In this episode, we are joined by Barbara Gottardi, CEO of Finbridge Global. We talk about how Financial Institutions strangle Fintechs during the process of identifying and onboarding them and how there's a better way for both parties to succeed.

Barbara talks about her ambition that Finbridge Global becomes the worlds leading Fintech Credential platform and muses what was going through her mind to leave the (relative) safety of a corporate career as CIO at one of the the worlds largest Banks to embrace the life of an entrepreneur and CEO of her own start-up.

In this Episode Mark Rothwell-Brooks is joined by Debra Bilikha and they explore why organisations — especially banks and financial institutions across the GCC — are struggling to move from AI enthusiasm to AI execution. While pilots and demos are everywhere, enterprise-scale deployment remains rare. The core issue isn’t AI itself, but a lack of AI readiness.

The discussion highlights the biggest barriers to implementation: chaotic data landscapes, missing governance frameworks, shadow AI, weak monitoring, and the absence of meaningful outcome-based measurement. AI exposes underlying organisational weaknesses, particularly in data quality and accessibility, which account for the majority of delivery effort.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept for regulators — it’s rapidly becoming the engine driving a new era of real-time supervision. For decades, oversight relied on periodic check-ups, quarterly filings, and resource-heavy audits that often surfaced problems only after they’d taken root. But that world is changing fast. AI now gives regulators the ability to monitor risks as they emerge, anticipate failures before they occur, and work with banks in a far more proactive and collaborative way.

In this episode, Mark Rothwell-Brooks explores how continuous data flows, predictive analytics, automated compliance, and intelligent communication tools are reshaping the traditional supervisory relationship.

But innovation always brings tension. Greater visibility creates questions about privacy, model bias, transparency, and the widening gap between tech-ready institutions and those being left behind. We’ll unpack not just the opportunities but also the pitfalls — and examine what this shift means for banks, regulators, and the future stability of the financial system. If AI is implemented well, it could usher in a safer, smarter, and more resilient era for global banking. If it’s mishandled, it could create entirely new risks. Let’s break down the possibilities, the challenges, and the emerging reality of AI-driven regulation.