Digital Innovation in Finance Training Course

Duration 10 days 20 modules · 65 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Finance Managers, Finance Business Partners and others
Fee from USD 2,200 KSh 190,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-FT-041

Before you join: Participants should have working experience in finance, accounting, treasury, banking, insurance, risk, operations or business transformation.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Finance teams face a practical innovation challenge: improving customer experience, speed, control and economics without creating unmanaged technology, compliance or operational risk. Payments, lending, treasury, insurance and investment services are being reshaped by APIs, cloud platforms, real-time data, artificial intelligence, digital identity and new partnership models. Finance professionals need to judge which opportunities warrant investment, define credible business cases and work effectively with technology, risk and product teams.

This course examines the operating models, technologies and decision methods behind digital finance initiatives. Participants assess fintech propositions, map customer journeys and value streams, design API-enabled services, evaluate digital payment and lending models, and assess artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud use cases. They apply recognised methods including Jobs-to-be-Done, Business Model Canvas, RICE scoring, NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, ISO 20022, financial modelling and benefits realisation planning. Strong attention is given to regulatory compliance, data governance, fraud, cybersecurity, third-party risk and model risk management.

Delivered over 10 instructor-led days in the classroom or live online, the course combines concise technical briefings with sector cases, group analysis, simulations and structured application planning. Participants progressively develop a digital finance innovation business case, beginning with an identified customer or operational problem and ending with a proposed service, operating model, risk controls, financial case and implementation roadmap. Each participant receives a certificate of completion.

The course suits finance, accounting, treasury, risk, operations, product and transformation professionals who already understand financial services or finance processes and need a disciplined way to assess, sponsor or deliver digital innovation work.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess digital finance opportunities using customer, economic, risk and feasibility criteria
  • Map customer journeys and finance value streams using service blueprints and process data
  • Design API-enabled financial service propositions with consent, identity and third-party controls
  • Evaluate payment, digital lending, artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud use cases
  • Apply data governance, cybersecurity, fraud and regulatory control frameworks to digital services
  • Build a quantified digital finance business case using unit economics and scenario analysis
  • Develop an implementation roadmap with governance, dependencies, adoption actions and performance measures
  • Present a digital finance innovation proposal to executive and risk stakeholders

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce credible digital finance business cases for investment and governance forums
  • Assess fintech vendors, partnerships and technology proposals with clearer commercial judgement
  • Communicate requirements effectively with product, engineering, risk and data teams
  • Identify control gaps in API, cloud, artificial intelligence and payment initiatives
  • Build a portfolio-ready digital finance innovation proposal

For your organisation

  • Improve selection of digital initiatives using measurable value, risk and feasibility criteria
  • Reduce failed pilots through stronger discovery, governance and scaling decisions
  • Strengthen controls for customer data, fraud, cybersecurity and third-party services
  • Create better investment cases for automation, payments, lending and data initiatives
  • Align finance, technology, operations and risk stakeholders around implementation priorities

Course modules

20 modules over 10 days

Participants can identify and frame digital finance opportunities using value, risk and feasibility criteria.

  • Digital finance value chains: payments, lending, investing, insurance and treasury
  • Technology trends assessed through customer value, economics, risk and feasibility
  • Incumbent, fintech and platform business models compared using value pools
  • Problem statements framed around measurable finance process pain points
  • Opportunity hypotheses linked to revenue, cost, risk and experience
  • Technology adoption curves used to distinguish pilots from scalable propositions

Participants can define financial service problems using customer evidence and journey analysis.

  • Jobs-to-be-Done interviews separate customer tasks, pains and desired outcomes
  • Service blueprints map frontstage interactions, backstage processes and failure points
  • Personas grounded in transaction data rather than demographic assumptions
  • Journey maps expose onboarding, payment and claims abandonment moments
  • Design Thinking divergent and convergent stages guide solution selection
  • Accessibility requirements incorporated into digital financial service journeys

Participants can compare strategic options and business models for digital finance propositions.

  • PESTLE and Porter's Five Forces assess digital finance market conditions
  • Business Model Canvas captures segments, propositions, channels and cost structures
  • Platform network effects analysed for marketplaces, payment rails and ecosystems
  • Build, buy, partner and invest options assessed against strategic control
  • Fintech partnership due diligence examines economics, data access and dependencies
  • Strategic roadmaps sequence capabilities, releases, governance gates and investment

Participants can prioritise digital use cases using quantified operational and commercial evidence.

  • Use cases prioritised with RICE scoring: reach, impact, confidence, effort
  • Value-stream mapping quantifies delays, rework, handoffs and control breaks
  • Straight-through-processing targets established from current-state transaction data baselines
  • Benefit cases distinguish hard savings, avoided losses and revenue uplift
  • Assumptions register records evidence, owners, confidence levels and expiry dates
  • Opportunity portfolio balances core improvements, adjacent propositions and exploratory bets

Participants can define data governance requirements for a digital financial service.

