Fin the Week

Is AI actually neutral? Is that something you've even ever thought about?

Earlier this year, Paul and Mayna attended BrightonSEO and our favourite session was an eye-opening talk on the bias within AI.

So this week, we're delighted to be joined by the expert behind that session, Azahara Corrales!

Did you know that 71% of men vs. 29% of women report having AI skills (Randstad, 2024)? Did you know that Citizens Advice found customers in areas with high Black and South Asian populations were quoted at least £280 more for car insurance?

These aren't quirks of the system, they are manifestations of a deep bias that is present in the AI systems and algorithms the world (increasingly) relies upon every day.

AI consultant and adoption advisor to leaders, Azahara Corrales, has devoted time to understanding and spreading awareness of this often overlooked risk.

For anyone working with AI (that's probably all of us), and any firm rolling out AI systems, this episode should be required listening!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Azahara Corrales and episode overview

00:57 Azahara explains her focus on AI bias and its origins

01:54 Why this topic captured the interest of the hosts

03:10 The importance of understanding how AI works

03:54 Where AI bias actually comes from

05:58 Disparities in AI usage among genders and age groups

08:03 The bias triangle: builders, users, data

10:26 Research findings on gender bias in language models

12:02 The deep-rooted nature of AI bias and its persistence

13:28 The impact of biased AI in everyday life and decision-making

15:36 Self-fulfilling biases in AI and solutions

17:30 Practical advice for users to mitigate bias

19:10 Regulation, regulation, regulation: the need for oversight

22:59 The long-term consequences of unregulated AI

24:07 Bias beyond gender: race, religion, and other groups

27:49 AI in financial services and personal finance

40:17 What individuals and firms can do now

41:49 Jargon Busters: Flat money

This week we jump back into our Consumer Duty teardowns which throughout four weeks earlier this year, shocked us with the level of web accessibility issues.

Of 600 issues uncovered, almost half were accessibility challenges.

We're joined by accessibility expert and advocate, Luke, who takes us through what some of the terms mean, and where things are going wrong.

In an area that the FCA is sure to take an interest in, this is a must listen for teams in our sector.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the episode and guest expertise

00:16 What is web accessibility and why it matters

06:24 What's the difference between A, AA, and AAA in WCAG?

10:06 What accessibility issues did we find in FS?

11:50 What, actually, is a screen reader?

17:19 FS websites are failing users who can't/don't use a mouse

20:48 Is accessibility compliance extra work?

23:15 Can AI fix accessibility challenges for firms?

30:44 Is the finance industry failing its consumers?

35:16 Is this bigger than just being the right thing to do?

43:34 Why doesn't the FCA currently mandate WCAG AA standard?

45:39 Jargon Busters: AER

This week, we kick off a discussion prompted by the conversations we've been having with our clients.

More often than you might expect, we're meeting financial marketing teams who don't use AI (particularly agentic AI) anywhere near as much as they could/should.

So, why is that?

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and episode overview

00:16 The trust reset theme and AI in financial marketing

03:28 Why do FS marketing teams struggle to get good output from AI?

14:58 Are security fears scaring marketing teams away?

18:27 Can AI write in my brand's tone of voice?

24:45 Claude's new AI copy watermarking

33:58 Where's the line between AI you can trust, and risky use of AI?

49:42 Advice for marketing teams burnt by poor use of AI

51:25 What does the near future look like for FS marketing teams?

53:29 Jargon Busters: Zero Sum Game

Credibility gets you through the door, but trust is what makes people stay. On this episode of Fin the Week, we're joined by Indulge's newest team member, Tonicha, to unpack why financial brands can no longer rely on confident marketing alone.

