On 14 July 2026, HM Treasury (HMT) published Financial Services AI Adoption Plan.

Key themes and issues

HMT sets out the following key themes and issues it has identified so far in relation to AI adoption in financial services:

  • Regulatory Clarity: HMT sets out that it considers that the UK’s existing regulatory framework is widely seen as a major asset and a strong foundation for AI adoption, with firms strongly supporting the regulators’ tech-neutral, outcomes-focused approach over the introduction of new AI-specific regimes. However, it also highlights that to ensure AI adoption does not stall or become uneven, it believes that the next phase of regulatory policy must focus on scaling the reach of these existing success and that the priority should be to establish a clear, authoritative single source of cross-regulator guidance, enabling firms to navigate requirements confidently and scale adoption consistently across the sector. 
  • Regulatory Perimeter: HMT explains that while it considers that there are multiple viable approaches, there is strong consensus that a review of the regulatory perimeter must now be prioritised to introduce proportionate guardrails for AI-enabled services. HMT also set out that they have intentionally not defined or prescribed what the next phase of this regulatory framework should look like, as it recognises there are multiple viable strategic and architectural approaches that could be considered by the government, informed by regulatory expertise and evidence. 
  • AI Sovereignty and Resilience: HMT considers that the UK should strengthen its AI resilience by diversifying its technology base and ensuring critical external providers are subject to appropriate scrutiny, without adopting a protectionist stance that could hinder innovation.
  • Skills and Talent: HMT suggests that there should be a unified strategy that will prioritise key skill areas, promote sharing of training resources, and keep the UK’s financial workforce globally competitive as AI evolves and that it should also focus on making these opportunities accessible to people from all backgrounds and regions, so the benefits of an AI-skilled economy are felt widely across the country.
  • Agentic Payment Readiness: HMT sets out that focusing on agentic payments provides a highly practical proxy for a wider set of emerging financial services use cases and that the immediate challenge is to clarify how existing legal and regulatory frameworks apply, or need to adapt, specifically for these near-term payment use cases. 

HMT sets out, in light of these findings, its recommendations in relation to AI adoption in this sector, in particular:

  1. Regulators should work together to ensure expectations of firms are clear and that services are accessible and navigable to support innovation.
  2. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) should undertake a comprehensive review of the consumer, competition and wider impacts of financial guidance and advice-like outputs generated by general purpose large language models (LLMs). Based on the findings, the FCA should work with the government to develop a clear policy and regulatory response.
  3. (HMT) and regulators should accelerate implementation of the Critical Third-Party (CTP) regime, including assessment of Key AI/Cloud Providers.
  4. The industry, potentially supported by the Cross Market Operational Resilience Group (CMORG) should establish voluntary AI incident and “near-miss” sharing across the UK financial sector.
  5. ​​​Launch a voluntary, industry-led AI third-party assurance scheme for financial services, with a view to potentially working with regulators and government to standardise it in the future.       
  6. Encourage industry participation in the Financial Services Skills Compact and mobilise industry commitment.
  7. HMT should work in partnership with industry to build on the Financial Services Skills Commission’s research and recommendations to explore the development of a sector-wide financial services AI skills plan 
  8. HMT and the Home Office (in consultation with industry) should implement pragmatic adjustments to the existing visa framework to attract and retain global AI talent in UK financial services, building on the AI Opportunities Action Plan to attract top global AI talent by reduce barriers to recruiting international AI specialists into UK financial services.
  9. Leverage the upcoming HMT consultation to establish a ”trust framework” to support agentic payments protocol.