Our research
The first university lab dedicated to agentic finance.
AI agents are beginning to act for people and firms: searching, negotiating, paying, borrowing and checking compliance. City Agentic Finance Lab (CAFiL) asks what it takes for them to do so reliably, fairly and accountably. Explore the four themes below, or talk to us about working on a question together.
Regulators are preparing: the FCA’s Mills Review, published in July 2026, recommends that the FCA “enable the foundations for agentic finance” (source: FCA, The Mills Review), and HM Treasury’s AI Adoption Plan for financial services, published in July 2026, includes recommendations on agentic payments (source: HM Treasury). CAFiL organises its work in four themes, joined by one programme that produces the evidence the field lacks.
Agentic Payments & Commerce
When software shops, negotiates and pays for us: mandates, liability, protocols and the economics of agent-to-agent markets.
Credit & Risk Intelligence
Fair, explainable credit decisions for people and firms, and a new question: who scores the agents?
Compliance Engineering & AI Assurance
AI agents in compliance operations, and the evaluation and assurance methods that let firms and regulators rely on them.
Digital Money & Tokenisation
Stablecoins, tokenised deposits, the digital pound and euro: which money will AI agents use?
Agentic Finance Evidence Programme
What works, what fails, how value is created, how to govern and how to explore safely.
Our scope
We do not work on cyber security, intrusion or threat detection, offensive or defensive security tooling, surveillance, or defence and military applications. Our work on compliance and fraud focuses on governance, evaluation, accountability, consumer protection, liability and redress — not on building detection or surveillance systems. Questions on cyber security and fraud-detection models are referred to specialist colleagues, including City St George’s Institute for Cyber Security.