Tory peer and co-architect of significant financial regulation Baroness Kay Swinburne has urged London’s finance leaders to pick up the pace of system evolution, noting now is “not the time for risk-adverse pilots”.
Speaking at the second Annual Global Digital Forum hosted by DLA Piper and Global Digital Finance on 25 February 2025, Swinburne called on the leaders of the UK’s digital finance community to swiftly embrace regulation and steer the next wave of financial innovation while fostering a competitive, efficient, and inclusive digital economy.
“Digital finance is reshaping competition,” said Swinburne. “It’s enhancing productivity and developing new financial products, and the choices we make today will define the financial landscape for decades to come.”
Swinburne, who worked on the second iteration of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), underscored the inflection point that financial institutions are currently facing and questioned what role London would play in the digital evolution.
“The way that the UK, and other leading jurisdictions who currently benefit from having a global financial centre, respond to these rapid changes will determine their relevance and competitiveness in the future, digitally driven world.”
Discussions around regulation and artificial intelligence have been brough to wide, global attention, due to claims by US Vice President JD Vance that Europe is moving towards “excessive regulation”.
Swinburne proposed this as an opportunity for the UK to position itself as a key player in setting global standards and instead drive the development of digital market infrastructure.
“The UK should respond very swiftly to Vice President JD Vance’s challenge in Paris, and champion the development of international standards, not just for AI, but for financial services more generally,” argued Swinburne.
For instance, Swinburne highlighted initiatives such as digital gilts, and the UK digital assets framework, stressing that implementation needs to be swift if London is to claim a strong competitive position amongst the evolution.
“Now is not the time for risk-adverse pilots,” she said. “We need to create the essential interoperable frameworks for digital finance at pace at a time where fintech is meeting traditional finance.”
