Mills Review Signals FCA Focus on AI’s Long-Term Impact on Retail Finance

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched a major forward-looking review to assess how advanced artificial intelligence is likely to reshape retail financial services, consumer behaviour and regulatory oversight over the coming decade. Known as the Mills Review, the initiative underscores the FCA’s intention to remain ahead of rapid technological change while maintaining its principles-based approach to regulation.

Led by Sheldon Mills, the review builds on the FCA’s expanding body of work on AI, including its AI Discussion Paper, AI Sprint, AI Lab and live testing initiatives. It also draws on the regulator’s Supercharged Sandbox, supported by NVIDIA, which has positioned the UK as an early mover in supervised AI experimentation within financial services.

The FCA acknowledges that AI is already deeply embedded across the sector, from fraud detection and credit decisioning to customer engagement. However, it is the acceleration of generative, agentic and increasingly autonomous AI systems that has prompted closer scrutiny. The regulator expects these technologies to have the potential to reshape market structures, alter competitive dynamics and fundamentally change how consumers interact with retail financial products.

The review is structured around four interrelated themes. These include how AI may evolve in the coming years, particularly the emergence of more autonomous systems, and how such developments could affect firms, competition and the UK’s international competitiveness. It will also examine the impact on consumers, both in terms of how AI may influence decision-making and how rising consumer expectations could themselves shape markets. A final theme considers how financial regulators may need to adapt to ensure retail markets continue to function effectively in an AI-driven environment.

While wholesale markets and wider societal impacts fall outside the formal scope, the FCA has recognised that developments in these areas may indirectly influence retail financial services. Separate work on AI in wholesale markets is already under way, including through live testing partnerships, ensuring the review remains focused while informed by broader technological trends.

Importantly, the FCA has reiterated that it does not intend to introduce AI-specific regulation. Instead, the findings of the Mills Review will inform how the regulator applies and potentially evolves its existing principles-based framework, including the Consumer Duty, to ensure safe, trusted and outcomes-focused adoption of AI.

Feedback from firms, consumer groups, technology providers and academics will shape a series of recommendations to be presented to the FCA Board in summer 2026, followed by an external publication. The deadline for responses is 24 February 2026, signalling a relatively short consultation window for what could become a defining piece of regulatory thinking on AI in UK retail financial services.

Read the press release here.