An interview with Fraser Edmond, co-founder of Broker Insights
Earlier this month, we met with Fraser Edmond, CEO and co-founder of the Insurtech Broker Insights. The company recently won an award and is growing at pace. We wanted to know more about Broker Insights and the reasons for its success.
Fraser, could you tell us a bit more about yourself and your career?
I was 25 years in Aviva, latterly the Broker Distribution Director before leaving to set-up Broker Insights. In my early career I started as an insurance underwriter (writing policies), then moved to London for a few years. There I held a number of development and operational management roles. For the last 15 years my focus has been in the sales and distribution space having worked with banks, retailers and affinity brands to distribute personal insurance products. More recently moving to commercial insurance, working with all shapes and sizes of insurance brokers.
How did Broker Insights come about?
When you have a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo, you feel there’s got to be a better way of doing something. You have a moment of clarity and realise how to do’ differently. It’s then a case of assembling the best possible blend of skills to deliver on that vision and go for it.
Within Scottish fintechs, insurtechs are rare? How do you explain this?
That’s a tough one, my best guess is that Scotland is a massive employer in the banking sector, which has seen unprecedented change in recent years which inevitably leads to fintech start-ups around the sector. In terms of insurtech, I think it’s a few years behind fintech in general coupled with Insurance being very London centric with less roles in Scotland and that starts to explain the imbalance a little bit.
You recently scooped £75K at the Scottish Edge12 Awards. Congratulations!
Do you know what made you win?
The feedback we received from Scottish Edge across the various rounds centred around solving a real market challenge, being unique with first mover advantage and globally scalable, coupled with the experience of the team and our early demonstrable delivery.
Will the prize help you accelerate your development?
The prize accelerates our rate of recruitment ahead of current cashflow forecasts, which will drive growth and product development, and hopefully help us capitalise on our first mover advantage.
You have some very impressive investors backing you up. How did you go about identifying and convincing them?
We knew we had the sector knowledge and all the good disciplines that you learn in corporate. Our weakness was the tech know how’ and start-up dynamics were new to us. With Chris [Van Der Kuyl] and Paddy [Burns] we struck gold in complementing our teams skills. They needed no identification as their track record speaks for itself. In terms of convincing them to be involved, that was everything you would expect. We also had the good fortune that our business aligns with their interests of being first to market with a new concept, in data and technology and our concept was globally scalable.
Would you have any advice for young fintech start-ups?
Don’t be pre-built technology looking for a problem to solve. Really understand a sector, then build technology that solves an existing market problem, challenge or customer experience. Scan other sectors for technology solutions that could translate to your opportunity. Consult widely on your business concept and don’t be afraid to refine it until its really clear and focussed. Most importantly, you need the right blend of skills in your team with the right mind set and you’re ready to make a difference.
FinTech Scotland Announces Board Members
FinTech Scotland has today announced the board members who will work with CEO Stephen Ingledew and team to oversee the strategic plans for making Scotland a top five global fintech centre.
The details of the board members follow on from the announcement last month confirming the new chair of FinTech Scotland, David Fergusson, the Chief Executive of Nucleus Financial.
The board members represent a cross section of the fintech economy, including representatives from the six recently announced strategic partners.
The board members are:
David Fergusson (Chair) – Chief Executive, Nucleus Financial
Jude Cook – Co-Founder and CEO, ShareIn
Hugh Edmiston – Corporate Services Director, University of Edinburgh
Louise Smith ”“ Head of Design, RBS
Linda Hanna ”“ Managing Director, Scottish Enterprise
Kent Mackenzie ”“ Partner and Global Head of fintech in Scotland, Deloitte
Anneli Ritari-Stewart – Managing Director, iProspect, Dentsu Aegis Network
Melba Foggo ”“ Managing Director, UK Consulting, Sopra Steria
Yvonne Dunn ”“ Partner, Pinsent Masons
Neil Cunningham – Partnerships Director, Equifax UK
Paul Ryan – Director of Watson Artificial Intelligence & Data, IBM
In addition, the following will attend board meetings in an observer role:
Maggie Craig ”“ Head of Scotland, Financial Conduct Authority
Karen Rodger ”“ Head of Financial Services and fintech Policy, Scottish Government
Commenting on the board appointments, Stephen Ingledew said: “I’m delighted with the diverse range of experience and expertise we will have around the Board table to guide us in taking forward the FinTech Scotland plans. Each individual is passionate about making fintech a major success in Scotland and, at a personal and collective level, they will provide wise counsel and guidance in driving our core values of collaboration, innovation and inclusion.”
The first board meeting took place on Tuesday 26thJune, reflecting on the last six months and focussing on strategic priorities for the rest of the year.