  • Data product ownership defines producers, consumers, quality rules and service levels
  • Critical data elements identified for customers, accounts, transactions and collateral
  • Data lineage traces source systems, transformations, reports and decision outputs
  • Master data controls resolve duplicate identities and inconsistent reference values
  • Data quality scorecards measure completeness, accuracy, timeliness, validity and uniqueness
  • Consent records and purpose limitation shape lawful customer-data use

Participants can assess API-based financial service models and their control requirements.

  • API product design specifies consumers, endpoints, service levels and monetisation
  • REST API patterns cover resources, methods, status codes and versioning
  • OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect govern delegated access and identity
  • Open banking consent flows address authentication, permissions, revocation and audit
  • API gateway controls apply throttling, monitoring, authentication and traffic policies
  • Third-party risk assessments test availability, security, data handling and exit plans

Participants can evaluate payment innovation opportunities, economics and operational controls.

  • Payment value chains distinguish initiation, clearing, settlement, reconciliation and exceptions
  • ISO 20022 message structures support richer payment data and interoperability
  • Real-time payment design considers liquidity, fraud controls and irrevocability
  • Card payment economics separate interchange, scheme fees, acquiring and chargebacks
  • Digital wallet propositions assess tokenisation, acceptance, funding and customer support
  • Reconciliation controls match ledgers, bank statements, settlement files and fees

Participants can assess digital lending models from onboarding through collections.

  • Digital onboarding combines identity verification, document capture and liveness checks
  • Credit decisioning models integrate bureau, transaction and affordability data
  • Explainability requirements document model reasons, overrides and adverse-action notices
  • Loan origination workflows route applications, exceptions, approvals and disclosures
  • Early-warning indicators identify delinquency risk before missed-payment events
  • Collections strategies segment treatment paths, contact rules and hardship options

Participants can select and govern artificial intelligence use cases in finance.

  • Machine-learning use cases ranked by decision value, data readiness and harm
  • Supervised learning models require labelled outcomes, features and validation samples
  • Feature engineering detects transaction patterns, customer behaviour and temporal effects
  • Model risk management documents performance, drift, bias and approval controls
  • Generative AI controls address prompts, retrieval, confidentiality and human review
  • Explainable AI techniques communicate predictions to risk owners and customers

Participants can evaluate distributed ledger and digital asset propositions with appropriate risk controls.

  • Distributed ledger architectures distinguish permissioned networks, nodes, consensus and finality
  • Smart-contract controls cover code review, oracle risk and upgrade authority
  • Tokenisation use cases assess custody, transfer restrictions and settlement benefits
  • Digital asset risks include volatility, key management, sanctions and fraud
  • Central bank digital currency models affect intermediaries, privacy and liquidity
  • Blockchain business cases test reconciliation savings against operating complexity

Participants can assess cloud operating, resilience and financial management decisions.

  • Cloud operating models allocate accountability among provider, customer and integrator
  • Shared responsibility matrices specify security duties for infrastructure, platforms and software
  • Cloud financial management tracks consumption, tagging, budgets and unit costs
  • Resilience architecture uses redundancy, recovery objectives, backups and failover tests
  • Vendor concentration risk informs portability, contingency and multi-region design
  • Legacy modernisation pathways compare rehosting, refactoring, replacement and retirement

Participants can identify cybersecurity and fraud controls required for digital finance services.

  • NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 structures governance, identification, protection, detection, response, recovery
  • Threat modelling identifies assets, attack paths, controls and residual exposure
  • Zero Trust principles verify identities, devices, permissions and session context
  • Fraud typologies cover account takeover, authorised scams, mule accounts and synthetic identities
  • Transaction-monitoring scenarios combine rules, behavioural signals and investigator workflows
  • Incident playbooks define triage, containment, notification, evidence and recovery actions

Participants can incorporate regulatory, compliance and privacy requirements into digital finance designs.

  • Regulatory horizon scanning translates policy changes into product and control requirements
  • AML screening workflows address sanctions, politically exposed persons and adverse media
  • Know-your-customer risk ratings combine identity, geography, product and behaviour factors
  • Privacy impact assessments document processing purposes, risks, safeguards and approvals
  • Records retention schedules classify financial, personal, contractual and audit evidence
  • RegTech reporting automates validation, lineage, submission and exception management

Participants can structure controlled product delivery for financial innovation initiatives.

  • Product operating models define product managers, owners, engineers and risk partners
  • Agile backlogs translate outcomes into epics, user stories and acceptance criteria
  • Minimum viable products test critical assumptions before full-scale investment
  • Scrum ceremonies establish planning, daily coordination, reviews and retrospectives
  • DevSecOps pipelines integrate code scanning, testing, approvals and deployment controls
  • Change management plans address adoption, training, communications and resistance

Participants can prepare financial cases for digital finance investment decisions.

  • Financial models forecast adoption, revenue, operating costs, capital and cash flows
  • Net present value, internal rate of return and payback compare options
  • Scenario analysis tests base, upside, downside and stress-case assumptions
  • Unit economics calculate acquisition cost, lifetime value, margins and retention
  • Benefits realisation plans assign owners, metrics, baselines and review dates
  • Investment committees receive decisions, risks, dependencies and funding recommendations

Participants can establish outcome, operational and control measures for digital services.

