The AI Revolution in Fintech: Opportunities & Challenges

Date: Thursday 23rd October 2025
Time: 08:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Location: The Glasshouse, Alderley Park, Congleton Road, Nether Alderley, Macclesfield , SK10 4TG
Cost: Free
Categories:
FinTech
SME Club
The Pro Manchester Fintech Committee will host a key sector event this September exploring the current and future impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial services and fintech sector.
 
AI adoption is now widespread in the UK market, with around 75% of financial firms already integrating AI into their operations and a further 10% planning to follow within the next three years. The technology is enhancing operational efficiency, improving customer experience, and transforming core processes such as trading, risk management, and fraud detection. Alongside these advances, the sector also faces new challenges around regulatory compliance, data integrity, and the risks of over-reliance on third-party AI vendors.
 
A unique feature of this event will be our first-ever facilitated open discussion, inviting all attendees to share their real-world experiences, pose questions, and offer tips on integrating AI within their organisations. Our event will open with an introduction to these emerging trends, followed by a panel of industry experts drawn from across the fintech landscape. They will delve into the practical realities of AI integration and highlight anticipated trends, including further automation, personalisation of financial products, and new models for decision-making and customer interaction.

About the Speakers:

Kimberley Waldron Founder and Managing Director - Started PR / Co-founder SkyParlour

An award-winning advisor and entrepreneur, with over 15 years in the financial services and tech industry. Kimberley hosts the popular Get Started podcast, chairs the Manchester Fintech committee and is a long-term mentor for Rise by Barclays, Fintech Alliance and Fintech Circle. A regular on stage at events like Web Summit, Fintech Week London, Fintech Fringe, Finance Magnates and Fintech North, Kimberley’s insight also features in financial industry publications such as Fintech Magazine, Payments Expert, Verdict and The Fintech Power50 journal. Kimberley is board advisor to several exciting Fintech start-ups including ekko, Lemon and others soon to be announced.

Sheraz Afzal Chief Legal Risk & Compliance Officer - Quint Group Limited

Sheraz is the Chief Legal Risk & Compliance Officer for Quint Group Limited, a high-growth, award-winning fintech group dedicated to building and scaling the next generation of businesses in credit and payments. Before joining the Group in 2021, Sheraz was Chief Risk and Compliance Officer for Dollar Global Finance Corp where he was responsible for the legal, risk and compliance teams in the UK, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal and Romania.

 

Prior to this, Sheraz held senior roles within Risk and Compliance at Welcome Financial Services (Cattles) and also the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. He obtained his LLB from the University of Edinburgh.

Robert Daly Head of Data and AI - Anumana

Rob is the Founder of Mimir Data, a data services consultancy providing expertise on Data Science in particular.

Passionate about:

– Personalised healthcare for patients.

– Practical use of ML and LLMs to automate business processes, generate new data, augment existing data.

– Providing business intelligence to internal teams in order to take action where necessary.

– Turning data into viable data products and data assets.

Previously studied a Masters in Neuroscience at King’s College London and before that an undergraduate degree in Biomedicine at Birkbeck College (University of London).

Interested In The Event?

If you’re interested in attending, you can book online here.