IT for financial services

UKtech50 2025: the longlist of the UK’s influential tech leaders

Each year, Computer Weekly launches a search for the most influential people in UK IT, asking the tech community who it thinks should be in the top 50 – here is the longlist of everyone nominated for 2025 Continue Reading

By

• Lis Evenstad

Sweden gets help pulling its sovereign AI socks up

Urgent government calls for more high-powered sovereign computers to fulfil Swedish goal of building a more powerful AI industry answered by foreign financiers, US tech and Europe’s AI emergency fund Continue Reading

By

• Mark Ballard

Human vs digital therapy: AI falls short when IT pros need help

Stressed IT and cyber professionals are turning to AI chatbots for support, but is handing people's mental wellbeing over to algorithms really such a bright idea? Continue Reading

By

• Malcolm Hanson, PTSD Revolution

Investor behaviour in the wake of cyber's 'black swan' moment

So-called Black Swan events expose the blind spots in even the most sophisticated forecasting models, signaling a need to rethink how businesses, and those investing in them, quantify and prepare for cyber risk. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Bartlett, Hicomply

West Brom Building Society project to meet customers’ digital demands

Calls from customers for a choice of digital channels drove West Brom Building Society’s digital transformation project Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

June Patch Tuesday brings a lighter load for defenders

Barely 70 vulnerabilities make the cut for Microsoft’s monthly security update, but an RCE flaw in WEBDAV and an EoP issue in Windows SMB Client still warrant close attention Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

UK finance regulator tie-up with Nvidia allows firms to experiment with AI

FCA wants to support organisations in testing their ideas for the use of artificial intelligence Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Third-party security weaknesses threaten Europe’s big banks

Security breaches via third parties increased by 25% at Europe’s largest finance firms Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Compensation to Post Office scandal victims reaches £1bn milestone

The government has now paid out more than £1bn to victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Barclays rolls out Microsoft Copilot to 100,000 employees as AI adoption gathers pace

Barclays is doubling down on its adoption of artificial intelligence tools by moving to embrace Microsoft Copilot with a large-scale roll-out of the technology to 100,000 staff Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

Citigroup cuts thousands of staff at China-based tech centres

Financial services giant Citigroup is drastically reducing headcount in its Chinese tech delivery centres as it restructures its technology operation Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Australia’s CommBank completes migration of data to AWS in AI drive

Putting all of its data in AWS cloud will support bank’s use of artificial intelligence to offer customers more personalised services Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

NCSC sets out how to build cyber safe cultures

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has published guidance for security teams and leaders on how to foster accessible and appropriate cyber security cultures in their organisations Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Fortifying the future: The pivotal role of CISOs in AI operations

The Security Think Tank considers how CISOs can best plan to facilitate the secure running of AI and Gen AI-based initiatives and ensure employees do not inadvertently leak data or make bad decisions. Continue Reading

By

• Aditya K Sood, Aryaka

Preparing for AI: The CISO’s role in security, ethics and compliance

The Security Think Tank considers how CISOs can best plan to facilitate the secure running of AI and Gen AI-based initiatives and ensure employees do not inadvertently leak data or make bad decisions. Continue Reading

By

• Elliott Wilkes, ACDS

Fintech growth three times that of finance sector as a whole

Global fintech revenues reached £280bn in 2024, according to Boston Consulting Group report Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

The hidden security risks of open source AI

The Security Think Tank considers how CISOs can best plan to facilitate the secure running of AI and Gen AI-based initiatives and ensure employees do not inadvertently leak data or make bad decisions. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Fox, Sonatype

AI security: Balancing innovation with protection

The Security Think Tank considers how CISOs can best plan to facilitate the secure running of AI and Gen AI-based initiatives and ensure employees do not inadvertently leak data or make bad decisions. Continue Reading

By

• Javvad Malik, KnowBe4

Tech adaptability helps Zopa unwrap current account and test generative AI

Zopa Bank’s current account, already used by thousands of existing customers, will be made available to the wider public before end of 2025 Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

