Nigeria’s financial divide meets its match: Joy Sam-Bulya’s AI framework offers a new hope for the unbanked

At a time when over 38 million Nigerians remain financially excluded, a bold new voice has emerged from the capital city with a vision that is shaking the foundations of the country’s financial and technological communities. Joy Sam-Bulya, an Abuja-based independent researcher, has proposed a transformative framework to address Nigeria’s deep-rooted financial exclusion crisis—using artificial intelligence (AI) as the driving force for equitable reform.

Her ground-breaking study, Developing a Framework for Artificial Intelligence-Driven Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets, was published in January 2021 in the International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Growth Evaluation. Although initially released quietly within academic circles, the paper is now gaining widespread recognition, following renewed national conversations around economic recovery, digital banking, and poverty alleviation. By August 2021, as Nigeria continues to grapple with economic strain from post-pandemic inflation and rising unemployment, Sam-Bulya’s work is increasingly being hailed as a roadmap for inclusive recovery.

“The financial system in Nigeria wasn’t built for everyone,” Sam-Bulya said in a recent interview. “But with the tools we have today—especially AI—we can redesign it for everyone.”

Her framework outlines a multi-layered strategy to empower Nigeria’s unbanked and underbanked populations through AI-powered credit scoring, fraud detection, digital financial services, and personalised financial literacy tools. Central to her vision is the use of alternative data—mobile phone usage, utility payments, SMS behaviour, and even social media activity—to replace rigid, exclusionary credit assessment models that have left millions without access to loans, insurance, or formal savings platforms.

“Nigeria’s informal economy is vibrant,” she said. “People are transacting daily—selling akara, fixing phones, farming, trading—but because they don’t have payslips or bank statements, they remain invisible to the system. AI helps us see them, hear them, and serve them.”

In a country where women, youth, and rural communities are disproportionately excluded from the banking system, her solution is also linguistically and culturally sensitive. Sam-Bulya advocates for the integration of AI-powered multilingual digital assistants that can interact with users in Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, and Pidgin. These bots would assist individuals in navigating savings plans, credit applications, and basic financial education—whether or not they are literate.

“If we want inclusion, we must first include people in their own language,” she stated. “It’s not enough to digitise banking. We must humanise it.”

Her proposal could not have arrived at a more urgent time. According to the 2020 Access to Financial Services Survey (EFInA), over 36% of Nigerian adults lacked access to regulated financial services. Traditional financial institutions have been slow to innovate for low-income earners or those living outside major urban centres. At the same time, fintech startups often cater to digitally literate middle-class users, leaving behind vast populations in peri-urban and rural areas.

“Right now, financial technology in Nigeria is sprinting ahead, but inclusion is limping behind,” Sam-Bulya warned. “If we don’t close that gap, technology will deepen inequality instead of correcting it.”

Her framework is more than just policy theory—it is a practical toolkit for government agencies, fintechs, and financial institutions. It highlights the cost-saving benefits of AI in streamlining onboarding, reducing fraud, and improving service delivery. More importantly, it calls for collaboration across sectors, including regulators, telcos, civil society, and community organisations.

“You can’t drop AI into a broken system and expect magic,” she said. “We need governance, data privacy laws, ethical standards, and grassroots trust-building. That’s how AI can become a force for justice.”

One of the paper’s most promising insights is its emphasis on trust restoration. In many Nigerian communities, people avoid formal financial services not because they are uninterested, but because past experiences—unexplained fees, lost savings, exploitative microloans—have made them wary. Sam-Bulya suggests that transparent, AI-driven systems with explainable decisions and user-controlled data could help repair that broken trust.

“If we can explain why someone was denied a loan, in plain language, and offer a path to eligibility, we are no longer gatekeepers—we are partners,” she emphasised.

Since gaining traction this August, Sam-Bulya’s work has attracted the attention of fintech innovators in Lagos and Abuja, several of whom are exploring pilot schemes based on her recommendations. Development organisations and financial inclusion think tanks have also begun citing her research in ongoing policy consultations.

“We’re building partnerships,” she confirmed. “The goal is not just publication. The goal is impact. I want to see this framework live in the hands of women selling grains in Gwagwalada and young bike mechanics in Owerri.”

Her vision extends beyond individual inclusion. She positions AI as a national development strategy—one that can generate credit histories for millions, grow small businesses, stabilise families, and expand Nigeria’s tax base and financial ecosystem. The potential for AI-powered microinsurance, government-to-person cash transfers, and customised savings tools tailored to informal sector workers is immense.

“If we want broad-based prosperity in this country,” she concluded, “we must build a system that sees everyone. AI gives us the eyes, but we must provide the will.”

As the country wrestles with inflation, rising poverty, and an urgent need for economic reinvention, Joy Sam-Bulya’s AI framework offers something rare: a solution that is both innovative and rooted in the Nigerian experience. It does not ask the system to expand—it demands that the system evolve.

In a world where data is often extracted from the poor but rarely used for their benefit, her proposal marks a powerful shift—from exclusion to equity, from invisibility to inclusion. And with champions like Sam-Bulya at the helm, the future of Nigerian finance just might be intelligent, ethical, and inclusive.