Open Banking Expo has announced the Engine Room podcast studio as a new feature of its UK & Europe event, scheduled to take place on 13–14 October at London’s Business Design Centre, offering organisations a live recording space on the show floor. The claim is that the studio will do more than decorate the agenda: it is positioned as a working production facility where attendees can record, broadcast and publish podcast content during the event itself.
What the Engine Room podcast studio will offer
The concept is straightforward in outline. The Engine Room will function as both a live content stage and a professional recording space, allowing delegates to watch podcast conversations happen in real time or step behind the microphone themselves. Participants can bring their own host and guests, choose their own topic, and record an episode during the event. Open Banking Expo says it will supply the studio, production support, a live audience and edited podcast files.
That last point is worth pausing on. The promise is not merely a room with microphones: the organisation is claiming it will deliver a finished, edited audio product that participants can publish after the event. Whether the editing turnaround and production quality will match what delegates expect from a polished podcast is a claim that can only be evaluated once the first episodes land. For now, it is an intention, not a track record.
Adam Cox, co-founder of Open Banking Expo, said: ‘The Engine Room is about putting the industry’s most important conversations directly into the hands of the people driving change. Whether attendees want to listen in, learn from their peers or create their own podcast content, the studio will bring a new dimension to the Expo experience.’
The event’s broader scale puts the studio in context
The studio is one element inside a considerably larger event. According to Coinpedia Events, the 2026 edition of Open Banking Expo UK & Europe is set to draw more than 1,800 participants from banking, fintech, payments and digital industries, with more than 200 expert speakers and five dedicated stages running over 60 sessions covering Smart Data, APIs, payments and innovation.
Those numbers, if accurate, position the Engine Room within a busy content programme rather than as the centrepiece of it. Five stages with 60-plus sessions is already a substantial slate; the studio appears designed to run alongside that formal programme, capturing conversations that might otherwise happen only in the corridor.
The event’s stated focus is the shift from open banking strategy to execution, with Open Banking Expo describing its audience as banks, fintechs, payments providers, regulators, policymakers and enterprise leaders. The Engine Room, the organisation says, reflects ‘the growing importance of high-quality, in-person dialogue as the sector moves from strategy to execution.’ That framing is reasonable as a characterisation of where the open banking sector currently sits, though the idea that a podcast studio addresses an execution gap is more of a marketing position than a causal argument.
What organisations need to know before booking
Open Banking Expo is inviting organisations to secure a slot in the Engine Room ahead of the event. The process, as described, requires participants to bring their own concept, host and guests; the Expo provides the environment and production support. Full details and booking are available via the Open Banking Expo UK agenda.
The practical question for any organisation weighing a slot is whether a live audience and an edited audio file represent a meaningful return on the preparation required to record a polished episode in public, at a trade event, under time pressure. The answer will depend heavily on how well the production support is executed on the day.
What is clear is the date: 13 and 14 October at the Business Design Centre in London. Organisations that want a slot in the Engine Room will need to move before those dates arrive. The event makes no mention of a waiting list, but a studio with a finite number of daily slots and a delegate list of more than 1,800 will presumably fill up.
