The financial services sector is navigating one of the most significant periods of technological change in its history.

With that in mind, DIGIT‘s second Financial Services Technology Summit brought senior leaders from across banking, insurance, asset management, fintech and enterprise technology to Edinburgh, exploring how the sector is responding to rapid advances in AI, cloud, cybersecurity, infrastructure modernisation, digital assets and regulation.

Across the day, a clear theme emerged: financial services firms are rapidly pivoting away from viewing tech transformation as isolated initiatives. Instead, the focus is shifting towards how innovation, infrastructure, governance, risk and culture come together to support safe, scalable and measurable change.

Below, we’ll take a look and some of the key themes and insights that emerged from a day that saw 15 experts give a room full of FS pros a steer on practical business improvement, customer impact and operational resilience.

From innovation to implementation

The opening session focused on how established financial services organisations can adapt to a new phase of disruption while continuing to operate within complex and highly regulated environments.

Peter Crouch, group innovation director at Lloyds Banking Group, kicked things off with a keynote that explored why innovation needs to change inside large banking organisations. His session framed innovation as a discipline that requires different conditions from traditional delivery, with learning speed, leadership judgement and repeatability emerging as central themes.

Crouch’s focus on organisational conditions continued through the next talk from Prakriti Karthauser, head of infrastructure engineering at Legal & General, who examined what future-ready infrastructure means in practice. Her session positioned infrastructure as a deeply interconnected ecosystem spanning networks, identity, cloud, on-premise resources, pipelines, monitoring, observability and business services.

Rather than treating infrastructure purely as a technical challenge, Prakriti widened the discourse into culture, product thinking, user experience, security posture, cost control and business alignment. In doing so, she effectively reflected a broader shift in how financial services firms are thinking about the foundations needed to support future transformation.

Simon Hull, director of Financial Services at CreateFuture, then extended the conversation into legacy modernisation and AI-first engineering. His session considered how firms can move beyond slow, large-scale transformation programmes by using AI to support discovery, delivery, testing and production change.

The combined message from the opening session was that innovation, infrastructure and modernisation are now closely connected. Financial services organisations need to create the right conditions for experimentation, but they also need resilient, flexible and AI-ready foundations if new ideas are to move beyond pilots and into meaningful business impact.

AI moves beyond experimentation

Somewhat unsurprisingly, AI was the dominant thread running through the summit, but the discussion moved well beyond the hype around tools and pilots.

The breakfast briefing, led by Kulmohan Makhija, vice president at Azilen, focused on the use of agentic AI in BFSI customer support, examining how the technology can move from handling queries to supporting decisions. The session set up a recurring theme for the day: AI success depends less on standalone tools and more on how they are embedded into processes, ownership models, controls and enterprise systems.

That point carried into the breakout sessions, where Mary Drabble, head of data & AI governance at Royal London, explored the governance requirements needed to support responsible and ethical AI adoption at scale. Her session placed AI strategy, risk management, internal guidance, enablement and operating models at the centre of the conversation.

Stephen O’Keane, advisory director and head of banking sector at Telefónica Tech UK&I, and Areti Iles, head of professional services, AI business solutions at Telefónica Tech, took a similarly human-centred view of AI adoption. Their session explored the move towards human-led, AI-powered financial services organisations, covering leadership, governance, workflow redesign, skills, culture and AI literacy.

Rather than presenting AI as a replacement for people, the session positioned human oversight, accountability and judgement as essential parts of the next phase of adoption. It also reflected a growing recognition that AI transformation is as much about operating models and culture as it is about technical capability.

Sean Docherty, director of sales & marketing and AI transformation lead at Franklin Templeton, brought the discussion into the practical application of AI across global asset management teams. His session focused on implementation, adoption and the lessons firms are learning as AI tools move into real organisational settings.

Taken together, these sessions showed that AI in financial services is entering a more mature phase. The sector is moving from asking whether AI can deliver value to asking how that value can be governed, measured, scaled and trusted.

Governance, risk and control take centre stage

As AI becomes more embedded in financial services, governance and assurance are becoming increasingly important.

