Post by Baringa

The Mills Review is the FCA's map of how AI reshapes retail financial services by 2030. Financial crime is one of its four headline shifts and the one where we think the stakes compound fastest. Most of the commentary will stop at fraud: deepfakes, synthetic identities, AI-written scams. Real, but not new. What’s underneath is quieter and matters more. The Review shows financial crime risk management is on a “autonomy spectrum” moving from AI summarising a KYC file, to triaging alerts, drafting the SAR, and then adapting detection while humans "monitor for drift." The catch is asymmetry. Criminals already operate at the far end of that spectrum with no model risk committee, no SM&CR, no audit trail. Most financial crime teams are stuck at the near end. That gap, between attacker autonomy and defender autonomy, is the one to close. There's no new rule to wait for, so the advantage goes to whoever moves first. Swipe through for the four moves worth making now. Full piece in comments.