InMarketing Today

The Chancellor, John Healey, has given the UK's two state-owned policy banks an extra £20.4bn over the next five years, City AM reports today: about £15.4bn to the National Wealth Fund and £5bn to the British Business Bank. He said the money would support 140,000 jobs in "strategic sectors", and the two banks will deploy up to £5bn over four years on defence, dual-use technology and sovereign capability.

The mechanism is the story. Since the fiscal rules were rewritten two years ago, the headline debt measure nets financial assets against borrowing, so a loan or equity stake made through these banks raises investment without raising measured debt. It breaks no rule. Oxford Economics had already called it "an accounting trick to raise investment within the fiscal rules", and that phrase will travel further than any jobs figure. When a structure needs a paragraph to explain it, critics will supply a shorter version.

If you lend to or invest in defence, infrastructure or growth companies, two state lenders have just become larger co-investors and competitors, so brief your origination and partnerships teams on where the money will go. And if any of your own products rely on a structure that flatters a number, write the one-line, plain-English explanation now, before someone else writes it for you.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management has appointed Kurtosys as its strategic technology partner for client reporting, after a global evaluation and onboarding process lasting more than 15 months, according to an announcement published on Finextra today. The firm wants to consolidate reporting that spans multiple platforms and workflows into one governed data foundation, with outputs tailored to each client. Kurtosys brings built-in audit trails, approvals and regulated communications compliance.

Client reporting is the most-read marketing an asset manager produces, and it is rarely treated as such. John Gibson, head of client service for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, framed the project around the client, not the software: "meeting each client where they are and providing data in the format they need." Fifteen months spent choosing a reporting supplier shows how much reputation sits in a quarterly pack. An inconsistent figure between two regions' reports says more about a firm's rigour than any brochure.

Treat client reporting as a marketing channel with a named brand owner. Pull last quarter's reports for three regions or client types, lay them side by side and check that the figures, language and look are consistent. If they are not, put marketing in the room the next time the reporting stack is reviewed.

NatWest has cut approval times for marketing content by 80% after folding artificial intelligence (AI) compliance agents from Adclear into its Workfront workflow system, according to Adclear, Finextra reports today. The tool screens website, social, marketing and advertising content in real time, flagging copy, creative or disclosures that risk falling foul of regulators before they go live. It replaces a patchwork of legacy tools and separate sign-off for each product line at a bank with 20 million customers.

The gain came from consolidation as much as from AI. Each product line had its own review process, and centralising marketing pushed more content through fewer compliance teams, creating a bottleneck. Matthew Harwood, NatWest's head of marketing and engagement, said Adclear turned compliance "from something that slowed marketing down into something that actively supports how fast we can move." With regulators intervening on more promotions as AI and influencers multiply the volume, review capacity is now a competitive constraint, not an administrative one.

Measure your own time from first draft to live, by product line, before you buy any tool. If each line runs its own review, the first saving comes from one standard and one workflow; automation then speeds up a process that already makes sense. The 80% figure comes from the vendor, so ask for the baseline before quoting it in a business case.