We dig into how consumer duty, the EU AI Act and the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements are pushing firms to evidence their claims rather than just make them, why "finfluencers" cut both ways, and how something as simple as a mortgage calculator can build more trust than a bold headline stat ever will.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the importance of trust and credibility in finance

01:42 How regulatory changes are influencing trust evidence

03:35 The role of consumer duty and EU AI Act in trust

06:26 Differentiating credibility and trust in marketing

08:19 How credibility can be faked and the importance of trust

11:03 The impact of misleading claims and greenwashing

13:58 The significance of transparency in insurance and finance

16:52 Industry examples of trust and credibility issues

19:54 Building trust through consistent messaging and evidence

22:35 The importance of easy cancellation and customer support

23:37 Credibility & trust in the consumer funnel

25:14 Does being trustworthy put firms at a marketing disadvantage?

27:43 Selling insurance on price versus features

31:53 Can marketing teams incentivise and be trustworthy at the same time?

33:45 Finluencers and the impact on trust

36:36 Risks of misleading marketing and short-term gains

39:14 The importance of honest reviews and influencer vetting

41:58 Using technology to enhance transparency and trust

45:55 Summary and key takeaways on trust and credibility

46:46 Jargon Busters: Diversification

It's Consumer Duty anniversary day, so we're rounding off Consumer Duty month with our fourth and final teardown.

We take a look at life insurance and protection: the sector with 7 of the FCA's 11 open investigations.

We ran a direct insurer, a comparison site, and an independent broker through UX Duty and found 109 issues between them, half of them accessibility failures.

In this episode: misleading "£3 a month" headline pricing that hides eligibility criteria in tiny asterisked footnotes, pre-ticked marketing consent boxes that breach GDPR, sites that make it nearly impossible to reach a human for a complaint, and a wrap-up of what four teardowns (12 firms, ~600 findings) reveal about where financial services UX keeps failing consumers.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Consumer Duty Teardowns

02:16 Overview of the Insurance Sector Investigations

06:24 The core findings in the insurance sector

08:37 Misleading Headlines and Transparency Issues

15:22 Consent, GDPR, and Dark Patterns

20:40 The Impact of AI on Accessibility and Regulation

25:35 Collecting Data and Privacy Concerns

31:22 Complaints Procedures and Vulnerable Customers

33:53 Website Accessibility and Quality Testing

38:13 The Future of Accessibility with AI

41:17 Summary of Findings and Industry Implications

47:20 Jargon Busters!

50:27 Next time: the EU AI Act

Four weeks into the trust reset and three episodes into the Consumer Duty teardown series, Amelia, Paul, Pat and Russ turn to what's arguably the biggest financial decision most people ever make: getting a mortgage.

Using their scanning tool, UX Duty, the team reviewed the online journeys of a top-tier broker, a mid-tier broker and a smaller, consultant-branded challenger, scoring 125 findings across the three firms and, for the first time in the series, a "medium risk" rating for one of them.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and episode overview

06:57 An overview of the findings from the mortgage brokers

11:02 Fee disclosure issues

21:21 How much fee disclosure is reasonable?

23:31 Firm A drops a GDPR clanger

29:19 No FCA registration details displayed

32:02 Back to accessibility flaws across FS websites

36:54 Missing accessibility statements

39:11 A project building an accessibility plugin with a major tech firm

43:40 User testing and inclusive design for accessibility

47:21 Jargon busters: Understanding industry terms

48:06 Upcoming topics: protection insurance and final thoughts

Week three of Consumer Duty anniversary month, and we're going up a level; from everyday bank switching to investing. We ran three anonymised robo-advisors (a big player, a mid-tier firm, and a fintech challenger) through Indulge's in-house teardown tool, UX Duty, and turned up 150 findings across the three.

In this episode we get into...

• Why risk warnings keep losing out to bold "grow your money" headlines, and what that means for consumer understanding
• The FCA's growing focus on "foreseeable harm" from platform features, not just price, and what that means for trading apps
• Missing exit costs and a genuinely hard-to-find "get your money out" journey
• Eligibility criteria buried deep in the sign-up flow, wasting users' time
• Vulnerability support (or the lack of it) for first-time investors
• Why 53% of all issues found were accessibility problems; including one firm whose entire brand colour fails contrast checks

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the episode and main themes

01:11 Findings from digital journeys of banking products

11:09 Accessibility issues and common themes

15:22 Key findings on accessibility and design flaws

20:01 Risk warnings and consumer understanding

26:23 Cost transparency (joining vs leaving)

31:07 Eligibility and vulnerability support

41:13 One firm drops an accessibility clanger

Consumer Duty is turning three, and the FCA's message is clear: the grace period is over.

