In an industry that is progressing at a blistering speed, finance's only option to stay on top of the game is with AI, reducing the roles humans have played for centuries. Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past two years, you would have seen the bedlam surrounding the stratospheric rise of cryptocurrency. This is particularly relevant with bitcoin, going from something at the fringe of fintech to the mainstream as every person and their dog suddenly considered investing in a real unknown quantity. While its long-term existence remains to be seen, the continued interest has shown that traditional banks and the latest start-ups have identified that the old ways of turning up to a branch, or even using an ATM, could be the banking equivalent of watching a movie on VHS. In its place comes a raft of new technologies, none more so apparent than the one that promises to not only shake up how customers interact with their banks, but how banks fundamentally operate: artificial intelligence (AI). From an outsider's perspective, the most obvious sign of AI's role in the change of banking is part of the overall digitisation of the traditional bank, whereby instead of dealing with physical branches or human tellers, you operate largely online, particularly through mobile.

PSD2 stands for second payment standards directive, and was issued by the EU with the intent to open access to data and services previously only available to banks. In theory, PSD2 went into effect on January 13, and should provide a clear framework for implementation. The difference between theory and practice is small in theory, but big in practice. PSD2 is defined in a set of documents published by the EU, which are to be subsequently implemented as legislation by parliaments in EU countries and enforced by regulating bodies. PSD2 will effectively force financial institutions active in the EU to open up data and functionality previously only available to them to other parties.

If you've spent any time reading the round-up of 2018 technology predictions, you've likely seen artificial intelligence (AI) highlighted in nearly every one. The reason for this is that AI has a seemingly limitless number of applications and use cases for the enterprise. In fact, according to Gartner, over 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human by 2020. While AI is definitely a hot topic to watch in 2018, there are also a few other tech areas that will have equally exciting momentum and just as big an impact on the enterprise in the year ahead. Following we'll take a deeper look at what some of those will be and how they might shape 2018.

The startup scene in the UK is booming and sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the exciting companies and understand what they're working on. Here we present 10 of the startups we think you might want to follow over the next year and maybe even try out what they're working on for yourself. Graphcore is building a new type of processor for machine intelligence to try and speed up machine learning and AI applications. Nigel Toon, Graphcore's CEO & co-founder, says the startup's products will be available very soon. "Graphcore's first Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) products, which are designed from the ground up specifically for artificial intelligence, will be with early access customers at the beginning of the year and we will be shipping in volume swiftly afterwards," says Toon.

The Second Payments Services Directive (PSD2) is a wide-ranging piece of European legislation that will transform the payments industry. Alternatively referred to as the'Open Banking' initiative, PSD2 promises to increase consumer choice in the payments sector. It will force banks, who have traditionally held a monopoly over the provision of payments services, to allow new, third party providers to'build on top of' their existing payments infrastructure and offer their own services. The directive, incoming in January, is of seismic importance to both banks and payments providers. Banks are sensing the need to move quickly so as not to simply become'utilities' similar to the water or telephone company, with only a small stable of products to offer.

Artificial intelligence technology could help banks retain the important link with customers when open banking arrives in Europe early next year. Computer Weekly takes a look at how some of the world's biggest financiial brands have moved to the cloud, and share a cautionary tale or two about the mistakes some have made while trying to get there. You forgot to provide an Email Address. This email address doesn't appear to be valid. This email address is already registered.

Machine learning is sexy – just ask my colleague Gabriel Hopkins! So it's not surprising to find machine learning being advocated as the answer for payment service providers looking to manage fraud in the world of PSD2. Why does PSD2 make machine learning more important than ever in the fight against fraud? Given the current levels of hype around machine learning, you'd be forgiven for thinking it is a brand new innovation. Actually, the use of machine learning to fight fraud has a long and successful pedigree.

AI is no longer a differentiator amongst startups, it has become a default feature that most firms will need to have as one of their core capabilities. UK has never been short of AI success stories, with one of the first being Deepmind, that was acquired by Google in 2014. The Fintech wave was just getting started then, and there have been some good tales in the UK-AI-Consumer Fintech space, across various sub-clusters. Cleo, an AI assistant that helps customers manage personal finance was founded in 2015, and after two years of work was launched commercially this year. The AI assistant taps into consumers' bank accounts and helps them save money.

The last twelve months have seen AI fever reach new peaks. Every technology giant we could name have got a huge AI story to tell. Starting with IBM Watson, Google Allo, Facebook AI Research, Amazon Echo have all had major traction. This is also reflected in investments being made into the AI industry. Industry leaders magazine predict 2017 would be the year of AI investments.