South African Financials: Takeaways from our 2nd annual fintech/insurtech call series: Execution at scale will be the key

Research evidence excerpt

South African Financials: Takeaways from our 2nd annual fintech/insurtech call series: Execution at scale will be the key

J P M O R G A N CEEMEA Equity Research

08 July 2026

South African Financials

Takeaways from our 2nd annual fintech/insurtech call

series: Execution at scale will be the key

We recently hosted our 2nd annual South African Financials fintech/insurtech call CEEMEA Financials

ACseries and highlight the key takeaways (and replay links) in this note. We believe Baron Nkomo

that tech and AI are no longer just ‘nice to have’ for South African banks and (27-11) 507-0385

insurers: they are increasingly shaping distribution economics (acquisition and baron.nkomo@jpmorgan.com

engagement), risk outcomes (credit/underwriting/claims), and operating leverage J.P. Morgan Equities South Africa (Pty) Ltd.

(cost-to-serve). That said, we found it hard to map ‘AI activity’ to reported financial Pooja Ruia

outcomes in a clean, comparable way—most participants had a clear narrative on (91-22) 6157-3688

pooja.ruia@jpmchase.com

how they intend to use AI, but relatively few gave ‘here’s the quantified impact you J.P. Morgan India Private Limited

can already see in the income statement’ datapoints. Our overall takeaway is that

Mehmet Sevim

everyone is investing in tech, but the long-term winners are likely to be those (971) 4428-1784

companies that (1) can scale AI into governed production with per-use-case cost/ mehmet.sevim@jpmorgan.com

ROI visibility (to avoid endless pilots and protect cost-to-income), and (2) have a J.P. Morgan Securities plc

larger, usable data set that converts into either primary-bank activation (i.e., more

activity, deposits, and product holding rather than just account openings) and better

insurance pricing/underwriting.