How cyber security professionals are leveraging AWS tools

It’s now essential for IT security teams to have oversight of cloud computing, and AWS offers a plethora of tools to make managing it easier. Find out how cyber pros are using them in the wild Continue Reading

By

• Nicholas Fearn

Signalgate is a signal to revisit security onboarding and training

A leak of information on American military operations caused a major political incident in March 2025. The Security Think Tank considers what can CISOs can learn from this potentially fatal error. Continue Reading

By

• Mike Gillespie and Ellie Hurst, Advent IM

Remote purchase fraud surges 14%, says banking industry

Brits lost over £1bn to payment fraud in its many forms last year, according to the latest banking industry numbers Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Maturing UK fintechs increase tech and cyber security hiring

Increased hiring reflects that fintechs are maturing and now require more cyber security and compliance experts Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Armed forces charity steps in to address cyber mental health crisis

CIISec and military charity PTSD Resolution hope to address a gathering mental health crisis among frontline cyber professionals Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Preparation and appreciation – the human factor in incident response

A typical incident response effort is highly technical, so where do soft skills come in and how do you know how effective your team is? We look at a measurement option and the human consideration in these scenarios Continue Reading

By

• Dan Raywood

What are the best practices for securing AWS tech stacks?

An AWS tech stack can aid business growth and facilitate efficient operations, but misconfigurations have become all too common and stall this progress Continue Reading

By

• Nicholas Fearn

Microsoft raises posse to target dangerous Lumma malware

Microsoft, along with a consortium of partners, has seized and disrupted a significant part of the Lumma malware-as-a-service network used to steal data and funds Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Lloyds and Nationwide to use UK finance sector LLM

Industry-specific large language models could improve customer services, strengthen security and support regulatory compliance Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

UK Fraud Bill targets benefit claimants for mass surveillance

The UK government’s proposed Fraud Bill will disproportionately place millions of benefit claimants under constant surveillance, creating a two-tier system where people are automatically suspected of wrongdoing for seeking welfare Continue Reading

By

• Anna Dent

Ransomware attacks dropped by a third last month

Reported ransomware attacks eased off during April following a dramatic spike in the first quarter of 2025 Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Strong fintech security posture at risk via third-party weak links

Despite having a strong security posture, the financial technology sector could be open to attack via third parties Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Tackling the UK’s cyber threats

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we report from the National Cyber Security Centre’s annual update on the state of UK security and examine the emerging threats. The chief data officer of Standard Chartered bank discusses preparing for artificial intelligence. We also look at the networking implications of GPU-based AI datacentres. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Mid-career professionals must learn to understand and use AI as GenAI tips balance

Whether in the finance, IT or legal sectors, artificial intelligence will change the way businesses operate and how their people work Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

How close is quantum computing to commercial reality?

At a recent event, experts explored the progress towards logical qubits and how these will be applied to empower business IT Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

BBVA creates ChatGPT Store and expands use of the GenAI tool

Data reveals that bank employees are saving an average of almost three hours every week by using ChatGPT Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Roundtable: Why did customers sail away from VMware?

At Nutanix’s recent .Next event in the US, customers talked about why they migrated away from VMware and the pain points that accelerated their decision to switch hypervisor Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

May Patch Tuesday brings five exploited zero-days to fix

Microsoft fixes five exploited, and two publicly disclosed, zero-days in the fifth Patch Tuesday update of 2025 Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Italian bank signs 10-year deal with Google Cloud

UniCredit will transform operations through cloud, AI and data analytics technologies from Google Cloud Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Interview: Amanda Stent, head of AI strategy and research, Bloomberg

Hallucinating AI, which lies through its teeth, keeps Amanda Stent busy at data analytics and intelligence giant Bloomberg Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Nordic countries plan offline payment system for disaster backup

Board member of the Bank of Finland reveals plan as likelihood of losing internet connectivity increases amid geopolitical tensions Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Oxford Uni adds cyber resilience module to MBA programme

