Equals Partners with Aiimi to Automate GDPR Compliance and Data Subject Access Requests

Equals has entered a strategic partnership with Aiimi to automate its data governance and compliance workflows. For fintech professionals, this move highlights the growing operational pressure of UK GDPR mandates, specifically the rising volume of Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs) which now carry significant financial and reputational risks for regulated firms.

What was announced

Equals is integrating Aiimi’s AI-powered DSAR tool to streamline how it manages personal data requests. The platform is designed to address the strict regulatory requirement of responding to DSARs within one calendar month. This is a critical compliance area, as the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has reported a 15% rise in complaints related to DSARs within the financial services sector. Failure to meet these obligations can result in fines reaching £17.5 million or 4% of global annual turnover.

The implementation utilizes Aiimi’s new SaaS deployment model, hosting the tool in a secure cloud environment. The technology automates several labor-intensive tasks, including the redaction of third-party data at scale, identifying and removing duplicate content, and threading information from complex email chains. Furthermore, the platform facilitates two-way communication with the data subjects and generates a comprehensive audit log to demonstrate compliance to regulators. By automating these processes, the data protection team at Equals aims to reduce the time spent on manual data retrieval and focus on higher-value strategic initiatives.

"At Equals, our clients trust us to protect their data every time they move money through our platform. We treat data governance as core infrastructure, not paperwork. The operational burden to comply with DSAR requests has steadily grown in recent years, requiring more resources from our data protection team, all the way up to senior leadership. We recognised an opportunity to power our DSAR processes with robust automation, scale with demand and reinforce our compliance practices."

Lee Rowles, Data Protection Officer at Equals.

The companies involved

Equals is a next-generation global money movement platform. The firm positions itself as a technology-led alternative to traditional banking for international payments and currency management. In the highly regulated UK market, Equals operates under the oversight of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), necessitating a rigorous approach to data handling and financial crime prevention.

Aiimi is a data organization and AI specialist that provides platforms for enterprise data governance. The company focuses on helping organizations in regulated industries discover, enrich, and manage their information assets. Its platform is designed to handle the complexities of sensitive information, particularly in sectors like financial services where data privacy is paramount. By providing tools that bridge the gap between raw data and regulatory requirements, Aiimi has established itself as a key partner for firms looking to mitigate the risks associated with information management and UK GDPR compliance.

What this means

This partnership signals a shift in how fintechs view compliance—moving it from a back-office burden to a core technological pillar. As the ICO becomes more active in monitoring DSAR complaints, the manual "search and redact" approach is no longer viable for firms scaling their customer bases. The industry is seeing increased pressure on data protection officers who must balance rapid growth with stringent privacy laws. This move puts pressure on legacy institutions and smaller fintechs alike to prove they can handle data rights with the same speed they handle transactions. The central question for the sector is whether AI-driven governance will become a mandatory standard rather than a competitive advantage as regulatory scrutiny intensifies.