Summary
City Week is back for its 15th annual edition! Held in-person over three days in London from 30 June to 2 July, as well as being live-streamed around the world, this year’s edition is taking place at a time of significant geopolitical developments that are set to have a profound effect on trade and investment flows, as well as the financial markets that support them.
Organised in partnership with the UK Government, the City of London Corporation, TheCityUK, UK Finance and leading City institutions, this year’s edition will analyse all the current change drivers in international finance and their implications for financial institutions. At the heart of CW2025 are three separate summits on Net Zero Finance, Artificial Intelligence in Finance and Digital Assets/Tokenisation. All three programmes take innovation as their central theme and reflect the boardroom agenda of leading financial institutions.
Renowned for its content-rich agenda, exceptional speakers and unrivalled networking opportunities, City Week has become a must-attend event for senior decision-makers from not only the UK but also from all the other major financial centres. More than 1,000 delegates attend this comprehensive week of cutting-edge presentations, panel discussions, social events and networking. Like previous editions, this year’s forum will feature many well-known names from the global financial services industry, the world of politics and the international regulatory community.
30th June
The Net Zero Finance Innovation Summit
Last year, the hottest on record, extreme weather caused unprecedented climate-related losses in many countries. Despite the anti-ESG backlash and the new pro-fossil fuel U.S. administration, the case for the energy transition and decarbonisation is overwhelming for purely economic reasons. Financial institutions and investors will play a critical role as a catalyst in this process, directed to some extent by regulation and legislation, but ultimately because it make economic sense in the long run. Against this background, we have convened government ministers, regulators and leaders of financial institutions from across the world to discuss the huge opportunity that financing energy transition and decarbonisation presents, as well as the latest innovations in financing net zero.
1st July
The AI and Digital Innovation Summit
The financial services industry is making significant progress with Generative AI. The industry’s AI spend is expected to increase from $35 billion in 2023 to $95 billion by 2027, a 29% growth rate. While the focus to date has been on personal productivity, the question now is what financial institutions will do next and how soon they will apply AI to the entirety of their organisations. At this summit, top AI experts will share their insights on this, global regulators will discuss emerging AI regulation and financial services leaders will discuss current and future AI applications, model risk management, and governance and ethical issues.
2nd July
The Digital Assets Innovation Summit
Over the last year, there has been an increasing acceptance of digital assets, tokenisation and cryptocurrencies. The new U.S. administration is very supportive of crypto, while the UK and other jurisdictions are establishing their own regimes as they seek to become international centres for this new world of finance. The tokenisation of financial assets through distributed ledgers and blockchain has the potential to shift the way that assets are managed and leveraged, while digital assets will transform the way that capital and financial markets work. This international summit brings together innovators and traditional financial firms to map out the future of financial markets and the challenges ahead.
Qatar Financial Centre
Laying The Groundwork for Qatar’s Digital Assets Sector
In this article, Yousuf Mohamed Al-Jaida, Chief Executive Officer, QFC, highlights Qatar’s strategic focus on digital innovation, particularly in the realm of financial services, and elaborates upon QFC’s pioneering ‘Digital Assets Lab’ initiative that paves the way for the development of a digital assets sector in Qatar, accelerating the nation’s transformation into a centre of excellence for financial services and innovation.
Copper
T+1: Settlement failures and cascading risks
Settlement failures are already in the trillions of dollars annually at T+2. And the US is poised to move to T+1 in a week increasing the chances of cascading risk.
Ready for T+1?
Part one of our in-depth report series, delves into the post-trade financial cycle, highlighting the potential risks associated with the US market transitioning to shorter settlement cycles.
Schroders / Slaughter and May / The Alan Turing Institute
Following the Rules
Today’s episode is a little different to normal. It is a recording of a recent panel discussion from City Week’s AI in Financial Services Leaders Summit which took place in London last week.
I was invited to moderate a panel on the transformative potential of generative AI and we discussed interesting use cases for genAI in the financial services space, how boards and senior managers can best manage the risks relating to the new technology, how regulators could help market participants embrace the opportunities presented by GenAI responsibly and plenty more in between.
I hope you enjoy it.
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