  • OKRs connect strategic outcomes with measurable product and operational results
  • North-star metrics balance customer value, growth, risk and economics
  • Funnel analysis locates conversion loss from acquisition through activation
  • Cohort analysis distinguishes retention patterns from aggregate customer averages
  • Control dashboards monitor exceptions, losses, service levels and remediation
  • Experiment design uses hypotheses, control groups, significance and guardrail metrics

Participants can design governance and accountability for a digital finance operating model.

  • Target operating models align processes, people, technology, data and governance
  • RACI matrices assign decision rights for products, controls and incidents
  • Three-lines model clarifies ownership, oversight and independent assurance responsibilities
  • Service management defines incident, problem, change and request workflows
  • Outsourcing governance monitors performance, resilience, audit rights and subcontractors
  • Skills matrices identify capability gaps, hiring needs and learning priorities

Participants can govern pilots and scale successful digital finance initiatives.

  • Portfolio governance classifies initiatives by maturity, risk, funding and strategic fit
  • Stage-gate criteria test desirability, viability, feasibility, compliance and readiness
  • Discovery evidence informs continuation, pivot, pause and termination decisions
  • Pilot controls define scope, customer eligibility, monitoring and exit triggers
  • Scaling plans address capacity, support, controls, migration and communications
  • Innovation accounting tracks learning milestones alongside financial and operating metrics

Participants can prepare implementation plans that address delivery dependencies and stakeholder adoption.

  • Implementation roadmaps sequence workstreams, dependencies, milestones, decisions and release dates
  • RAID logs track risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies and assigned owners
  • Stakeholder maps identify sponsors, users, control functions and external partners
  • Communication plans tailor messages, channels, cadence and escalation routes
  • Training needs analyses specify roles, tasks, proficiency and reinforcement
  • Post-implementation reviews compare realised outcomes with approved business-case assumptions

Participants can build, review and present a complete digital finance innovation business case with service design, controls, economics and implementation roadmap.

  • Capstone brief defines a digital finance problem, constraints and success measures
  • Customer evidence, process data and market forces substantiate opportunity selection
  • Target proposition specifies journey, operating model, technology and partner choices
  • Risk, compliance, cybersecurity and model controls shape the proposed design
  • Financial case quantifies investment, benefits, scenarios, metrics and governance
  • Executive presentation defends roadmap, decisions, trade-offs and implementation controls

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Digital finance opportunity assessment template
  2. Customer journey and service blueprint
  3. Fintech use-case prioritisation matrix
  4. Digital service risk and control checklist
  5. Technology investment business-case model
  6. Digital finance implementation roadmap

Who should attend

  • Finance Managers — assess technology investments and redesign finance processes
  • Finance Business Partners — translate operational needs into viable digital propositions
  • Treasury Professionals — evaluate payment, liquidity and banking technology developments
  • Risk and Compliance Managers — assess control implications of new digital services
  • Finance Transformation Leaders — plan technology-enabled operating model change
  • Product and Operations Managers — improve financial journeys, controls and service performance

Skills and tools covered

Fintech opportunity assessmentDigital service designFinancial innovation governanceAPI and data strategyTechnology investment casesDigital risk controls

Tools and standards

Business Model Canvas, RICE scoring, NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, ISO 20022

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish concepts, followed by financial-services cases, group analysis, simulations and individual application planning. Participants work with realistic payment, lending, finance-process and customer-data scenarios. They assess propositions, prioritise use cases, review control requirements, calculate investment returns and prepare decision materials. Trainers adapt cases and discussion prompts to the cohort's sector, regulatory context and role mix. Work completed during the first week becomes evidence and content for the final business-case capstone.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have working experience in finance, accounting, treasury, banking, insurance, risk, operations or business transformation. They should understand basic financial statements, business cases, internal controls and the main processes of their own function, such as payments, reconciliations, credit, reporting or customer onboarding. Familiarity with digital systems and common financial-service terminology is useful. Programming, data science, software engineering, advanced statistics and prior fintech experience are not required. The course explains technical concepts from a finance decision-maker's perspective.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need practical familiarity with finance, accounting, treasury, risk, operations or financial services. No programming, data science or software development experience is required.

Participants should bring a current finance process, service issue or technology opportunity from their workplace. A laptop is useful for working with templates and preparing the final business case.

The course is designed for professionals who contribute to digital finance decisions, transformation programmes or control reviews. It is particularly relevant to finance managers, treasury teams, transformation leads, product managers and risk specialists.

This course focuses on finance decision-making, financial-service operating models and control requirements. It connects technology choices to payments, lending, data governance, investment appraisal, compliance and financial performance.

Participants leave with reusable templates and a structured digital finance business case. These materials can support vendor assessments, investment requests, pilot governance, process redesign and stakeholder discussions.

Training days run from 08:30 to 16:30 and provide approximately 6.5 contact hours each. The first week builds core service, technology and risk methods; the second week develops investment, governance, delivery planning and the capstone proposal.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.