APIs: The Backbone of Modernization (From Banking Transformation to AI-Era Architecture)

While African enterprises are modernizing legacy environments to prepare for AI-driven services, APIs have become far more than technical interfaces. They are the foundations through which organizations expose capabilities, connect ecosystems, enforce trust and enable intelligent action.

Drawing on her bank’s journey with WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus and API Manager, Janey Rachel Nakato shares how an initial integration requirement evolved into a strategic API platform scaled to support a 10-fold growth transactions volume and enabled services such as QR payments, digital savings, government collections and ecosystem partnerships.

The keynote explores why effective API management extends beyond gateways and traffic control to include API product ownership, lifecycle governance, security, discoverability, observability, reuse and measurable business value. It also examines how these disciplines must evolve as APIs increasingly become tools consumed dynamically by AI agents.

Executives in attendance will leave with practical lessons on scaling API platforms, establishing shared ownership, developing internal capability and preparing their organizations to govern both human and non-human consumers. The central message is that organizations that govern their APIs effectively today will be better positioned to trust and scale intelligent systems tomorrow.