Thank you, Miles. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us at this year’s Annual Conference.
Before I begin, please let me also extend my thanks to our sponsors for today; DLA Piper, Citadel Securities and Guernsey Finance.
It’s great to come together in the heart of Westminster, but I’m also aware that many eyes today will be firmly fixed on a parliamentary constituency in Greater Manchester and a by-election that could deliver an outsized impact, depending on its result.
It is also in an area of significance for our industry, with the North West being the second largest cluster of financial and related professional services in the country after London, with around 285,000 people in employment.
Whatever the consequences of that election, what we urge as a constant is ambitious focus on ensuring that the North West and other thriving financial hubs across the country continue to flourish and that the UK remains a world-class international financial centre. And over the course of today, we will explore some of the most urgent areas for attention.
With growth at the top of the government’s agenda, financial and related professional services are the facilitator for growth right across the country. Our industry’s reach and impact in every UK region and nation is unmatched.
We are a major national employer, providing jobs for one in every thirteen working people.
In 2025, we contributed around £11 of every £100 of economic output generated in the UK, equivalent to approximately £10,000 per household across the country.
Britain is also the world’s most successful net exporter of financial services, with half of those exports coming from outside the M25.
And up and down the country, we support Britons’ day-to-day lives: a family in Leeds taking out their first mortgage; a small manufacturer in Sunderland getting a capital loan to take on new apprentices; a farmer in Dorset insuring their crops against unexpected weather.
From personal goals to national priorities – we’re critical to financing major infrastructure projects, energy, security and resilience, and to closing the scale-up funding gap that pushes our innovative young firms overseas.
At our International Conference in April, I warned what our country stood to lose if the UK fails to meet the new challenges presented by global competition in finance.
Market access, deep capital pools, trusted institutions – our historic strengths are undeniable, but these aren’t enough to secure our lead indefinitely.
In truth, our productivity is stalling while other global financial centres move with ever greater confidence; simplifying regulation, driving innovation and mobilising both capital and talent at pace.
In response, there has been welcome progress to enhance the UK’s offer; to drive reform, boost investment, encourage innovation and finance the climate transition. The regulators have taken some decisive action to implement change relating to their secondary objective for growth and competitiveness – a commitment that must be reflected at every level, not just at the top. And the recent Financial Services and Markets Bill is a further positive step in the right direction.
Chris Woolard, in his new role as Wholesale Digital Markets Champion, will help us to move ahead on tokenisation and more closely support the government’s digital infrastructure agenda.
But there’s much more to be done – not least on issues such as tax – where the UK’s code is now one of the most complex in the world; stamp duty on share trading; digitisation; streamlining and modernising regulation; and supporting responsible risk taking both across the industry and within the system. Further delay risks us ceding ground that may not be possible to recover.
And on defence, our industry is ready to play its part to mobilise and crowd-in private capital – be that debt, equity or patient capital – to finance defence infrastructure and national resilience. Yet, until the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan is published, we can’t press ahead to shape better ways of delivering this.
This urgency is exactly the focus of our recently published ‘No time to lose report with PwC.
For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to read the report, it is the product of the largest listening exercise conducted by our industry in recent times, informed by conversations with over 300 senior leaders from across the industry, government, regulators, and beyond.
Those conversations were united in their optimism for our industry, and its ability for the UK to keep competitive. They also share an honest diagnosis of what we’re missing to future-fit our strengths and ensure domestic prosperity in the years ahead.
The solution? Our industry must act to;
Lead the frontier of financial technology,
Reset regulation and tax,
Deepen international trade and investment,
Connect capital to national priorities,
And build a nation of investors.
Each of these imperatives reinforces the other. You can’t lead in financial technology if you’re facing sluggish processes and regulatory complexity, you can’t attract global capital if firms expect to face unpredictable tax bills, and you can’t build a nation of investors if people struggle to access advice.
I stand by my cautionary message; there is no time to lose.
But I want to be equally clear that there is also everything to play for.
By acting now on these five imperatives, our industry could generate up to £53 billion in additional annual economic output by 2035 – equivalent to adding almost the combined economic output of Edinburgh and Glasgow to the economy each year.
In seizing the opportunity, we can help deliver growth across every region and nation of the UK, and continue to lead the world in finance, if we act with speed, confidence and ambition.
I am very sure that our panels and speakers across the day will explore these themes. I encourage you all to engage with these conversations.
Thank you.
To be checked against delivery.
