As mobile bank adoption increases in Nigeria, users are demanding faster and simpler ways to manage money without having to switch apps or deal with clunky user interfaces. Xara, a new AI assistant for WhatsApp, promises to change this.
Harahis a multimodal artificial-intelligence banking bot that was launched by Nigerian software engineer Sulaiman Adewale in June. It allows users to send money, pay their bills, and analyze spending as easily as texting a close friend. The bot was built within WhatsApp, which is used by 95% of Nigeria’s social media users .
Adewale said, “I wanted to make banking easier for everyone. If you look closely, WhatsApp is what the older people use.”
This product is a new entry in Nigeria’s fintech market. It aims to reduce friction and build upon what consumers are already using. The company sees Owo, a Mono-managed AI designed to facilitate payments via WhatsApp, as the closest competitor.
Adewale says that Xara is powered using a large language model (LLM), which is the same technology that powers generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. It is also trained using open-source data, specifically accented Nigerian voice patterns.
This AI understands natural language commands, interprets them to confirm details and processes the transaction real-time. The AI will then process the user’s request to “Send N10,000 for breakfast to Abubakar.” Adewale said, “We are working to make the AI understand our local language like Hausa and Yoruba.”
Users can make the AI their personal financial assistant by adding their WhatsApp number. Once onboarded, users are linked to an account number issued by 9 Payment Service Bank (9PSB,), which currently issues user account numbers. Adewale stated that the team is currently working to partner with more banks so users can select their preferred bank.
TechCabal has tested the AI bot over a period of two weeks. It found that it can understand and process transactions using images, voice notes and text. It can also analyse user spending and plan payments. It can save recipients and remember conversions. Adewale says that in the first two weeks after the platform’s launch, over N135m ($88,200 worth of transactions) were recorded. He said that his team was currently working with other banks to establish partnerships as 9PSB could not handle the influx of new users and had to halt new registrations.
Stella Adeboye is a server at Kilimanjaro Restaurant in Ilorin. She said Xara would be a good alternative to customers who were constantly raising their heads to check account numbers on the wall in order to make bill payments.
Adeboye said, “If this tool could take a photo of an account number and instantly process the transfer, I think it would be helpful for us and make payments easier for customers.”
For its early users, the security of their financial and personal data has been a major concern. Babatunde Hassan said that the ability to bank through WhatsApp without opening a second app was convenient. It works even with a slow network connection. “But I am worried about how our data is secure, and I know that doubt may also stop other people.”
Adewale responded to the question of how users’ information is protected by saying that the AI was built to use WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted to safeguard users’ personal data. This means that the conversations are private and not accessible to third parties. He also pointed out that it is necessary to use an optional 4-digit authentication pin to authorise the transactions in order to avoid fraud or compromise accounts. He said that “we don’t keep any personal banking information ourselves. The only data we store is payment transactions for tracking and resolution if there are any issues.” “For extra safety, we recommend users lock their WhatsApp with Face ID or a passcode, or even lock their AI chats to keep transactions private.” Adewale responded that it currently relies on the licensing of its banking partners to provide regulatory cover for their multimodal AI services.
