For this month’ s cover, we hear from Jon O’ Donnell, Chief Operating Officer at Acuity Knowledge Partners, who is spearheading the firm’ s latest innovation – the Agentic AI platform, built exclusively for the financial services sector. Leveraging over two decades of domain expertise, Acuity’ s Agent Fleet combines AI-driven task automation with no-code workflows to tackle high-effort processes such as research, data extraction and regulatory reporting. With compliance, auditability, and human oversight at its core, the platform represents a shift from general-purpose AI towards tailored, domain-specific solutions designed to drive efficiency, precision and innovation across financial institutions.

“ The biggest hurdle isn’ t the technology; it’ s the organisational mindset. Some firms treat AI as a side project or a proof of concept, rather than integrating it into their core operations, while other firms want to look to fundamentally change their whole operating model. There needs to be a balance,” said O’ Donnell.

Read the full interview on page 48.

In a world where commerce, communication and collaboration are increasingly taking place online, trust has become the currency of the digital economy. Yet, despite its central role, trust is under siege. Johan Fantenberg, Product and Solution Director, Ping Identity, talks about trust, threats and the role of the digital I. D Find out more on page 17.

More and more, we are seeing the line blur between technology and finance, with CFO roles being hit the hardest. The expectations of CFOs are no longer anchored to just finance but have expanded to innovation as well as digital experience and processing. I ask three experts to share their advice on how to maintain this balance, harnessing innovation whilst staying true to the heart of the CFO’ s role. See what they had to say on page 25.

Maria-Christine Diaz, Senior Business Strategy Manager at Eastnets, explores how ISO 20022 represents more than a messaging upgrade – it’ s a strategic inflexion point for banks. With the SWIFT deadline looming, she urges financial institutions to rethink compliance, infrastructure and customer propositions, and to treat migration not as a one-off project but as a catalyst for broader transformation. Read more on page 32.

We also have a range of‘ Intelligent’ pages, which feature the latest strides in the cloud, security, mobile, software, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence space.

I hope you enjoy this issue and if you would like to contribute to any future editions then please do not hesitate to contact rebecca @ lynchpinmedia. com.

Ellen Flannery, Editor

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