Oxford University’s Saïd Business School is working with cyber response specialist Sygnia to help future business leaders get on top of security Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

UK hands Indian IT suppliers competitive boost in trade deal

Trade deal will exempt IT workers from India from paying National Insurance contributions for three years Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Fintech summit reveals what’s next for sector

The UK’s fintech sector attracted $3.6bn investment last year, which was only bettered by the US, but how will UK fintech continue to grow? Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Beyond the hook: How phishing is evolving in the world of AI

Phishing attacks are evolving. Gone are the days of clumsy, error-ridden emails that were easy to spot – today’s campaigns harness advanced techniques to bypass even the latest defences. A new approach is needed Continue Reading

By

• Isla Sibanda

Security Think Tank: What CISOs can learn from Signalgate

A leak of information on American military operations caused a major political incident in March 2025. The Security Think Tank considers what can CISOs can learn from this potentially fatal error. Continue Reading

By

• Javvad Malik, KnowBe4

Signalgate: Learnings for CISOs securing enterprise data

A leak of information on American military operations caused a major political incident in March 2025. The Security Think Tank considers what CISOs can learn from this potentially fatal error Continue Reading

By

• Todd Thiemann, Principal Analyst

Current SaaS delivery model a risk management nightmare, says CISO

JPMorgan Chase security chief Patrick Opet laments the state of SaaS security in an open letter to the industry and calls on software providers to do more to enhance resilience Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

FCA wants ‘safe place’ for finance firms to test artificial intelligence

Financial services regulator proposes artificial intelligence testing environment as part of its AI Lab Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Artificial intelligence roles the ‘only safe jobs in banking’

World’s biggest banks have increased the number of employees working with artificial intelligence by 13% in the past six months Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Challenges persist as UK’s Cyber Security and Resilience Bill moves forward

Elements of the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill are welcome but questions remain about how best to act in the face of persistent challenges like geopolitical chaos, threats to critical infrastructure, and technological advances Continue Reading

By

• James Morris, CSBR

Interview: Daniele Tonella, CTO, ING

The bank’s global CTO has been in the role for less than a year and in that time has been working his way through four layers of tech Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

March ransomware slowdown probably a red herring

An apparent slowdown in ransomware attack volumes is raising eyebrows, but the statistics never tell the full story Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Rethink authentication to remove the burden on users

The rise of AI powered threats and non-human identities will push an already strained identity security model over the edge Continue Reading

By

• Patrick Wardrop, IBM

Beyond baselines - getting real about security and resilience

In an increasingly contested world, the UK government needs a security certification that goes beyond baseline measures. Continue Reading

By

• Neil Ashdown and Tash Buckley

CW Innovation Awards: DBS AI assistant slashes call times and boosts productivity

The bank’s in-house generative AI tool is streamlining customer service, reducing manual work and speeding up response times, improving both employee and customer experience Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, Informa TechTarget

Tariff turmoil is making supply chain security riskier

Many businesses around the world are taking the decision to alter their supplier mix in the face of tariff uncertainty, but in doing so are creating more cyber risks for themselves, according to a report Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Saudi Arabia struggling to reach global leadership in deeptech

Petrostate monarchy trying to build surrogate industry made of foreign startups because own ecosystem is too immature Continue Reading

By

• Mark Ballard

Hertz warns UK customers of Cleo-linked data breach

Car hire giant Hertz reveals UK customer data was affected in a cyber incident orchestrated via a series of vulnerabilities in Cleo managed file transfer products Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

UK challenger bank targets US’s mid-tier banking sector with tech platform

Starling Bank expands its banking as a service platform sales operation into the North American market Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Lloyds Bank moves AI work onto Google Cloud platform

Banking group is cutting its emissions and accelerating the development of AI platforms by moving work onto Google Cloud Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Spirit of openness helps banks get serious about stopping scams

Recent announcements show that banks, financial services firms and IT companies are increasing efforts to curb online scams Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Spoofing vuln threatens security of WhatsApp Windows users

