Digital transformation and artificial intelligence in the financial sector

Fourth Annual Risk Conference 2026

What it is about

Heleodoro Ruiz Santos, CEO of Banco de Inversión Afirme, presented at the Fourth Annual Risk Conference (September 18, 2026) how digital transformation and artificial intelligence are changing banking and what that means for risk management.

The 56 slides review the evolution of capital regulation from Basel I to Basel III, argue that banking is at an inflection point with new competitors (big tech and fintech) and trace the history of artificial intelligence up to language models, explaining how an LLM works. They summarize the new risks of AI, compare the risk of using it with the risk of not using it, show how banking in Mexico and Latin America changes with digitalization and describe a digital credit process with alternative data and immediate response.

Objectives

Place digital transformation and AI in the evolution of banking and of prudential regulation.
Explain how a language model works and what new risks AI introduces.
Show how AI and alternative data redesign the credit process.

Key takeaways

Digital transformation is not technology but redesign: digitalizing a bad process only makes it inefficient faster; in credit, the change is moving from requesting documents to obtaining data.
A language model does not consult a bank of answers: it calculates the most likely next word from patterns, so an answer can be coherent, convincing and wrong.
The emerging risks of AI include model risk (bias, hallucinations), data risk, cyber risk, third-party and concentration risk, legal and reputational risk, explainability and the risk of agents that move from recommending to acting.
For risk officers the question is no longer whether to use AI but how to take advantage of it while keeping control; the risk of not adopting it also becomes strategic.
The digital credit process integrates first and validates afterwards, connects alternative sources, automates analysis with AI and lets the officer focus on the customer and the final decision.