The FCA’s review of small-business access to finance found that regulation was not the principal barrier, but highlighted information gaps, complex applications and duplicated checks. Its next steps include prioritising SME lending as an open-finance use case and monitoring work on digital verification that could reduce repeated customer checks while preserving financial-crime controls.
This is relevant to advisers handling business, commercial-property and specialist cases. Permissioned data sharing and digital identity tools could reduce document collection and improve evidence quality, while AI could help organise data and flag inconsistencies for human review.
Efficiency must not weaken control. The FCA has also emphasised the growing scale of fraud and money laundering, alongside enforcement activity involving payment firms and illegal crypto trading. Firms using AI in onboarding, document processing or risk screening should maintain robust data protection, record keeping, explainability and human escalation procedures.