AI-ntidote or AI-rmageddon: can AI cure financial services’ trust issues?

Written by Andy Lane, Managing Partner.

The Treasury Select Committee (TSC) is busy amassing evidence on the potential impacts of the increased use of AI in banking, pensions and other socially critical subsectors.

The initial TSC call for evidence is up and running. Before it closes, Instinctif Partners and Life Moments* will publish our opening impressions of a sector manifesto – In AI We Trust? – for nurturing and protecting trust in retail financial services through responsible use of AI.

We’ll be exploring:

• Can AI truly enhance the customer experience without eroding the human touch people often need, want and trust?
• Can AI add value without perpetuating or exacerbating existing biases and discriminatory practices?
• Are personalised products and services worth the trade-off in terms of consumer privacy and data security?
• How can financial institutions balance their commercial interests with the genuine needs and protections of consumers?
• Is the potential for bigger, faster economic growth worth the risk of increasing the digital divide and excluding certain consumer groups?

Add your name to the list to receive your personalised copy of the In AI We Trust? manifesto for retail financial services by emailing tellmemore@instinctif.com

In the meantime, here’s a quick quiz on the financial services trust x tech dilemma as AI takes up residency in our lives and reshapes our thoughts and actions.

This is serious, and it’s happening now.

Q1: Who do you most trust?

• Financial services providers
• Big tech providers

Q2: Do you have any trust at all in financial services and big tech providers?

• Yes, both
• Yes, financial services providers
• Yes, big tech providers
• Are you having a laugh?
• Not sure

Q3: Can two sectors with known trust issues realistically work together to:

• Build long-term relationships with consumers
• Help everyone tend to their financial wellbeing
• Repair the inter- and intragenerational damage wrecked by decades of perma-crisis economics
• All of the above, and more?

The TSC will spend a chunk of its time in 2025 interrogating the great and good of UK financial services on related topics. Instinctif Partners and Life Moments got ahead of policy makers last month to start putting the subject under the spotlight.

By asking In AI We Trust? via a series of events this year, our is to explore the brand benefits and reputational risks involved in introducing AI to the retail financial services customer experience.

One path from here leads to the elusive promised land of universal consumer trust and lifetime adoration. Another, arguably more frequently trodden path leads to the depths of division, crisis and socio-economic fragmentation.

• Which path will the sector choose?
• How far can it control its own destiny?
• Who’s driving who, as humans grapple to control the wheel of a tech revolution which few people claim to fully understand, and even fewer people actually do?

Big or small; corporate or community based; public, private or not-for-profit: financial services institutions face a crossroads in the sector’s evolution, as the forces of finance and tech collide for better or worse.

Tune in later this month to find out more from our intial thinking and listening about what lies ahead.

* ‎Life Moments is a pioneering fintech which helps firms to deliver personalised, data-driven digital experiences that build authentic, trusted customer relationships. It works with some of the UK’s biggest financial services brands in banking, savings, lending, insurance and pensions, including:

• Santander
• Aviva
• Standard Life
• Virgin Money
• Mortgage Advice Bureau
• Principality Building Society