Interview: Edmund Towers, Financial Conduct Authority, UK IT Industry Awards finalist
"Our work is to protect consumers from financial scams."
IT is modernising and improving the world, not only increasing productivity but also improving communication.
The UK IT Industry Awards are the largest and most well-known event in the technology industry calendar. Owned and operated by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and Computing, the awards enjoy a level of professionalism and industry knowledge not seen at other shows.
This year's winners will be announced at a live awards ceremony on Wednesday 9th November in London.
One of the finalists is the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which has reached the shortlist for not just one or two, but five categories: Business Analyst of the Year; IT Apprentice of the Year; Best Financial Services IT Project of the Year; Best Technology Refresh Project of the Year; and Best User Engagement Project of the Year.
We talked to Edmund Towers, Head of Advanced Analytics & Data Science Units at the FCA, to find out how the organisation has used IT for success.
Edmund leads the FCA's data science capability, a multidisciplinary department responsible for solving regulatory challenges through data science solutions.
Before working at the FCA, Edmund was a manager in Accenture's Financial Services Change Practice, delivering transformation in financial services organisations.
Edmund is a specialist across data, analytics, innovation, strategic transformation and cultural change.
Computing: Please provide some background on your company for our readers.
Edmund Towers: The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the regulator for the majority of the UK's financial services firms. Our goal is to ensure that markets operate with integrity; promote effective competition; and protect consumers of financial services.
What one company achievement in the last 12 months are you most proud of?
Our work is to protect consumers from financial scams. Nearly 100,000 new domains are created globally on a daily basis. Identifying and reviewing new sites manually would be impossible; using a variety of filters including NLP analysis of key terms and indicators of a UK location, we are able to reduce this to ~40 that require manual review. In 2021, we made 573 interventions to take down websites or impose restrictions on firms' use of financial promotions.
What are you working on this year?
We are increasing our programmatic use of social media data to help us analyse emerging issues impacting consumers and strengthen early signals we receive through other channels. We are also working on a range of projects to increase our efficiency: using data science and machine learning to help us improve triage and NLP techniques to analyse unstructured data.
Why are events like the UK IT Industry Awards important to the IT industry?
The UK has an incredibly strong IT industry. We are lucky enough to have some of the best global talent. That should be celebrated. Events like this one showcase the enormous breadth of inspiring work and the impact it is having.
The UK IT Industry Awards will take place on 9th November in London. Click here to view the shortlist and here to book your table.