Meta has disclosed and patched a potentially dangerous spoofing flaw in WhatsApp for Windows that could have caused big problems for unwitting users Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

It’s time to stop the victim-blaming and insist on safer software

Businesses spend too much time and money protecting themselves against flaws and vulnerabilities in modern software products, when they ought to raise their expectations and insist on better solutions from providers Continue Reading

By

• Mandy Andress, Elastic

Over £18m stolen from Santander UK customers in first three months of year

Bank’s latest quarterly report on scams said over £18m was stolen from its UK customers by scammers Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

‘Bankenstein’ and a cold calculation means banking crashes will continue

Following a three-day crash at Barclays, UK banks were forced to explain to MPs when, how and why digital services became unavailable over past two years Continue Reading

Fintech body calls on government for national anti-fraud centre

Industry body says a national anti-fraud centre could be the vehicle required to effectively fight fraud through data sharing Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Norway and Nordic financial sector ramps up cyber security

Finans Norge sets up cyber security unit CTSU to support the finance sector in Norway amid increasing threats Continue Reading

By

• Gerard O'Dwyer

Banks to share fraud data with tech firms in cross-sector collaboration

UK banks join tech firms in fraud data-sharing initiative to enable collaboration on action to stop online scams Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Taking a ‘good enough’ approach with cloud security isn't enough

In the wake of the January 2025 'Codefinger' attacks against AWS S3 users, Thales Rob Elliss argues that many organisations are dropping the ball when it comes to their understanding of cloud security best practice Continue Reading

By

• Rob Ellis, Thales

Danish supercomputer to drive innovation

Supercomputer project will add a competitive edge to drive innovation and growth among Denmark’s enterprises and research organisations Continue Reading

By

• Gerard O'Dwyer

UKtech50 2025 – help us find the most influential people in UK IT

Computer Weekly’s annual search for the 50 most influential people in UK IT is on – let us know who you would like to nominate for this year's list Continue Reading

By

• Lis Evenstad

Bridging Borders: The rise of Ukrainian-British tech collaboration

The IT sectors of the UK and Ukraine have built strong relationships since Russia’s invasion of the latter, and there is more to come, writes the IT Ukraine Association’s ambassador in the UK Continue Reading

By

• Alexandra Govorukha

Gmail ‘bubble’ encryption may be an S/MIME killer, says Google

Marking the 21st anniversary of Gmail, Google is preparing to roll out an end-to-end encryption standard for its email service in hopes of democratising encryption and leaving old standards in the dust Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Top 1,000 IT service providers in scope of UK cyber bill

The government’s proposed Cyber Security and Resilience Bill is set to include regulatory provisions covering both datacentre operators and larger IT service providers Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Countering nation-state cyber espionage: A CISO field guide

The rise of DeepSeek has prompted the usual well-documented concerns around AI, but also raised worries about its potential links to the Chinese state. The Security Think Tank considers the steps security leaders can take to counter threats posed by nation state industrial espionage? Continue Reading

By

• Andrew Hodges, Quorum Cyber

More than 200 Lloyds Bank bosses to receive artificial intelligence training

Lloyds Banking Group is running a six-month training programme with the aim of building AI skills among its senior leadership Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

‘Bankenstein’ and a cold calculation means banking crashes will continue

Following a three-day crash at Barclays, UK banks were forced to explain to MPs when, how and why digital services became unavailable over past two years Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

NCSC, DSIT enlist IBM to spearhead cyber diversity agenda

IBM signs on to a partnership deal in support of the popular NCSC CyberFirst Girls scheme designed to foster gender diversity in the cyber security profession Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Dutch workforce faces radical transformation as AI adoption accelerates

While the Netherlands leads Europe in AI adoption, a deeper analysis of the labour market reveals a more nuanced narrative than the apocalyptic predictions of job losses Continue Reading

