The Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS) 2025 held in the historic Guildhall in London, kicked off with opening remarks from Tim Levene, Alderman, City of London Corporation and CEO, Augentum Fintech and Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance.
Levene and Hirt both highlighted the UK’s leadership in fintech, and how amid global political and economic uncertainty, it has an opportunity to step up as an the global fintech hub. Hirt specified that $38 million has been channeled into the UK fintech
ecosystem, making it the second largest fintech investment market behind the US, and fintech contributes £8.3 billion to the UK economy.
Chris Woolard to lead the RegTech Strategy Group
Both Hirt and Levene spotlighted Innovate Finance’s launch of the RegTech Strategy Group with the City of London Corporation and EY, with EY's financial services partner and former FCA board member Chris Woolard to act as chair.
Levene stated that the Group is “poised for exponential growth, which will be led by the UK.” This is following the launch of the RegTech UK and Industry Association, specifically catering to the sector. Hirt noted that the regtech market is estimated to
be worth $85 billion globally by 2032, and so is a key focus area for the UK.
Speaking to Finextra, Woolard explained that the Regtech Strategy Group aims to enable cross-sector collaboration across industry, government, and regulators to address challenges and maximise opportunities in regtech.
“You can see from where some of the geostrategic and economic stresses are going on that we're going to be in a more fragmented world from a from a regulatory perspective. For the largest companies in the world trying to operate in this space, that is going
to force them down a route that moves away from globalisation and more towards being regionalised, or even at national level when they think about regulation compliance, and that's huge within the fintech sector.”
The Group will focus on establishing regulatory coordination across industries and address how technology can be harnessed to make compliance easier, and the financial market more secure. Key focal points for the initiative are:
- Financial crime and fraud,
- Digital ID,
- Cross-border transactions, and
- Streamlining regulatory reporting and requirements.
Woolard stated that they are looking at how other countries are using digital ID, and how it is enabling citizens to have access to their data and address communal concerns about fraud. He noted that AI is going to play a role in bringing down the complexity
of the space, but the precise form it will take is still to be determined.
He commented: “At a moment when there's quite a lot of opportunity out there for regtech to actually make people's lives a lot easier and to businesses much more efficient, if we can have a strategy that brings those things together; if we can have a degree
of agreement between government and regulators and the industry of what are the really important things here that we need to get right, then that will give us a really good foundation for future success.”
FCA announces AI live testing
In a keynote presentation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Jessica Rusu, chief data, information, and intelligence officer, announced that the FCA will be launching AI live testing in their AI Lab to instill confidence in businesses looking to
utilise AI to drive growth, whilst gaining insights on what is needed for AI guidelines moving forward.
She stated: “I'm delighted to announce today the launch of AI live testing as part of the AI Lab FCA. AI live testing enables generative AI model testing in partnership between firms and supervisors to develop a shared understanding and explore evaluation
methods that will facilitate responsible deployment of AI in UK financial markets, including consumer facing applications. Through this testing, firms will be able to build confidence in the performance of the AI they are developing while receiving regulatory
support and comfort.”
Rusu further highlighted the FCA’s recent launch of their
five year strategy. The plan aims to uphold four key values:
- To help consumers,
- Bolster growth,
- Fight crime, and
- Employ smarter regulations.
She also detailed how regulatory sandboxes are gamechangers for fintechs looking to scale, stating: “Independent studies found that over 90% of firms that engaged with our Innovation Services became authorised. While the success rate among fintechs can be
mixed, 80% of our regulatory sandbox firms are still in operation. FCA sandbox firms are 50% more likely to raise funding than their peers, and 15% more in investment. Our sandboxes make a real difference helping innovators move forward with confidence, equally,
our agile approach to regulation helps drive growth too.”
The UK’s potential to lead fintech
Levene pointed out how leading fintechs such as Monzo, Zopa, Revolut, and Tide have seen success despite financial headwinds, demonstrating the strength of the sector.
“The innovation continues across the board, from banking and lending to payments infrastructure and regtech, underpinned by technological developments such as generative AI, demonstrating the depth and dynamism of our ecosystem.”
Hirt called for the industry to be bold and confident for future action to propel the industry forward and ahead of global competition: “Fintech contributes 8.3 billion pounds in GVA to the UK economy, with 60% higher than the national average on productivity.
GVA per employee in fintech is 1.5 times the national average, and with an annual growth rate of 14.2%, our ecosystem is expected to grow from 82,000 people employed to over 109,000 employed in just the next two years, and we are just getting started. If we
get this right, if the government, if industry and regulators stay aligned, UK fintech could add £328 billion pounds to the UK economy. £328 billion. That is not a dream, that is a tangible, a real opportunity.”
Hirt emphasised that the future of growth will come from a combination of technologies, AI, smart data, and fraud, facilitated by enabling systems: digital ID and fraud data sharing.
“Those five components, when taken together, can serve as the basis for a world beating UK tech stack; the fabric of financial services that slingshot UK financial institutions to the forefront of the global economy, and will also help drive up productivity
growth and inclusion in the UK.”
Hirt noted how the Digital Pound Foundation joined the Innovate Finance in February, that it has been one year since the
Unicorn Council for UK Fintech was launched, and ten months since Innovate Finance released their
FinTech Plan for the Government, which outlined priority actions for the government to boost the UK economy.
Hirt and Levene emphasised innovation, resilience, and collaboration as key themes of today’s event and outlook for the future of fintech.