Agenda
Full agenda to be announced...
08.30 - 09.25: Registration and refreshments
09.25 - 09.30: Chairman’s welcome
Jonathan Easton, Editor, FStech
09.30 – 10.00: Keynote: Regulatory Support for AI Innovators
Ed Towers, Head of Advanced Analytics & Data Science Units, Financial Conduct Authority
Ed Towers, Head of Advanced Analytics and Data Science at the FCA, will spotlight how the UK is set to lead global AI innovation in financial services. The session will showcase the FCA’s pioneering approach, combining principles based regulation with hands-on support through initiatives like the Supercharged Sandbox and AI Live Testing. Attendees will hear how these programmes will help firms move from AI concepts to safe, real-world deployment, tackling challenges like fairness, bias, and explainability. Ed will talk about the need for industry-wide collaboration to build trust and accelerate responsible AI adoption, positioning the UK at the forefront of AI-powered financial services.
10.00 - 10.30: Session to be announced
10.30 - 11.00: Panel: Culture governance that works: Preventing nonfinancial misconduct in financial services sponsored by Smarsh
Panellists:
Corey Crossan, Research and Teaching Fellow, The Oxford Character Project
Fergus Hamilton Collard, Policy Manager, Building Societies Association
Shaun Hurst, Principal Regulatory Advisor, Smarsh
Tin Lau, Chief Risk & Compliance Officer, Mirae Asset Securities
Leading banks are now treating culture as a control they can measure and manage. This panel looks at how to prevent toxic behaviour without heavy handed monitoring. We will cover clear behavioural standards, leadership accountability, psychological safety, and hiring and certification practices that fit regulated roles.
Expert speakers will show how simple language rules, sensible risk scoring, and human review can spot early signs of harassment or discrimination in higher risk channels, while privacy by design protects staff and whistleblowers. Insights from monitoring will be linked to conduct reporting, complaints handling, and regulator expectations on fitness and propriety, with evidence that supports fair investigations and remediation.
Attendees will leave with practical ways to scale culture governance: joined up communications oversight that works with HR and legal systems, supplier and third-party checks, and board level dashboards that stand up to scrutiny without discouraging speak up.
11.00 - 11.30: Coffee break
11.30 - 12.00: The integrated platform: From reactive compliance to predictive resilience
Ian Philips, VP, GM for Intelligent Full-Stack Observability, HCLSoftware
Financial services face ongoing regulatory change and operational risk, but many institutions still respond reactively on compliance. This session sets out an integrated approach that combines regulatory intelligence, business flow observability, and explainable AI reasoning to achieve predictive compliance and resilience across the organisation. Using new MiFID III requirements as a scenario, the session will explain how obligations map to business processes, which transaction flows are affected, and where gaps exist, before outlining how teams can form prioritised action plans with regulatory‑ready documentation.
Attendees will learn how to operationalise this model within existing governance and controls, what to measure to improve time to remediation and audit readiness, and how to structure decisions using cost and risk trade‑offs to move from reactive responses to continuous, predictive monitoring and documentation.
12.30 - 13.00: Basel 3.1: Preparing UK banks for the next phase of regulatory change, sponsored by ARKK
Panellists:
Roi Lustik-Cohen, Chief Technology Officer, ARKK
Chris Rouault, Product Manager, ARKK
This panel will explore what the introduction of Basel 3.1 means in practice for UK banks and how firms are preparing for implementation ahead of the finalised taxonomy. The discussion will focus on the likely direction of travel, examining the operational, technical and governance implications of the new framework.
Panellists will share perspectives on how organisations are approaching readiness in the absence of final rules, including preparations for enhanced reporting and data requirements, operating model decisions, resourcing considerations, and the role of RegTech in supporting compliance. The session will also address common challenges, areas of greatest anticipated impact, and what good governance, controls and auditability should look like across modern regulatory reporting.
13.00 - 14.00: Lunch Break
14:00 - 14:30: Philip Treleaven, Professor of Computing & Director, UCL & UK Centre for Financial Computing
14.30 – 15.00: Panel: One year of DORA – Key lessons in digital operational resilience
Panellists:
Fox Ahmed, Global Head of Cybersecurity and Technology and Data Protection Regulatory Risk, BNP Paribas
Adam Avards, Principal, Cyber Security & Third-Party Risk Policy, UK Finance
One year after the implementation of DORA, operational resilience remains at the top of the agenda for UK financial institutions. This session will explore how firms are strengthening their frameworks to withstand disruption, manage third-party and supply chain risks, and respond effectively to incidents. Panellists will share lessons learned from the first year of DORA compliance, discuss best practices for integrating resilience into day-to-day operations, and examine the evolving regulatory expectations for incident reporting and third-party oversight. The conversation will also address the most common pitfalls in resilience planning and how to measure and demonstrate resilience to regulators. Attendees will gain practical insights into building robust, adaptable frameworks that protect their organisations and maintain trust in an increasingly interconnected financial ecosystem.
15.00 - 15.30 : Session to be announced
15.30 – 16.00: Keynote session to be announced
16:00 – 16.15 : Chairman's closing remarks, quiz and end of conference
16.15 - 17.15: Networking drinks reception
