting financial services in Africa and worldwide, including the rise in novel attacks driven by AI. She provides an insightful look at how these crimes exploit human vulnerabilities and describes their significant emotional and financial toll on victims. Importantly, she warns that fraud and scams pose a particularly insidious threat to digital financial services, because they undermine the public’s trust in them, just as these services are poised for tremendous growth and are exploring further innovations.
A key dimension of Aisha’s work, and AIR’s, is a focus on the financial health of women, as individuals and entrepreneurs. This is a widespread challenge, as women often face obstacles in proving their identities (which is required to access the formal financial system), obtaining bank accounts and credit, and finding services that fit their preferences and needs. As Aisha notes, a key goal is to improve the quality of gender data in finance (a priority that we at AIR are working on as well).
Listeners will be interested to hear Aishah's analysis of effective solutions, including the critical roles of consumer education, stronger digital identity frameworks, international cooperation, and innovative regulatory approaches. She suggests what policymakers and financial leaders need to do right now to assure that trust in the system is maintained, arguing passionately for a coordinated global response to financial fraud, including models for national and international task forces to better protect consumers.
As I mentioned, AIR is working extensively in Africa. Three of our team were in Johannesburg last week for the Responsible Finance Forum (RFF). The gathering was vibrant with innovation and energy, especially in payments, including in considering the potential role of stablecoins – an area that AIR is exploring.
We are also working extensively on fraud, everywhere. Please note that we have several events coming up and would love for listeners to join us.
FOR LISTENERS IN WEST AFRICA: AIR will hold a policyTechSprint in West Africa, designed as a follow up to the TechSprint we hosted there last year on payments fraud and consumer protection with the West Africa Monetary Institute – WAMI. The policy sprint is set for 8-9 July. You can register here.
FOR U.S. LISTERNERS INTERESTED IN FRAUD: Please register for AIR’s June 23-24 fraud Battlefront event in Washington DC. We’ll have teams of fraud attackers and defenders use AI to try to outwit each other and generate lessons for us all. Register here.
FOR EVERYONE: Join us for AIR inaugural conference, Converge, Creating the Future of Financial Regulation, on September 16 in Washington, DC. As the saying goes, we think that for financial regulation, 2025 is likely to be a year in which decades happen. And note that our keynote speakers will include David Dewhurst, who leads the new U.S. DARPA program on Anticipatory and Adaptive Anti-Money Laundering (A3ML), which is aiming to “flip the script on bad actors” in financial crime.
Aishah Ahmad is a global finance and policy expert with over 28 years of experience spanning public policy, private markets, and governance. A trailblazer in finance, she made history as the first female Deputy Governor for Financial System Stability at the Central Bank of Nigeria (2018–2023), following a distinguished career in private wealth management and banking.
At the CBN, she played a pivotal role in shaping financial policy, preserving stability—particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic—and driving financial innovation in Africa’s largest economy. Under her regulatory stewardship, Nigeria strengthened its position as a leading financial hub through groundbreaking reforms, including the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA 2020), Africa’s first domestic card scheme (Afrigo), the introduction of telco-led Payment Service Banks, adoption of Open Banking, among others.
Aishah pioneered Nigeria’s first International Financial Inclusion Conference while mobilizing national stakeholders to drive financial inclusion. These initiatives strengthened the financial system—spurring record growth in real-sector credit, significantly expanding electronic transactions, and advancing digital financial services.
Aisha has addressed global forums, including the World Bank/IMF, Harvard Kennedy School, and Saïd Business School, Oxford University. She was honored with the national award of Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) in 2023 for her impact on Nigeria’s financial sector.
Aishah serves on the global boards of the Financial Alliance for Women and SOS Children’s Villages International and is a trustee of Women in Management, Business & Public Service (WIMBIZ). She has previously chaired strategic public, private and non profit institutions, including Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), the country’s primary payments market infrastructure.
Beyond finance, Aishah is a passionate advocate for gender equity. At the CBN, she institutionalized female leadership and empowerment as a strategic priority, mentoring thousands of female policymakers through her 100 Women Breakfast initiative and helping increase female CEO representation in Nigeria’s banking sector to an all-time high of 25%. As Executive Chairperson at WIMBIZ, Africa’s largest female-focused NGO, she launched the Big Sister Programme, impacting over 8,000 teenage girls in public secondary schools across Nigeria.
Aishah holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA), and INSEAD’s International Director’s Programme (IDP-C) designations (amongst other leadership and economic policy credentials).
An alumna of Cranfield School of Management, UK, and the University of Lagos, she earned a Master’s in Finance & Management and an MBA in Finance, respectively. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree (2:1) in Accounting from the University of Abuja.
Upcoming Podcasts
We have wonderful upcoming episodes. We’ll have SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who will talk with us about the crypto task force she is leading. We will have Tyler Williams, who is Counselor to the Treasury Secretary for Digital Assets. We’ll have a discussion with Saket Narayan of AWS, about how to modernize the regulators’ own technology. We’ll have a show with Aishah Ahmad on digital financial services and consumer protection in West Africa, relating to the work AIR is doing in that region. And much more!
Upcoming AIR Events
We also have four fantastic AIR events planned for the coming months.
AI fraud Battlefront: Fighting fire with fire: First, in our continuing body of work on fraud and scams, we will be convening an exercise June 23-24 in Washington DC called Battlefront, a war games style competition between fraud attackers and defenders, all using AI. If you’re interested in participating, please apply!
Fighting Fraud in West Africa: Next, we’re heading to Lagos July 8-9 for a Payments & Fraud Policy Sprint, following up on the learnings from the TechSprint we did last year on payments fraud and consumer protection.
Calling all Regulators / Meet in London: We are excited to be offering a four day learning program in London in the autumn, inviting regulators and central banks from around the world. The program shares AIR’s Innovation Elements methodology that regulators can use to build your innovation capabilities.
Converge Conference in Washington D.C.: And finally, again, I hope everyone will join us in Washington D.C. on September 16 for AIR’s inaugural financial regulatory conference, Converge: Creating the Future of Financial Regulation. September will be perfect timing to host some very provocative conversations among top leaders in finance, regulation and technology. Early bird discounted tickets are on sale, so please reach out – and let us know if you would like to be a sponsor!
Upcoming Speaking Events by AIR’s team
I’m also looking forward to speaking at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s annual conference, in Washington in August. Meanwhile, you’ll find my international AIR colleagues speaking at the 2025 RegTechAfrica Conference in Nigeria, and also at Money 20/20 Europe in the Netherlands.
Here’s a full list of speaking engagements and events.
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