Rebecca Mackenzie, head of technology risk and control at Monzo Bank, examined how AI-driven systems challenge traditional assumptions around risk and control. Her session focused on the need for stronger oversight of AI-enabled decision-making, clearer accountability, continuous monitoring and earlier integration of risk and control considerations into the product and engineering lifecycle.

This theme was especially important because AI systems often cut across existing organisational boundaries. Engineering, data, product, compliance, risk and audit teams may all have a role to play, making ownership and accountability more complex.

The governance discussion also connected with the wider regulatory backdrop explored throughout the summit. With financial services firms already operating under significant expectations around operational resilience, consumer outcomes, data protection and third-party risk, AI adds another layer of complexity to an already demanding environment.

The summit’s AI discussions therefore had a clear practical edge. The focus was not simply on what AI can do, but on how firms can deploy it in ways that are explainable, auditable, accountable and aligned with regulatory expectations.

Security and resilience in the age of AI agents

Cybersecurity and operational resilience formed another major theme, particularly as AI changes how software is built, deployed and monitored.

Rebecca Ennion, security intelligence manager at NatWest, explored the growing threat landscape around software supply chains. Her session highlighted how open-source dependencies, build pipelines and developer tooling have become increasingly important attack surfaces for financial institutions.

Dr Colin Williams, field CISO and business CTO security at Computacenter, focused on why AI is forcing a rethink of financial services cybersecurity. His session examined the need to make “secure by default” an operational reality, while also addressing the security and governance challenges created by human and agentic AI workforces.

The afternoon main-stage session from Marnie McCormack, managing director and head of engineering practices at JPMorganChase, brought this discussion into the world of system resilience. Her session explored how AI agents are reshaping software delivery and why the infrastructure beneath those systems needs to evolve.

As autonomous agents begin to support planning, coding, testing, deployment and operational workflows, traditional assumptions around capacity, access, observability and control become more difficult to sustain. The discussion pointed towards the need for continuous evaluation, stronger system signals, contextual risk management and resilient engineering practices.

Together, these sessions showed that AI is not only a business opportunity for financial services. It is also changing the risk environment. Security, resilience and control models need to adapt as software systems become more automated, interconnected and agent-enabled.

Cloud, sustainability and digital assets

While AI was the most visible theme, the summit also explored wider technology forces shaping the financial services sector.

Craig Dick, procurement, sustainability & governance lead within the Group COO function at Aberdeen, examined the relationship between technology and sustainability. His session considered the role of cloud optimisation, operational technology and AI impacts in organisational decarbonisation efforts.

Temi Ogunrekun, cloud native architect, EMEA Strategics FSI at Everpure, looked at cloud-native transformation across AI readiness, DORA, geopolitical risk and rising infrastructure costs. His session placed cloud strategy within a wider discussion about operational resilience, sovereignty, cost control and the strategic decisions facing financial institutions.

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James Ball, blockchain consultant and strategic advisor at the Digital Trust Centre of Excellence, widened the agenda further with a session on tokenisation, digital assets and the future of capital markets. His presentation explored how digital assets may reshape parts of the capital markets landscape, while also recognising the continuing importance of transparency, risk management, interoperability, governance and regulation.

These sessions helped broaden the summit beyond AI alone. They showed that the future financial services technology stack will be shaped by multiple forces at once, including cloud, sustainability, operational resilience, cyber security, digital assets and evolving regulation.

A more mature phase of transformation

Looking at it holistically, the Financial Services Technology Summit reflected a sector moving into a more mature phase of digital transformation, proactively shifting in the face of rapid technological change.

The emphasis is no longer simply on the Wild West scramble to adopt new tech. Instead, financial services organisations are being pushed to ask harder questions about how technology is embedded, governed, secured and scaled.

From AI agents and infrastructure modernisation to cyber resilience, cloud strategy and digital assets, the summit highlighted the growing importance of practical implementation. For banks, insurers, asset managers and technology partners, the next stage of transformation will depend not only on technical innovation, but on leadership, culture, governance and trust.