The UK government’s independent AI Champions for financial services, Harriet Rees and Dr Rohit Dhawan, have set out a new adoption plan designed to speed up the safe rollout of AI across the country’s financial services industry.
Rees, group chief information officer at Starling Bank, and Dhawan, head of AI and advanced analytics at Lloyds Banking Group, were appointed as the sector’s AI Champions. Their plan outlines the next steps that government, regulators and industry should take to unlock innovation while keeping adoption safe.
To shape their conclusions, the pair carried out extensive engagement across the sector and collaborated with government bodies and regulators to pinpoint the obstacles currently holding back AI uptake. From this work, they produced ten recommendations aimed at industry, government and the financial services regulators.
The recommendations cover a broad range of themes, including the regulatory framework, AI-powered financial advice and the regulatory perimeter, operational resilience, skills and talent, and agentic payments.
The government has welcomed the Adoption Plan and confirmed it accepts the recommendations directed at it, pledging to work alongside regulators and industry on implementation.
Ministers will also weigh the Champions’ findings against other developments in the space, most notably the Mills Review. That report, authored by Sheldon Mills, the FCA’s executive director for consumers and competition, explores how AI could transform retail financial services by 2030 and beyond, offering priority recommendations for how the FCA could respond.
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