UK Financial Firms Make Emerging Tech a Top Growth Priority, Lloyds Survey Finds

UK financial institutions are moving emerging technology from the margins to the centre of their growth plans, according to the tenth annual Financial Institutions Sentiment Survey from Lloyds.

The survey, which polled more than 100 senior decision-makers across banks, insurers, private equity firms and asset and wealth managers, found that 77% now name investment in new and emerging technology as a growth priority. That is up from 41% a year ago and just 25% in 2024, a tripling in two years that Lloyds reads as budgets converting from pilots into production.

The spending intentions back that up. Nearly two-thirds of institutions, 64%, plan to raise capital expenditure year-on-year, directing funds towards infrastructure, productivity and operational resilience rather than one-off proofs of concept. And 91% expect to grow their technology spend over the next 12 months, with artificial intelligence and data the primary targets.

The capex commitment is the telling detail. Institutions do not raise multi-year spending on capabilities they are still testing, so the willingness to fund technology through the balance sheet signals that the experimentation phase is genuinely drawing to a close for much of the sector.

For a financial services industry that has spent recent years running AI and data projects as contained trials, the survey points to a decisive shift towards treating emerging technology as core operating infrastructure.