In this episode, Paul, Russ, and Pat break down the FCA's new Enforcement Watch 2 report, then dig into our first teardown: a hands-on review of the bank switching journey across three UK current account providers, run through our UX Duty tool.

Loud offers, quiet conditions, missing debt advice signposting, and 205 findings later, here's what good, and bad, Consumer Duty compliance actually looks like in the wild.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Current Events

01:46 Discussing the FCA enforcement watch 2 update

06:12 Teardown of Bank Switching Process

09:06 The methodology for the research

11:18 Exploring the findings

16:19 Loud offers with quiet conditions

24:16 Looking out for financial distress

26:36 Switching in versus switching out

29:17 Dealing with vulnerability

32:30 The Language of Finance

37:31 Standardising financial product comparison

41:13 Wrapping up the findings

42:50 Jargon Busters: Hedging

Consumer duty turns three this month. Three years in, "we're working on it" stops being an excuse, and the FCA's tone has shifted from patient to pointed.

So we're kicking off our Q3 edition, The Trust Reset, with a four-part teardown series where we run real financial services journeys through the wringer and ask a simple question; is this actually fair, or does it just tick a box?

In this opener, the full team's back together to set the scene. We get into what's really changed since 2022, why "we don't sell to consumers" is a dangerous thing for a firm to believe, and how much of consumer duty comes down to accessibility and sludge.

We also lift the lid on UXDuty, the tool we built in-house to scan digital channels against the PRIN 2A rules and surface the friction firms would rather you didn't notice.

Next week we start the teardowns proper with bank switching, a big provider, a mid-tier one, and a challenger, side by side.

What we cover:

• Why year three of consumer duty is the year the excuses run out
• Distribution chains, and why more firms are in scope than think they are
• Accessibility as good practice, not a compliance chore
• Whether AI fixes digital channels or quietly makes them worse
• UX Duty: how we scan journeys for sludge and evidence board reports
• Jargon buster: escrow, explained

New episode every Friday. Fin the Week is the financial technology and marketing briefing from Indulge, a digital agency for financial services.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates

00:55 What's coming up in Q3?

06:09 What was the industry reaction to Consumer Duty?

11:36 Consumer Duty in 2026

13:47 Understanding the distribution chain for Consumer Duty

22:16 Consumer Duty is about making something that's better for everyone

26:22 Explaining what UXDuty is

35:33 Introducing the Consumer Duty teardown process

39:20 Jargon Busters!

To wrap up our Pragmatic AI Edition, we stop theorising and go looking for the receipts: where is the financial services sector actually putting AI to work? Amelia, Paul and Pat play a quick game of Yay-I or Nay-I, scoring five real-world deployments to decide whether each one is genuinely useful or just a bit of clever PR.

From Morgan Stanley arming its financial advisers with an internal chatbot, to Klarna's assistant doing the work of 700 agents in 35 languages, to Stripe's fraud-fighting Radar. We dig into what's impressive, what's overhyped, and where the human still matters most. Plus an NHS phone-bot anecdote that changes one sceptic's mind, a pitch for Lenny Henry to answer the Premier Inn phone, and this week's Jargon Buster: IPO.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

02:35 Morgan Stanley AI Chat Tool

08:53 Morgan Stanley AI Debrief Tool

12:23 Klarna's AI Assistant

24:03 Klarna's AI CEO

33:43 Stripe Radar

40:23 Jargon Busters: IPO

Fin the Week is the Friday financial technology and marketing briefing from Indulge: a digital agency for the global financial services sector.

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