By

• Kim Loohuis

NCSC proposes three-step plan to move to quantum-safe encryption

The NCSC urges service providers, large organisations and critical sectors to start thinking today about how they will migrate to post-quantum cryptography over the next decade Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Clop resurgence drives ransomware attacks in February

The exploitation of two new vulnerabilities in a popular file transfer service saw the Clop ransomware gang soar in February, according to NCC Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

How Oracle is using AI to combat financial crime

The tech giant is leveraging artificial intelligence to surface fraudulent financial transactions and improve the efficiency of financial crime investigations, offering relief to banks battling high costs and alert fatigue Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, Informa TechTarget

How CISOs can counter the threat of nation state espionage

The rise of DeepSeek has prompted the usual well-documented concerns around AI, but also raised worries about its potential links to the Chinese state. The Security Think Tank considers the steps security leaders can take to counter threats posed by nation state industrial espionage? Continue Reading

By

• Elisabeth Mackay, PA Consulting

SuperBlack ransomware may have ties to LockBit

Forescout researchers report on a new ransomware gang that appears to be keeping the legacy of the notorious LockBit crew alive Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Government announces inevitable end to Payments Services Regulator

The government has abolished the Payments Services Regulator and will move responsibilities to Financial Conduct Authority Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

March Patch Tuesday brings 57 fixes, multiple zero-days

The third Patch Tuesday of 2025 brings fixes for 57 flaws and a hefty number of zero-days Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Perimeter security appliances source of most ransomware hits

Perimeter security appliances and devices, particularly VPNs, prove to be the most popular entry points into victim networks for financially motivated ransomware gangs, according to reports Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

2024: the year misconfigurations exposed digital vulnerabilities

Small configuration errors cascaded into major outages during 2024. Mike Hicks, from Cisco ThousandEyes, propounds techniques to defend digital resilience against tales of the unexpected Continue Reading

By

• Mike Hicks

Norway says ‘no way’ to global financial crime

Oslo’s startup ecosystem is fighting back against cyber criminals with tech to wipe out attacks rather than just detect them Continue Reading

By

• Matthew Staff

Big bank systems crashed for over 800 hours in last two years due to IT outages

Bank bosses forced to reveal extent of banking IT failures to MPs on the Treasury Select Committee Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

CFIT publishes blueprint for digital company business IDs

Plan to increase the use of digital identities by businesses could add billions of pounds to UK economy through compliance savings and reduced fraud Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

IR35: Government outlines two-pronged approach to umbrella company regulation

The government looks set to deliver on its long-promised vow to roll out regulation for umbrella companies Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

Major UK banks hit by payday digital banking problems again

A month after Barclays suffered online banking problems, customers at multiple banks report further issues Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Secure software: Third-party suppliers your first-party risk

Outgoing CISA chief Jen Easterly called on buyers to demand better security standards from their software suppliers. The Security Think Tank considers what better means, and what best practice for secure software procurement looks like in 2025 Continue Reading

By

• Ejona Preci, Lindal Group

CVE volumes head towards 50,000 in 2025, analysts claim

Many trends, notably a big shift to open source tools, are behind an expected boom in the number of disclosed vulnerabilities Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

CISOs spending more on insider risk

Insider risk management budgets have more than doubled in the past 12 months and look set to grow further still in 2025, according to a report Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Government seeks payments tech partner through £49m contract

UK government wants tech partner to help it embed open banking functionality into its Gov.uk Pay platform Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

A landscape forever altered? The LockBit takedown one year on

The NCA-led takedown of the LockBit ransomware gang in February 2024 heralded a transformative year in the fight against cyber crime. One year on, we look back at Operation Cronos and its impact Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

CaixaBank outlines artificial intelligence intentions in €5bn plan

Spanish bank announces Cosmos, an investment in its processes and technology that sits within its €5bn strategic plan Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Balancing act: Managing business needs alongside digital transformation and innovation

How can IT leaders deliver on the challenging balancing act between innovation, cost control, and managing corporate expectations? One startup CTO in a highly established industry shares his experiences Continue Reading

By

• Chris Gray, Inshur