The UK FinTech week kicked off on Monday April 19 and the packed agenda covered a broad range of topics from fundraising and investment, to digital transformation, innovation and crypto.

In the regulatory space, a number of discussions had taken place including session of particular interest for AMEIS and focusing on:

• Balancing trust and innovation. Some highlights include the three pillars of consumer trust mentioned by Alex Roy of the FCA - good governance, good product design and treating customers well. Mark Adams from ASIC further added the importance of simplicity, understanding where risks lies, having plans for where things can go wrong and focusing on compliance by design. The discussions delved further into the various perspectives of different regulatory frameworks.

• The future of open banking. The panelists shared their excitement about the transformative opportunities that open banking can provide and shared perspectives on the evolving trends, including the importance of customer trust.

• Discussions on CBDCs and cryptocurrencies, in general, outlining product developments as well as views on regulatory certainty and meaningful compliance. Digital NFT assets and DeFi were also on the agenda.

• Discussions on operational and cyber resilience, a critical topic we continue to follow with an emphasis on the understanding of the underlying infrastructure.

Copies of the discussions remain available online for viewing. We would be happy to discuss your thoughts.