The last of our three episodes recorded live at the 10th anniversary of Fintech Connect in London. Graham Barrett was joined by: Neal Lathia, Co-Founder and CTO, Gradient Labs Chloe Coleman, CEO, VouchSafe Luis Clark, Go to Market Manager, Monday.com Luke Wingfield Digby, Co-Founder, Orbital Jayadeep Nair, Founder, Inqyre.AI The conversations cover the rise of compliant AI agents in financial services, the realities of building digital identity solutions, the transformation of internal workflows, the emergence of stablecoins and digital money, and the operational applications of AI in compliance and risk. A dynamic look at the technologies and regulatory shifts defining fintech’s future. Neil Lathia, CTO and Co Founder, Gradient Labs with Neil Lathia, CTO and Co Founder, Gradient Labs Neil Lathia opens the episode by introducing Gradient Labs, a two and a half year old Series A start up formed by three former Monzo colleagues. The company builds AI agents purposefully designed for financial services, supporting live chat, email, phone calls and internal operational work. Neil reflects on the distinctive demands within financial services, where customer satisfaction must sit alongside rigorous compliance. One of the most surprising discoveries across Gradient Labs deployments has been the impact achievable by small multidisciplinary teams. He explains that lean groups of fewer than ten people have managed to automate up to half of inbound financial services support within only a few months. Discussing adoption, Neil notes that financial institutions often approach AI with caution. Gradient Labs therefore partners closely with clients, focusing not on rapid deployment but on safe and reliable implementation that balances impact with security. Looking back over the last decade of fintech, Neil highlights regulatory shifts that encouraged the rise of challenger banks as the most transformative change. Looking ahead, he predicts a shift in how people work. Rather than doing tasks themselves, staff will increasingly manage and oversee AI agents, enabling better customer experiences and greater operational scale. Neil also shares the story behind the company’s bright yellow Gradient Labs sweatshirts and their signature illustrated characters, which reflect the human centred philosophy behind the company’s AI design. Chloe Coleman, CEO, VouchSafe with Chloe Coleman, CEO, VouchSafe Chloe Coleman joins the podcast to discuss her founder journey and the creation of VouchSafe. The idea emerged in March 2020 during her time leading user research on Universal Credit, when claims surged from 1.1 million to more than five million almost overnight. Many claimants lacked the documentation needed to prove their identity. At the same time, her co founder was working on the NHS contact tracing app and facing similar challenges. After repeatedly consulting on the problem in later years, they decided to build a solution once and for all. Chloe explains that building the product was extremely difficult, largely due to the complexity of innovating in regulated areas. Early engagement with regulators proved essential, allowing VouchSafe to remain compliant while still pushing boundaries. A specialist in digital identity, Chloe shares a detailed overview of progress in the UK and Europe. She believes European nations are close to delivering cross border digital ID adoption, supported by upcoming EU digital wallets. The UK, by contrast, faces deep structural challenges due to disparate legacy systems holding citizen data in different locations. Although a single national ID may be years away, Chloe stresses that digital ID is already present through eVisas, open banking and other schemes. She also addresses concerns around privacy, inclusion and surveillance. Chloe argues that digital ID can enhance data protection by allowing users to share only what is necessary. However, she notes that the UK must ensure inclusive enrolment, with millions lacking passports and not everyone owning a smartphone. Reflecting on fintech’s last decade, Chloe credits the Financial Services Act of 2012 with opening the door to innovation by lowering barriers to becoming a bank. Looking ahead, she anticipates that open finance will be the next major shift, enabling faster, more secure sharing of financial information and fuelling a new wave of innovation. Luis Clark, Go to Market Manager, Monday.com with Luis Clark, Go to Market Manager, Monday.com Luis Clark discusses his innovation session at Fintech Connect, focusing on how fintechs can improve internal processes and project management. Monday.com works with organisations ranging from venture capital firms to global financial institutions. Luis notes that despite advanced specialist systems, many teams still rely heavily on unwieldy shared spreadsheets, causing delays, risk and inefficiency. He explains how Monday.com centralises workflows, integrates with existing tools and enables real time visibility, helping organisations eliminate outdated reporting processes. Turning to AI, Luis emphasises that transformation requires more than adopting tools. Businesses must understand where their biggest workflow obstacles lie and begin with practical applications, such as accelerating data analysis. He positions AI as a partner that handles labour intensive tasks so humans can focus on strategy and creativity. Luis rejects the idea that AI will replace human