New data* reveals that UK finance leaders are significantly overloaded with digital tools and frustrated by poor integration.

Financial decision makers want tool integration, but many are dealing with tool overload, with over half (52%) of businesses believing they have too many tools or platforms. On average, finance teams juggle seven different platforms, with approximately 40% of these having poor or non-existent integration, causing disruption and inefficiencies in daily operations. Their frustration is just, given that UK workers spend 123 hours a year (more than 3 working weeks) switching between tools that don’t integrate well. This is according to Pleo’s survey of over 3,000 European (500 in the UK) financial decision-makers.

As AI adoption accelerates, seamless integration has emerged as a critical priority for finance professionals selecting digital tools. Business users need to ensure that the efficiency gains promised by AI aren’t compromised by disconnected systems. The study highlights a significant correlation between AI adoption and integration preferences:

• 87% of finance teams using AI extensively say seamless integration is a critical selling point.
• This importance dips to 72% for occasional AI users.
• It further drops significantly to 58% among those who rarely or never use AI.

These findings emphasise the urgent need for fintech solutions that prioritise seamless integration, particularly as organisations increasingly rely on AI to boost productivity and competitive advantage.

Pleo CFO, Søren Westh-Lonning, comments: “Being agile and able to make informed decisions quickly is vital in the current economic climate. However, finance teams are being bogged down, not just by too many tools but poorly integrated ones. The future of AI in finance is an exciting one, and AI has the ability to evaluate data and draw conclusions at a much faster rate compared to its human counterparts. But it’s only able to do this when fully integrated into a business’s ecosystem. Finance leaders need to be empowered to evaluate the tool stack which the business and their teams are using, and identify the solutions which really are enabling the business to operate with pace and precision.” 

*Data from rom Pleo

Research Methodology

The survey was conducted among 3,250 finance professionals working in the finance department and financial decision-makers across the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. The interviews were conducted online by Sapio Research in December 2024 and January 2025 using an email invitation and an online survey.