Smart Pension joins consortium advancing AI solutions

Smart Pension, the UK’s tech-led workplace pension provider, joins an industry consortium to accelerate the development and adoption of trustworthy AI solutions within the financial services sector. The consortium is led by Stratiphy, a London fintech company making personalised investment solutions scalable, and has been awarded a £1 million grant from Innovate UK. 

As well as Stratiphy and Smart Pension, the consortium consists of the following academic and commercial partners: 

• University of Bristol: Providing expertise in AI and financial modelling 
• University of Birmingham: Providing expertise in trustworthy AI applications 
• Chenavari Investment Managers: Specialists in structured credit 
• Aventur Wealth: Technology-driven wealth management 

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is investing up to £21 million in innovation projects over the next decade. Despite the UK being a leader in AI research, it falls short in terms of AI adoption when compared to its global peers, and state funding is being provided to address this challenge. 

Daniel Gold, CEO at Stratiphy, said:

“We are thrilled to lead this consortium to deliver innovative AI solutions, offering high-value financial solutions. We have been joined by companies that are not only business leaders in their respective fields of wealth planning, pensions and structured credit, but also want to be at the cutting edge of innovation.” 

Paul Bucksey, Chief Investment Officer of Smart Pension, said:

“This is a particularly exciting initiative for us at Smart Pension. Not only does AI hold tremendous potential for the pensions industry, but our project with Stratiphy aims to introduce more personalisation and more trust which can only benefit savers and investors.” 

The award’s impact 

This award will fund an enhancement of Stratiphy’s personal investment management solution, incorporating cutting-edge AI technology. The awarding body acknowledged the consortium's diverse range of applications and its potential to make a substantial impact across UK financial services. 

The consortium’s initiative aligns with Innovate UK's mission to accelerate the adoption of trusted and responsible AI and Machine Learning (ML) technologies, while reducing bottlenecks during development and deployment processes. 

Globally, McKinsey predicts that AI and analytics could contribute up to $1 trillion annually to the value of global banking – it is therefore imperative that the UK is at the forefront of this revolution. 

Academic collaboration 

The collaboration will focus on fostering relationships and sharing knowledge between academics and industry, leveraging expertise from Dr John Cartlidge at the University of Bristol and Professor Karen Elliott at the University of Birmingham. 

Dr John Cartlidge, Associate Professor in Financial Informatics and Data Science, has previously acted as academic advisor on regulation technologies for the Financial Conduct Authority and carried out financial modelling for the London Stock Exchange. 

Professor Karen Elliott has expertise in trustworthy applications of AI having co-authored Towards an Equitable Digital Society: AI and Corporate Digital Responsibility. She also co-leads FinTrust and the UKFin Network+ projects which aim to optimise trustworthy and ethical AI. 

Commercial collaboration 

By harnessing the collective potential of academia and key industrial partners, the consortium aims to develop novel solutions in the market that address important commercial challenges across investment management that are trusted by end-users. 

“We are excited to partner with Stratiphy to drive innovation and foster responsible AI adoption,”

said Dr John Cartlidge, Associate Professor at the University of Bristol.

“We are working with experts in the field to contribute to this collaboration, and to strengthen our industrial ties.”

As the project lead applicant, Stratiphy will increase its focus on AI by expanding its team of specialists to support the technology development and to appropriately position itself well to address commercial challenges over the next decade. 

Ed Smalley, Chief Risk Officer at Chenavari, commented:

“Chenavari believes there is an opportunity to use AI technology to reshape the way credit fundamental analysis is performed. AI enables us to consider data of all shapes and sizes and to create tools to improve the speed and objectivity of analysis.” 

Stacey Body of Aventur:

“We're excited to collaborate on this project, which is at the forefront of building trustworthy AI solutions for financial services. Aventur believes AI will significantly revolutionise the industry by enabling deeper and more efficient analysis, personalisation, and accessibility, ultimately leading to better financial outcomes for all.” 

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1. Source: building-the-ai-bank-of-the-future.pdf