Big-four bank Standard Bank will make it compulsory for its employees to undergo training in artificial intelligence (AI) risks and ethics.
So said Jörg Fischer, Standard Bank group chief information officer (CIO), yesterday in an interview with ITWeb.
According to the CIO, the big-four bank is rapidly deploying AI throughout the business to boost customer experience and employee productivity.
Standard Bank, which is Africa’s biggest bank by assets, employed over 50 000 people as of its FY24 and June 2025 financial updates.
Fischer’s comments come as banks are increasingly deploying AI to drive efficiency, enhance customer experience and strengthen risk management.
AI-powered tools enable banks to automate routine processes such as loan approvals, compliance checks and fraud detection, reducing costs while improving accuracy and speed.
“We have decided that ultimately all our employees have to go on compulsory learning on AI so that they understand the ethics of AI, as well as the dos and don’ts. If you want to use it, they need to know which processes to follow,” said Fischer.
“We call these religious risk processes, which we have implemented [for the employees] to follow before we can even do AI use cases. I think a lot of people negate the risk behind AI – where does your data go, what large language models to use, and what kind of outcome you want?
“AI frameworks are very important and we’ve established frameworks with our risk and compliance partners.”
Building blocks
Fischer added that successfully deploying generative AI and advanced analytics requires a strong cloud foundation, as hyperscalers provide the necessary GPUs and computing power.
He pointed out that Standard Bank is “proud” that most of its computing estate is already in the cloud.
The next critical step, he noted, is ensuring access to large language models within a secure environment.
This, he explained, is vital to prevent organisational data from leaving the bank and being exposed to external providers.
Fischer stressed that Standard Bank does not pursue AI for its own sake, but rather to address real customer and business challenges.
According to the CIO, many organisations accumulate multiple AI use cases that fail to deliver meaningful value.
At Standard Bank, he said, AI use cases are assessed through two main lenses. In retail, personal and private banking, he explained, the focus is on equipping relationship bankers with deeper client insights.
He explained that many of these initiatives are designed to enrich data and enable greater personalisation in client interactions.
“AI also makes sure that our campaigns go to the right people and that our relations people have the right information. The same also goes when you use our mobile app on the help functionality – a lot of that is AI-driven.”
The other use case is in the back-office operations in the call centre to boost productivity, he said, adding that there are so many manual tasks that people still do that need to be automated using AI.
He revealed that in call centres, Standard Bank uses technologies like Salesforce and Amazon Connect.
Fischer also discussed Standard Bank’s IT performance during the first half of the year, where IT costs totalled R3.7 billion across its divisions. Software, cloud and other technology-related costs rose by 7%.
“During the reporting period, we restored stability within our IT. There was always some negative perception about Standard Bank technology. We had zero material cyber incidents. When you look at Downdetector and compare us with other financial institutions in the country, we are definitely leading from that perspective. Our system resilience has been incredible.”
He added that the use of technology has resulted in improvements in client experience and staff productivity.
Cloud considerations
Standard Bank is also continuing with its cloud journey, he noted. “If you look at all our client-facing systems – from call centres to ATMs, mobile and internet banking – they are generally now hosted in the cloud, or at least the majority of the systems are now in the cloud. That means we can bring scalability and agility to the business.
About the biggest causes of system failures, especially at month-end, he said: “I get constantly asked that question even by the board [of directors]. The first thing was about culture and people; so, it was about implementing rigorous discipline. Previously, when you looked at the technology shop, we had lots of polices, standards and procedures that were not always followed.
“When I came into this role four year ago, we made sure engineers had direct contact with leadership.”
He noted that he runs a weekly stability meeting to ensure IT teams learn from each other, not necessarily about finding people’s faults.
“When you look at Standard Bank, it’s quite a complex organisation, which has four business units. I think we are in about 20 geographies and a lot of it is about how can we continuously learn from each other? On a weekly basis, I go through all the incidents that we would have had from the previous week and we literally deep dive into them. I also have a postmortem committee when people have to write reports of why things went wrong.”
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