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The EU Artificial Intelligence Act Framework and implications for the financial services sector
Booking options
€140
+ VATDates
Highlights
Live Online
2.5 CPD Units | 2.5 Hours
The EIMF Live Online Learning Experience
Participants will receive access to the recorded sessions of the course.
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Course Overview
AI is rapidly transforming the global financial services industry, with the potential to disrupt and refine the existing nature of the industry. This is affecting, in particular, the banking, fund and insurance sectors, with the Economists Intelligence Unit analysis showing that some 86% of the industry plans to increase AI-related investment into technology by 2025.
From trading stocks to assessment of mortgages and from equity and bond research support to conducting AML controls, AI is poised to be a major productivity boost to the entire financial services industry. McKinsey estimates that Gen AI will improve productivity in core bank activities by 30 to 90% and cumulatively, productivity and other benefits would add 9 to 15% of banks operating profits.
AI, however, is increasingly recognised, notably in the EU, as having the potential to introduce or worsen risk exposures. Unintended bias or discrimination against certain groups of consumers is a heightened risk. Regulators fret about such risks translating into financial exposures for firms or if they give rise to large-scale operational risks, such as malicious actions by cyber-criminals injecting false data into LLMs, or hallucinations and deepfakes using realistic AI-generated audio, video images impersonations.
Whilst the major world economies are pursuing divergent regulatory approaches to governing AI in the financial sector, and beyond, the EU has embarked on the world's first initiative and highly distinctive framework for regulating AI - focusing on the risks of usage rather than applications. It is setting the de facto international standard. Further, the EU AI requirements apply to all 3rd country AI platforms used in the EU.
The scope is very comprehensive, and embraces:
Creators of AI models liable for how the technology is used – even when a 3rd-party embeds it in a different system
Scope: AI creators, service-providers, deployers, importers, distributors, and product manufacturers – but not users
AI Act requires 3rd-country providers/creators of AI systems to appoint an authorized representative established in the EU
Focus of the course content
This course in the EU AI Act will cover all the relevant regulatory aspects from a creator or originator perspective to ensure that banks, insurers and fund managers are fully compliant with the detailed rules of the Act.
Central to the EU AI regulatory agenda in this course is the identification of key risks associated with the adoption of AI by originators, with huge implications for banks, insurers, fund managers, brokers, traders, intermediaries and third-party licensees using the AI application.
The AI Act’s regulatory framework defines four levels of risk for AI systems: unacceptable, high, limited, and minimal or no risk. Systems posing unacceptable risks, such as threatening people’s safety, livelihood, and right, are banned. But high-risk AI systems in the financial services sector will be subject to robust pre-assessment, such as credit and social scoring models and evaluation by banks of creditworthiness of natural persons in loan origination and decisioning
The first obligations under the Act became applicable from 2 February 2025. Providers and deployers of AI systems must now ensure that their employees and contractors using AI have an adequate degree of AI literacy, for example by implementing training.
The course will also cover the recently-issued General-Purpose AI Code of Practice received by the EU Commission for application to providers of general-purpose AI models and general-purpose AI models with systemic risks. The Code includes transparency and copyright-related rules. For models that may carry systemic risks, providers are required to assess and mitigate these risks before introducing them into the EU marketplace.
The AI Act rules on general-purpose AI apply from 2 August 2025. The EC-housed AI Office is facilitating the drawing-up of a Code of Practice to detail out these rules. The Code should represent a central tool for providers to demonstrate compliance with the AI Act, incorporating state-of-the-art practices.
Training Objectives
In broad terms, by the end of the programme, participants will:
Have acquired a structures understanding of the current EU legislative landscape and priorities in the EU AI ACT, and related EU regulations pertaining to DORA and GDPR.
