In January ’26, Model Office were lucky enough to be selected to participate in the FCA inaugural AI Lab Supercharged Academy. Thirty two AI firms coming together with the excellent support of Centre for Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) for a ten week immersive programme which has contributed to some the most important stages in the evolution of our RegTech business.
FCA review: consolidation in financial advice and wealth management – what firms need to do next
At the Consumer Duty Alliance Conference Manchester, Nick Hulme, FCA’s Head of Department for Advisers, Wealth & Pensions Supervision, highlighted that the regulator sees their 2025 advice market survey as serving a dual purpose: supporting the regulator’s supervision and policy work, while also enabling firms themselves to benchmark their business models, advice processes and outcomes against peers of a similar size and profile.
The FCA’s consultation on simplifying advice rules is a structural reset for the UK advice market. It is not a dilution of standards. It is a move toward clearer, more proportionate regulation, with Consumer Duty as the anchor.
The recent NVIDIA keynote set out a clear direction for AI. The key message is simple: the industry is moving from building models to running them continuously in real-world use.
The latest FCA review of firm’s consumer duty implementation process has highlighted key concerns across a well-used regulatory tool that of proof of value (POV). Given that evidencing fair value across the Duty’s second outcome is highly subjective this was always going to be a big challenge for adviser firms.
The FCA's 2023/2024 business plan outlines three key priorities: protecting consumers, ensuring market integrity, and promoting competition. Let's take a closer look at each of these priorities.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come a long way in the past few decades. Today, AI is capable of performing a wide range of tasks, from recognizing objects in images and translating languages to playing games and driving cars. However, one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of AI is generative AI, which aims to create new content, rather than simply analysing or recognising existing content.
This is a topic that often comes up across social media and conferences that focus on FinTech developments within retail financial services industry. There is no doubt with the fast growing digital ‘fourth revolution’, we are witnessing rapid build and deployment of tech throughout industry products and services.
Let’s start with the top three challenges firm’s face when it comes to GRC management.