08:11 AM EDT, 04/21/2026 (MT Newswires) -- The UK Financial Conduct Authority said Tuesday it selected a group of financial institutions, including Barclays (BARC.L), Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L), UBS Group (UBSG.SW), and Experian (EXPN.L), to live test AI applications under its AI Lab program's second phase.

The initiative is designed to test how AI can be deployed safely across financial services, focusing on risk management and live monitoring. Participants in the group will test both customer-facing and business-to-business use cases, including AI-enabled targeted support for investments, credit score insights for consumers, agentic payments, anti-money laundering detection, and know your customer.

Testing is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with results to be published in the first quarter of 2027.