Fin the Week

Consumer Duty is turning three, and the FCA's message is clear: the grace period is over. In this episode, Paul, Russ, and Pat break down the FCA's new Enforcement Watch 2 report, then dig into our first teardown: a hands-on review of the bank switching journey across three UK current account providers, run through our UX Duty tool. Loud offers, quiet conditions, missing debt advice signposting, a...

Consumer duty turns three this month. Three years in, "we're working on it" stops being an excuse, and the FCA's tone has shifted from patient to pointed. So we're kicking off our Q3 edition, The Trust Reset, with a four-part teardown series where we run real financial services journeys through the wringer and ask a simple question; is this actually fair, or does it just tick a box? In this opener...

To wrap up our Pragmatic AI Edition, we stop theorising and go looking for the receipts: where is the financial services sector actually putting AI to work? Amelia, Paul and Pat play a quick game of Yay-I or Nay-I, scoring five real-world deployments to decide whether each one is genuinely useful or just a bit of clever PR. From Morgan Stanley arming its financial advisers with an internal chatbot...

This week on Fin the Week, Amelia, Paul and Mayna unpack five stories reshaping search and marketing in financial services: a German court ruling that makes Google liable for its own AI overviews, fresh SparkToro data showing fewer than one in three UK searches now ends in a click, Hiscox stepping into ChatGPT's advertising pilot, what 54 studies reveal about ranking in AI search, and the UK's inc...

Mark's just back from UX London, and this week we dig into what financial services marketers can actually use from it. The headline: stop asking for more research time and start packaging what you already have. We get into validation, falling in love with the problem, not the solution, why failure is a feature of good UX, not a bug, and where AI is genuinely earning its place in the process. If yo...

This week, we look at the concept of a two-track internet, something floated in a recent article in Digiday about work taking place at The Economist. We dive into the complexities of creating a web environment that caters to both human and AI users, highlighting the need for a strategic shift in website design and content presentation. Takeaways Two-track internet AI experience Tone of voice is a...

Google has published a guide on optimising your website for the AI features in Google Search. On the face of it, that's good news; guidance straight from the horse's mouth. In practice, the guide is weak: written in a vacuum, dodging the traffic problem, treating agentic AI as a footnote, and ultimately telling you "don't worry about it, it's just SEO." We aren't convinced. Amelia, Paul, Pat and R...

28 million UK adults are now using AI for personal finance. One in three of them every week. We dig into Lloyds Banking Group's 2025 Consumer Digital Index and what it means for the FS brands trying to stay visible in a world where ChatGPT is doing the top-of-funnel research. Pat shares what happened when he turned Claude Code loose on a year of bank statements. Russell looks at the UX of trust. P...

This week we explore the concept of friction in user experience, highlighting its impact on decision-making, user error, and the role of AI-driven systems. We delve into the balance between speed and convenience, safety, and comprehension, and discuss the potential adoption of AI agents in daily life. We look at the concept of friction in user experience, highlighting the role of design in mitigat...

In this week's episode, we discuss the impact of bad data on AI, highlighting the definition of bad data, examples of bad data in AI, and the risks and challenges associated with bad data. The conversation delves into the challenges and implications of AI in decision-making, the impact of bias in AI applications, the technical hurdles in AI implementation, the importance of data structure in AI tr...

All of the key takeaways from BrightonSEO Spring 2026. The episode discusses the impact of AI on SEO, the rise of zero-click marketing, challenges in defining success metrics, and the changing user journey. It also explores the impact of bias in AI, the redefinition of search as media, and the changing marketing funnel. Takeaways AI's impact on SEO Challenges in defining success metrics Chapters 0...

The episode discusses Google's controversial patent application and its potential impact on web search and user experience. It explores concerns, controversies, and the role of AI in reshaping web content, as well as the implications for financial services firms and regulatory concerns. The conversation also delves into positive impacts, risks, understanding the patent application, the Model Conte...

The conversation delves into the impact of AI on the design industry, exploring the essence of design, the changing landscape of graphic design, and the role of AI in UI/UX design. It highlights the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in the field of design. The conversation delves into the role of designers in AI production, client concerns about AI, ethical considerations, client percep...

It's episode one, and we're kicking off our series on pragmatic AI. What is pragmatic AI and what does it mean for marketers and technology teams in financial services?