The UK’s Labour Party unveils goals that will make the UK a leader in fintech

The UK’s Labour Party recently revealed a highly ambitious plan to make the country one of the global fintech leaders. According to a series of goals that it has shared, the Labour Party intends to deliver the next phase of open banking, embrace securities tokenization and a digital pound, and become a new standard setter regarding the usage of artificial intelligence (AI).

The plans and goals shared by the party came as part of its campaign to win the next election, clearly targeting tech-savvy voters excited to see the arrival of advanced new technologies and their implementation in everyday life.

The Labour Party wants the UK to lead the world in financial technologies

The opposition party already has a strong lead in the polls, and the promises made will likely cement its leadership in popularity. While the election date has not been scheduled yet, it is expected to take place in 2024, or at the latest, it must take place by late January 2025.

The Labour Party warned that the country is danger of falling behind others in terms of innovation in financial services, which it sees as something that must not be allowed to happen. In order to prevent it, it shared a coordinated strategy with plans to adopt a regulatory framework that would allow the UK to adopt new technology and lead the world into an even more digital financial era.

Commenting on the Bank of England’s efforts to develop its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), the party said that it fully supports the decision. Not only that, it also wants to embrace the tokenization of securities, arguing that the move could bring a significant boost to liquidity and provide access to new asset classes and fractionalized assets.

Adopting tokenization, leading AI, and advancing open banking

The plan also says that the future Labour government — should the party win the election — will look toward making the UK a global leader in tokenization by advancing work to clarify the law surrounding tokenization. Further, it will work with regulators to establish a proportionate regulatory regime that would be based on outcomes and would be used to oversee and properly handle the new financial technologies.

Finally, the party also said that it wants to take the lead in the AI sector and set the standards that the whole world would be able to follow and adopt as the best available ones for this technology.

Right now, the party has been a strong supporter of the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee, especially when it comes to its work of defining the next phase of Open Banking. One aspect of it was laying out the long-term regulatory framework.

The Labour Party also promises to deliver a roadmap for the Open Banking sector, claiming that it sees great potential in it and that it could help improve financial inclusion and support saving and investment in UK households.