intelligence entirely. Instead, he sees its value in amplifying creative problem solving while noting that AI tools depend on the information within their models rather than external context. He describes his own use of AI as similar to working with a producer in his former radio career: a way to shape ideas, improve structure and refine output. Looking back, Luis points to the rapid movement away from cash as one of the most noticeable shifts in fintech over the past decade. For the next ten years, he predicts that AI will be fundamental across all sectors. He believes individuals will need to treat AI proficiency as a core skill, enabling them to work more quickly and effectively in a changing digital environment. Luke Wingfield Digby, Co Founder, Orbital with Luke Wingfield Digby, Co Founder, Orbital Luke Wingfield Digby discusses his entrepreneurial background and the founding of Orbital. Having grown up in South Africa and built several digital businesses, he witnessed first hand the limitations of traditional banking and payments in emerging markets. After moving to the UK, he sought to build Stripe and Adyen style payment solutions tailored to those regions. Meeting co founder Chris Mason, with deep expertise in corporate banking and payments, provided the complementary experience needed to launch Orbital. Luke reflects on the challenges of dealing with compliance and regulation, which were new areas for him, and emphasises the importance of hiring top tier talent and maintaining lean teams. The conversation moves to digital money and the future of payments. Luke believes stablecoins will not remain a parallel ecosystem for long and will increasingly merge with existing financial infrastructure. He sees blockchains as simply new payment rails that incumbents are beginning to embrace. On CBDCs, he anticipates a wholesale rather than retail role, with central banks distributing to intermediaries who will then serve end users. Luke notes that many countries, including parts of Scandinavia, are already operating with minimal cash usage. Digital money, he argues, is essentially already the norm. Reflecting on fintech’s last decade, Luke cites the arrival of neobanks as the most significant disruption, with stablecoins representing the next transformative wave. Looking ahead, he expects broader adoption of stablecoins and sees AI as a cross sector force that will reshape workflows, particularly in compliance, research and strategic analysis. He warns, however, that the biggest risk is organisational complacency if businesses rely on AI without proper oversight. DISCLAMER: The views and information shared here are for general informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, legal, or other professional advice. Authors do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the content. Products and services mentioned may not be available in all jurisdictions and are subject to applicable regulations. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and consult with a qualified advisor before making any financial decisions. Jayadeep Nair, Founder, Inqyre.AI with Jayadeep Nair, Founder, Inqyre.AI The final conversation features Jayadeep Nair, who brings more than 25 years of global experience across payments, data and credit. His career includes senior roles at Equifax and Amazon, along with extensive work across the US, UK, Middle East and Asia Pacific. He describes Inqyre.AI as the natural progression of his experience, designed to address two major pain points for payments companies: merchant onboarding and compliance. Jayadeep explains that existing onboarding tools address only parts of the process. Inqyre aims to provide a holistic approach, assessing everything from website activity to trading legitimacy and consumer feedback. On the compliance side, the company helps payment providers interpret the frequent and complex rule updates issued by card schemes. The discussion moves to enterprise adoption of AI, informed by Jayadeep’s recent research across more than 25 c suite executives. He identifies two dominant patterns: AI fatigue at board level, and widespread uncertainty about where to invest. Many want to commit heavily to AI but lack clarity on practical use cases. He references MIT findings suggesting that 95 per cent of enterprise AI initiatives fail due to misalignment with genuine operational needs. The minority of successful projects tend to address fundamental, unglamorous workflow challenges rather than ambitious transformations. Jayadeep views experimentation as necessary, despite high failure rates, and situates the current moment at the peak of the AI hype cycle. He expects ongoing consolidation and maturation across the sector. Reflecting on the last decade, Jayadeep identifies the rise of individual entrepreneurship supported by modern technology and progressive regulation as the most transformative shift. Open data and mobile technology have enabled individuals to build businesses with unprecedented speed. Looking ten years ahead, he expects further evolution in organic technologies, along with significant progress in digital money driven by CBDCs and regulatory change. Although this shift will not be immediate, he believes it will prove transformative. PRCA members receive 10 CPD points for listening to this podcast if they log it on the CPD programme. View episode
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