Minister, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening!

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this majestic setting of Guildhall for the UK Finance Annual Dinner. I would particularly like to thank EY, once again our generous sponsor for this evening.

A warm welcome to Lucy Rigby, City Minister our keynote speaker tonight. Seeing and getting to know Lucy in a series of meetings at the Labour Party Conference, I quickly concluded Lucy was completely across her brief and will be a great partner for the sector in government. 

Tonight offers us a moment to reflect on the central role the financial services sector plays in supporting the UK economy. The government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy foreword says:

Financial services is at the heart of this government’s mission for economic growth. Britain is a world-leading financial centre, but to remain competitive in a changing world, we must innovate and adapt.

I couldn’t agree more and you could be forgiven for thinking UK Finance had a hand in drafting it….the statement rightly positions our sector as central to the UK’s economic success. With a reminder that our leading role in global finance is not guaranteed, particularly post Brexit, and must continually be earned.

Here at UK Finance, we work in partnership with government. When asked what we do and when people say, “ah you’re a lobbying organisation”…I say no, we don’t lobby, that’s old hat, we engage in what I call positive advocacy. If there is no benefit to consumers, industry, the vulnerable, the financially excluded or digitally illiterate from what we are advocating, our arguments would rightly fall on deaf ears. 

2025 has been a year when our positive advocacy has delivered big time:

• Our Plan for Growth laid out a comprehensive blueprint for financial regulatory reform in response to the Chancellor’s request for ideas, offering over 60 actionable recommendations to enhance the UK’s financial services landscape, all framed within the governments twin objectives of improving growth and improving financial inclusion.
• Many of these proposals were subsequently reflected in the government’s Growth and Competitiveness Strategy and the Leeds Reforms - including reforms to the Financial Ombudsman Service, a review of capital requirements and steps to modernise our payments infrastructure. We track progress on implementation of those ideas which have been adopted and will continue to positively advocate for the remainder.
• Looking to the future and innovation, payments is where it’s all happening. We recently launched a pioneering industry pilot to deliver the UK’s first live transactions involving tokenised sterling deposits - world-leading work that builds on the similarly groundbreaking Regulated Liability Network, the work on which we continue to lead.

But Lucy, as I said in Liverpool, I urge you to double down on making the UK the leader in digital tokenisation of real-world assets. I want to hear the Chancellor echo this objective in terms, see the DMO issue a series of digital gilts, and we will then work with the regulators rapidly to learn the lessons of the digital sandbox and create the world’s best regulation for this new technology… which could literally transform London’s position in global capital and asset management markets. Lower transaction costs (the EU estimated 2% of GDP), faster and safer transactions and consumer access to new asset classes for savings and investment, this is what I call positive advocacy.   

All these ideas and results come not from me, but from the work of many.

1. Firstly, I want to say thank you to all our members for the fantastic support you provide. A trade body is as good as the effort you put into us. I know just how much goes into the work of our member committees who shape the positive advocacy work we do. Each year we ask members for their views of our performance, and I was delighted by the overwhelmingly positive results of our latest member survey. You are once again very satisfied with the work we do, 98% of you being positive about the effectiveness of our organisation. You also said you feel assured of our expertise in the sector. So thank you again.
2. Secondly, I want to thank all the stakeholders we engage with, many of whom are here tonight. Earlier this year we undertook our second independent stakeholder survey and it was fantastic to hear how you view us from the outside.
3. 92% of respondents said that UK Finance is influential in shaping financial services policy and promoting the financial services sector. 13 percentage points higher than the runner-up. We continue to be seen as the most influential trade association among those surveyed.
4. Thirdly, I want to pay tribute to the whole UK Finance team. Led by our Chief Executive David Postings and the wider executive committee…. they are a fantastic team who work tirelessly to support members and positively advocate on your behalf. And you should all be very proud of these strong member and stakeholder survey scores.

The board recently asked me to continue as Chairman for a fourth term of 3 years and when accepting that invitation, I said that despite our success, I would never let UK Finance become complacent. Each new year has and will bring new and different challenges, and I will make sure we maintain our outstanding performance.

There is of course still much to do to realise the full potential of the government’s reform agenda and our economic growth plan:

• Sustained commitment to delivery of reforms to liberate the economic potential of financial services in the UK.
• The international competitiveness or otherwise of our capital requirements is our next big target area – we have recently surveyed levels in the UK vs our major competitors and are now deep in discussion with HMT and the PRA as they update their own analysis of levels here vs competitor centres.  Our aim…making sensible reductions and amendments to capital rules where it would unleash capital for growth without harming safety and soundness. Positive advocacy.
• To reassert the UK’s position of years ago as a global leader in payments technology, we will work closely with the Bank and HMT on digital payments, accelerating delivery of the National Payments Vision. Delivered by the industry with a sound commercial plan. 

We do a lot internationally. A couple of weeks ago I was in Korea attending the International Banking Federation board meeting. The topic of fraud and how to hold the big techs to account is now firmly on the G7 agenda led by Canada and Australia and Lucy, I make no apology for continuing to push the Government here to give the big techs statutory and financial incentives to join our sector in combating fraud.

On Sunday, I returned from COP30 in Brazil. There, I had productive meetings with the Chairman of the Climate Change Committee, our Green Finance Minister as well as the CSOs of probably 20 world leading banks who were UK Finance members. I was struck by the chasm between the prevailing declinist narrative around Green Finance and the reality, which is that our members’ customers continue to demand more and more mitigation and adaptation finance and UK finance members remain superbly positioned and keen to provide it. Our Green Finance Minister Katie White wants to champion our work and we will arm her with the necessary ammunition. Do read our recent report which highlights recent case studies of members green finance projects. You may be surprised and will be impressed.

In a couple of weeks, David and I will attend the European Banking Federation board meeting in Brussels. There we will get useful updates on and give input to European bank priorities for much needed positive advocacy with the EU Commission.

Before I conclude, I wanted to say a word on the government’s plans for a digital identity, which I believe, if done properly, can help to address some of the challenges the country faces. It will now be down to collaboration between our industry and government to realise the potential this development offers. Estonia reduced government spending by 2% of its GDP by introducing e-government. India facilitated the opening of 500 million new bank accounts by introducing ADAR and UPI. Brazil facilitated 70 million citizens operating digitally for the first time by introducing its PIX system. So, our industry, positively advocating for the right form of e-government and working to help deliver it, has the potential to make a substantial impact on economic growth and financial inclusion in the UK. 

Lucy, I hope and am sure we can build on the success we have seen in 2025. As an industry we stand ready to support you and ensure we help drive economic growth and financial inclusion up and down the country. I very much look forward to what you have to say and to working with you. 

Thank you all once again for being here tonight and for all you do.