The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s financial services regulator, has released a landmark study examining how artificial intelligence could transform retail financial services for consumers, firms, markets and regulators by 2030 and further into the future.
Commissioned by the FCA Board and led by executive director Sheldon Mills, the study, known as The Mills Review, marks the first initiative of its kind launched by any regulator worldwide. Gathering perspectives from across the financial services industry, it pinpoints four significant AI-driven changes expected to affect the retail market: how firms run their operations, how consumer journeys develop, how competition and market power are redistributed, and how fraud and cyber threats grow in scale.
The findings suggest appetite for autonomous AI in personal finance already exists. FCA-commissioned research indicates that around one in five people, roughly 11 million adults in the UK, would be inclined to adopt AI capable of acting independently within goals they define. Respondents nevertheless voiced worries around trust and maintaining control over such systems.
The review’s central conclusion is that AI is set to become a defining influence on retail financial services, altering firm operations, consumer decision-making and the functioning of markets. It notes that while the technology could widen access, sharpen personalisation and boost efficiency, it may equally heighten dangers linked to fraud, cyber security, harm to consumers and the concentration of market power.
Seven recommendations are put forward for the FCA Board and Executive to weigh up. These include securing and adapting the regulatory perimeter, reinforcing system-wide coordination and oversight, tracking the move towards autonomous models while adjusting regulatory frameworks, expanding the FCA’s AI Lab to back AI model and system innovation, laying the groundwork for agentic finance, creating an AI-enabled agentic supervisory model, and building a trusted public-interest AI-powered financial capability service.
FCA executive director Sheldon Mills said, ‘Artificial intelligence will transform financial services by 2030. It creates significant opportunities for consumers, firms and the wider economy. This report sets out a roadmap for how industry regulators and government can prepare for the next phase of AI-driven change in our world-leading financial services sector.’
FCA chair Ashley Alder said, ‘The Board is enormously grateful to Sheldon for the rich, comprehensive report he’s delivered. His work anticipates the fundamental change agentic AI will bring to financial services. It highlights how consumers and firms can reap significant potential benefits as well how risks can be managed.
‘As is clear in the report, we need to keep pace with a rapidly changing environment and the principles-based, outcomes focussed approach we’ve taken on AI – relying on the Consumer Duty and Senior Managers Regime – has been critical to us doing so. The recommendations build on work the FCA has been doing – not least allowing firms to test their use of AI with us – and our own use of AI to be a smarter regulator, more efficient and effective.’
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