Lloyds Bank is looking to invest in cybersecurity and technology related to insurance and regulatory monitoring in 2024 amid uncertain macroeconomic conditions.  

“I like regtech because it’s important to keep on innovating in that space,” Robin Scher, head of fintech investment at Lloyds Bank, said at FinovateEurope last week. “We are also looking at cybersecurity and financial crime because that’s a big problem that banks have got.”

The $1.1 trillion bank will also keep a close eye on insurtech companies for potential investments as that is “an industry that seriously needs to be digitized and transformed,” Scher said. 

Insurtech is becoming very important for banks amid climate change, uncertain geopolitical scenarios and macroeconomic conditions, Sophie Winwood, operating partner at venture capital firm Foxe Capital, said at FinovateEurope. 

London-based Lloyds is exploring gen AI investments with caution because “people are scared of gen AI” due to inaccuracies, Scher said. 

“A lot of the investors are taking a step back and looking at what the big vendors are going to do there,” Scher said. “That being said, we will definitely explore companies that have done a lot of R&D and selling a very specific product to solve a problem.” 

In the past 18 months, Lloyds has invested in the following companies, according to Crunchbase; 

• Fnality International, which uses blockchain technology to settle transactions. London-based Fnality has raised $137 million since its inception in 2019. 
• Enigio, a Stockholm-based financial data-sharing platform that has raised $10.8 million since its inception in 2012. 
• Yoti, a London-based digital identity verification platform that has raised $49 million since its inception in 2014. 

The bank has been modernizing and digitalizing its operations and expects to save $1.5 billion through those efforts in 2024, according to fourth-quarter earnings released Feb. 22. 

Lloyds also teamed up with Aveni.ai, an IT services consulting company, to improve online shopping customer experience, according to a Jan. 31 release. 

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