Stanbic Bank Uganda CIO Rita Apell is leading efforts to build a structured AI strategy focused on business value and operational efficiency. She believes successful adoption depends on strong foundations, clear governance and practical customer-focused applications.
As banks across Africa accelerate digital transformation, artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping how institutions plan their technology strategies and engage with customers. Rita Apell, CIO at Stanbic Bank Uganda says the bank is laying the groundwork for a structured AI rollout that aligns with governance, infrastructure and long-term business value.
“When I joined Stanbic Bank, of course the board was equally asking, you know, where is AI in all this technology strategy? And I’ve only had a year to figure it out,” Rita says.
She explains that the focus over the past year has been on building foundational capabilities rather than rushing into full deployment. Key investments have centred on infrastructure, cloud readiness and experimentation with early use cases.
“From where I sit, we are really building the foundation, the capabilities. We only landed, I only got my AI strategy approved by the board but we’ve been doing some experimentations as well. We’ve created the right infrastructure through the cloud and we’ve been encouraging the teams to experiment,” she says.
The bank has also taken a structured approach to identifying where AI can add value across the organisation. Rita says internal workshops generated a large number of ideas from business teams, highlighting growing awareness of the technology’s potential in banking operations and services.
Having a positive impact
“We ran a workshop for about a week where our business users came in and we were surprised, oh my goodness, 140 use cases from the business. Then we had to do the prioritisation to say, okay, what do we go in for next year,” she adds.
Alongside idea generation, the bank conducted an AI capability maturity assessment to understand its readiness across multiple areas, including architecture, machine learning capabilities and organisational culture. Rita notes that institutions must take a measured approach to AI adoption to ensure meaningful outcomes.
“You can’t just start throwing AI solutions in there. All of them need to have some sort of positive impact either from a business growth perspective or operational efficiency. You need to see the value that is coming out of that,” she says.
While AI is expected to influence multiple areas of banking, Rita reiterates that customer experience remains one of the most immediate and impactful applications. She points to personalisation and improved service delivery as early opportunities where AI can help banks better understand and respond to customer needs.
Staying relevant
“One of the most common use cases for AI is in customer experience. What I believe is AI should be able to make things a lot better in terms of efficiency,” she says.
AI-driven insights can also help banks refine product design and marketing strategies by analysing customer behaviour more deeply. According to Rita , this enables institutions to deliver more relevant services rather than relying on broad, untargeted campaigns.
“How do we use AI to really understand our customers so that we’re able to design the right products? When you talk about marketing campaigns, for example, you’re not just throwing any product to any customer,” she adds.
Another area of focus is customer support, where AI-enabled contact centres are expected to streamline interactions and improve response times.
“There are already AI-enabled contact centres that ensure interaction with clients is more seamless, with faster turnaround time to resolve customer issues and complaints,” Rita notes.
She adds that the pace of technological change means banks must move quickly while learning from peers that have already implemented large numbers of AI solutions.
“I know banks that have implemented over 500 AI use cases and we are saying, look, we are not going to reinvent the wheel. Can we learn from some of these banks so that we are able to leapfrog if we can?”
