The UK government’s independent AI Champions for financial services, Harriet Rees of Starling Bank and Dr Rohit Dhawan of Lloyds Banking Group, have drawn up a new adoption plan aimed at speeding up the safe rollout of AI across the country’s financial services industry.
The plan sets out next steps for government, regulators and industry alike, with ten recommendations covering the regulatory framework, AI-powered financial advice and the regulatory perimeter, operational resilience, skills and talent, and agentic payments.
To shape their conclusions, the Champions carried out extensive engagement across the sector, collaborating with government bodies and regulators to pinpoint the obstacles currently holding back adoption. From this work, they produced a set of recommendations directed at industry, government and the financial services regulators.
Rees serves as group chief information officer at Starling Bank, while Dhawan is head of AI and advanced analytics at Lloyds Banking Group. Both were appointed as the government’s independent AI Champions for the financial services sector.
The government has welcomed the Adoption Plan and accepted the recommendations aimed at it, committing to work alongside regulators and industry on implementation.
It will also weigh the Champions’ findings against other developments in the space, 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, and offers priority recommendations for how the FCA might respond.
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