London has long been a leading global financial centre. To increase their competitiveness, the UK’s capital markets have been going through a period of significant reform. Is this process on track to succeed? What further reforms are planned? The European Capital Markets Union project has been slow going. Is this likely to change, and. If so, what will it take?  Green bonds have already demonstrated that capital markets can be harnessed for climate purposes, but what do the next generation of market-based solutions look like for climate, nature and biodiversity? And how can London leverage its advantages to become the global centre for transition finance? Finally, capital markets are dynamic allocators of capital – what are the current drivers in international M&A and which are the hot sectors?

Digital assets, tokenisation and cryptoassets have finally achieved acceptance in mainstream finance, a process catalysed by a highly supportive U.S. administration. What has been the wider international  impact of ‘Project Crypto: Leading America’s Future in Digital Asset Innovation’? How are other countries developing their regulatory regimes for cryptoassets? Here in the UK, what has been the response of the Bank of England and the FCA? What steps are necessary to realise the potential of tokenisation for real world assets (RWA)? What is the future of money with the advent of stablecoins, tokenised deposits, CBDCs and the latest payment innovations? And, finally, do digital assets meet the requirements of institutional investors?

Since ChatGPT arrived on the scene a few years ago, there has been a lot of hype about the potential of AI to transform financial services. However, financial institutions are now implementing numerous real-world applications of Gen AI and are tentatively exploring the next phase of AI, Agentic AI. What are the current and future use cases of AI in the financial sector? Which global problems might AI solve and in what timeframe? What progress has been made in developing International governance, regulation and standards for AI? Turning to the experts, where do AI leaders think we will be in 5- and 10-years’ time? And finally, the arrival of AI has increased the focus on cybersecurity, as AI has increased cyber threats – are boards sufficiently focused on cybersecurity and operational resilience?