The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) presents immense opportunities for innovation and growth across the sector, but with this comes a myriad of challenges for financial advice, planning and wealth management firms in building, testing, and deploying reliable AI solutions. 

Access to high-quality data, robust evaluation metrics, and seamless integration tools remains a barrier for many looking to leverage AI effectively.

To explore this exciting new area and begin to address these issues, PIMFA WealthTech, created by the industry association PIMFA to develop new concepts and promote the latest technologies, have today in collaboration with Morningstar, a leading provider of independent investment insights, launched a new AI Tech Sprint – a competition for fintech firms to showcase their tech capabilities.

This Tech Sprint asks “How can wealth management and financial advice firms leverage AI to enhance operational efficiency by optimizing end-to-end processing across front, middle, and back-office functions?”.

 Example use cases that firms could use AI solutions to solve include:

• Accelerating onboarding and enhancing KYC checks by automating identity verification, document processing, and leveraging AI for real-time customer verification, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance.
• Improving periodic suitability reviews through automation and enhanced accuracy in compliance checks.
• Personalising client reporting by using AI to tailor communications, generate customized reports, and provide insights based on client preferences.
• Innovating software development by using AI to automate the entire software development cycle

This challenge provides fintech companies with exclusive access to Morningstar’s cutting-edge Intelligence Engine - a powerful platform designed to support the full lifecycle of generative AI development -  and for the winner, an opportunity to present at Morningstar Investment Conference UK on 7th May 2025.

The Morningstar Intelligence Engine offers participants a robust platform for building, testing, and deploying generative AI applications; a suite of evaluation metrics to ensure accuracy and reliability and turnkey access to Morningstar’s extensive data and research, along with the ability to bring in external content via direct storage and API connections. 

Mayank Prakash, Outgoing PIMFA WealthTech Chair and Group Chief Operations Officer at Evelyn Partners said:

"PIMFA WealthTech was created to be at the forefront of innovative thinking around tech solutions that can open up substantial opportunity for our industry. As Chair of the advisory council, I can think of no better example of this than the Tech Sprint we are launching today on AI.

AI is undoubtably not only a major change moment in the wealth and advice space, but globally as well, impacting all of our lives. This sprint will give fintechs the opportunity to leverage Morningstar’s specialist data and analytics to delve into use cases, exploring opportunities for innovation that could bring meaningful improvements to the client journey by increasing adviser productivity and reducing end-to-end costs. I greatly look forward to seeing the entries to this Tech Sprint and sharing these fascinating insights with the wider community".

Anastasia Georgiou, Director of Market Expansion at Morningstar commented:

"Innovation thrives on collaboration and access to the right tools. By providing fintech companies with our Intelligence Engine as part of the Tech Sprint challenge, we aim to empower them to develop reliable and impactful AI solutions that address real challenges within the wealth management sector and enhance user experience.

We look forward to showcasing the winners at this year’s Morningstar Investment Conference UK, helping to expand access to innovative, tech-driven tools for advisers and fund selectors."

Call to Fintechs: Get involved and showcase your solution!

If you are a FinTech firm and can demonstrate how your technology solution can benefit financial advice, planning and wealth management firms and their clients with the use of Morningstar Intelligence Engine, please complete this register here for more information.