Be sufficiently conversant with the details of the key pieces of current and revised EU FS legislation to engage in a discussion with their professional peers, regulators and apply the knowledge in reviewing the impact on their business models
Training objectives
Understand the EU Institutional decision-making process from the EC proposal stage on both legislative packages to ratification by the EU Parliament and Council
Identify the various key provisions of the EU AI Act, and the more rigorous prior assessment that must be undertaken of all new pre-training data associated with ‘high-risk’ AI applications before it can rolled out across the 27EU.
Identify the new requirements under the above legislative packages that apply to the financial firm as an originator and creator of the AI applications as well as its continuing oversight of the ultimate usage of the original AI app by third-party licensees.
Build an awareness of the statutory requirements of the EU AI Act as defined by the EBA as financial service providers of ‘high-risk’ AI systems and deployers of ‘high-risk’ AI systems, ie, credit scoring, automated insurance claims and risk assessment tools in setting insurance premiums and granting mortgages.
Learn how to mitigate the downside of ‘high-risk’ AI systems
Be capable of anticipating questions and queries by national and Pan-EU supervisors relating to the EU AI package as it relates to your firm’s indigenous AI application.
Training Outline
The EU AI Act – introduction, scope and extra-territoriality extension
Prohibited AI practices
High-risk AI systems and their classification and rules
Requirements for high-risk AI systems
EU Codes of best practice for providers of general-purpose AI models and general-purpose AI models with systemic risks
AI Act Risk management system and ICT systems – links to DORA
Obligations of providers and deployers of high-risk AI systems and other parties
Role of national supervisors
Obligations of distributors
Identifying operational risks
Post-Market Monitoring by providers to track system performance, deviations or emerging risks
International regulatory approaches to supervising AI models
Who Should Attend
The course is addressed to:
COOs
CFOs
Regulatory Compliance Officers
National Supervisors
Financial Services Trade Bodies
Chief Legal Officers
Internal ITC Specialist
Chief Data Officers
Training Style
The programme is designed to deliver high-level knowledge and insights into the EU financial services regulatory agenda and developments. It will strive to enhance participants’ skills and knowledge via lectures supported by power-point presentations and practical examples. The training style is both training-focused, involving a combination of presentation and real-live examples, but also learner-focused, where participants are encouraged to raise questions, seek clarifications and share their opinions from their different perspectives and engage in an exchange of views and personal professional experiences.
CPD Recognition
This programme may be approved for up to 2.5 CPD units in Financial Regulation. Eligibility criteria and CPD Units are verified directly by your association, regulator or other bodies which you hold membership.
In-house Training
For groups within the same organisation, this course may be customized to meet any specific needs and delivered in-house.
Facilitators
David Doyle
Dr David Doyle is an EU policy advisor, expert and speaker, specialising in EU financial services regulation, based between Paris and Brussels. Prior to his EU regulatory role, he was a long-serving diplomatic career based on mainland Europe, spanning both multilateral and bilateral assignments in Paris and Brussels. Dr Doyle interfaces on a regular basis with key policy-makers and legislators in the corridors of all three EU Institutions (EC, European Parliament and Council), and, in addition, ESMA, the ECB and IOSCO. Furthermore, he has been a long-standing Board Member of the Board of the all-party EU parliamentary advocacy body, The Kangaroo Group, and Secretary of its Financial Services Working Group at the European Parliament. His authored works include Cost Control—A Strategic Guide (CIMA/Elsevier: London, 1994 and 2002) which was translated into 15 foreign languages, as well as contributing EU chapters to The Future of Finance after SEPA (Wiley: London, 2008), and A Practical Guide to Corporate Governance (Sweet & Maxwell: London, 2010). His academic activities include lecturing in Management Control as an adjunct faculty member at Paris-based institutions like the American University, HEC, ESSEC and ESCP. His alumni include the Technology University Dublin (formerly Dublin Institute of Technology), Trinity College , University of Dublin (Ireland), while in January 2004 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration at Kingston University, in recognition of his contribution to EU policy development for the growth and sustainability of small businesses.