FinTech LIVE Dubai: AI in FinTech Panel

AI is redefining how the financial services industry thinks about innovation, efficiency and trust. At FinTech LIVE Dubai 2025, industry experts took part in a focused panel, titled 'AI in FinTech'. 

Panellists included: 

• Kashif Khan, ED & Head, Technology Services Management, Technology & Operations, Corporate & Investment Banking at Standard Chartered
• Nick Maynard, VP of Fintech Market Research at Juniper Research Ltd
• Paul Donnelly, Executive Vice President, EMEA at FINEOS

Together, they explored how AI is transforming fintech – from fraud detection to software development – and addressed growing concerns around ethics, transparency and regulation.

Decision support, not decision replacement

Paul opened the discussion by outlining how AI is being applied within life and health insurance. 

As Executive Vice President at Equisoft, he recognised a clear industry shift from full automation to decision support: “This will support the underwriter, rather than this will go away and take that decision,” he noted. 

The human touch, he said, remains critical in contexts requiring empathy, such as life insurance claims.

Kashif echoed this balance, stressing that while AI has made a “significant” impact in financial services, particularly through personalisation and risk management, it is not about replacing humans. 

Instead, AI systems are there to process large datasets in real time and extract actionable insights: “It's like a coding buddy sitting with me, enhancing my code,” he said.

Nick added a wider market perspective. He said organisations are now more mature in how they deploy AI: “You’ve got to be much more business-like, and ensure you have a laser-like focus on what are going to be the outcomes.” He suggested that fintech has moved on from hype to genuinely valuable use cases.

Back office AI leads the way

When asked where AI is making the biggest difference, all panellists pointed to the back office. 

“Fraud prevention is the first case where we've really got to that stage,” said Nick.

He described a shift towards risk-based scoring model solutions powered by AI, driven by the need for real-time fraud prevention in modern payment ecosystems.

Paul and Kashif highlighted conversational banking, risk modelling, and Know Your Customer (KYC) as core areas where AI adds measurable value. 

These use cases typically involve highly repetitive tasks that benefit from automation. 

“These are the areas, enhancing the customer experience, risk management and client onboarding,” said Kashif.

The panel also discussed how newer digital banks are taking a more advanced approach to AI, building their own models for specific purposes, while traditional institutions tend to rely on vendor tools embedded in their core banking systems.

Trust, transparency and the future of AI in finance

The discussion turned to ethics, transparency and data integrity – vital themes in an era of increasing regulatory scrutiny. 

“AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on,” said Kashif. 

He explained that to ensure fairness, training datasets must be diverse, balanced and frequently audited. 

He also stressed the importance of explainability: “Every single decision must be interpretable.”

Paul added that the insurance industry faces particular challenges due to the depth of personal data involved. Insurers must use this data responsibly and within the framework of consumer rights. 

“People have the right not to have a decision solely made by a machine,” he said.

Nick reinforced the point, referencing the slow uptake of AI in financial services as a reflection of the sector’s accountability, stating: "Explainability has been one of the reasons why we've seen a longer development cycle for AI use; it’s about trust and auditability." 

The trio agreed that the best systems combine tools – deterministic rule engines, human oversight and AI – to create trusted, auditable decision processes. 

“That combination is the right way to go,” Nick reflected.

Kashif summarised it neatly when asked how organisations can build trust in AI: “You cannot have a black box algorithm, decisions must be explainable and interpretable. With transparency, trust comes.”

An ongoing arms race in cybersecurity

The session closed on the topic of cybersecurity, where AI is playing a double-edged role. 

Nick was clear: “We’re not winning and we haven’t been winning for a while.” 

While AI enables fraud prevention at scale, bad actors are just as quick to exploit its capabilities.

The key, agreed the panel, is staying agile and continuing to combine AI’s processing power with human oversight. And as Paul said, institutions must “pick the right tools for the right job – and carry that responsibility wisely.”

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