Public Blockchains and the Unbanked
According to The World Bank, only 62% of the world’s adult population has a bank or other financial account. This means, nearly 2 billion people around the world do not have bank accounts.
According to the World Bank’s 2016 Findex Report, this is why financial inclusion is so crucial:
Financial inclusion has been broadly recognized as critical in reducing poverty and achieving inclusive economic growth. Financial inclusion is not an end in itself, but a means to an end””there is growing evidence that it has substantial benefits for individuals. Studies show that when people participate in the financial system, they are better able to start and expand businesses, invest in education, manage risk, and absorb financial shocks. Access to accounts and to savings and payment mechanisms increases savings, empowers women, and boosts productive investment and consumption. Access to credit also has positive effects on consumption””as well as on employment status and income and on some aspects of mental health and outlook. The benefits go beyond individuals. Greater access to financial services
for both individuals and firms may help reduce income inequality and accelerate economic growth.
Furthermore, there are some real challenges to providing this financial inclusion, especially in emerging markets -Many people lack access to financial services due to eitherprohibitive costs or barriers to their use, such as regulations that require extensive paperwork, travel distance, legal hurdles, or other market failures.
How can we, as an ecosystem, better serve a large percentage of these unbanked individuals? The answer is likely through the use of globally scalable, cloud- based APIs, in combination with decentralized blockchain. Let us examine.
Prohibitive Costs
Multiple studies have shown that it can cost over $1 (per minute in some cases) each time a call is made to a financial services call center. This is one of the major reasons for high minimum balances, strict account opening requirements, and high fees for most financial services in developing markets.
Account balances of less than $100 are unprofitable for the average financial institution. However, cloud based APIs and blockchain offer a solution to this issue.Via decentralisation, data, support, and analytics can be provided to customers instantly. Gone are call centers””instead replaced with intelligent FAQ, blockchain-trained AI, and mobile alerts.
Onerous Paperwork
The majority of the world’s financial institutions do not supportdigital customer onboarding. This is not only due to a lack of necessary infrastructure and APIs to do so, but also the high cost of performing KYC, legacy document signing frameworks, and security concerns when actions are not performed in person.
For many, gaining access to a financial institution means travelling long distances. As a result, hundreds of millions of people in rural areas are ostracized from the financial system.By integrating cloud-based APIs and the public blockchain into their systems, financial institutions can instead offer a digital onboarding process. In this scenario, because onboarding may be done conveniently and securely on a mobile device, a variety of financial products can be offered, such as banking, savings, investing, insurance and more, greatly increasing the inclusion of these underserved populations.
How do these technologies achieve this goal? By leveraging the power of U.S. cloud infrastructure, within local regulatory frameworks. In such environments, APIs can be deployed all over the world. Best of all, cloud-based APIs can potentially support any language, currency or financial institution.
What if any person around the world could have an immutable fingerprint, stored on the blockchain, and have it accessible through any API-based financial platform? They could use this fingerprint to open accounts, sign documents, and more. As long as this person has access to their mobile device, and the financial institution is using REST APIs, they are good to go, no matter where they live. No more KYC and AML costs, no more paperwork.The singularity of this ID is conceptually similar to a “Snowflake”, in that no two areexactly alike.We are in the midst of a second digital revolution; It is time for financial services incumbents to embrace this opportunity.
The author
Mike Kane is CEO of cloud-based fintech API company, Hydrogen. Hydrogen allows for the digitization of financial solutions. From core infrastructure and complex financial calculations to blockchain security, firms can begin with easy-to-implement solutions and phase in other features over time. Hydrogen began as a product offering of a consumer fintech company, Hedgeable. As there was overwhelming demand and potential for Hydrogen, the team decided to scale it outside of the strict confines of a consumer application.
FinTech Scotland announces additional strategic partners
FinTech Scotland announced the appointment of IBM and Equifax as additional strategic partners.
IBM: The company has been leading the way in terms of AI for many years now with Watson, the AI platform for business, powered by data. As an AI system, Watson can turn unstructured business data into actionable insights that enhance decision making. AI is playing a major role in the development of innovative and disruptive fintech solutions, allowing for seamless processes for customers and companies dealing with finances.
Equifax: Data is the fuel that will drive innovation and it was therefore important to partner with a global data insights provider. Equifax, have a rich heritage of helping companies develop innovative solutions underpinned by market leading consumer and business data.
The addition of IBM and Equifax means that FinTech Scotland has now appointed six strategic partners following last month’s announcement confirming the selection of Pinsent Masons, Deloitte, Dentsu Aegis Network and Sopra Steria.
“Today marks the start of a promising collaboration with Fintech Scotland to grow innovative solutions and practices” said Paul Ryan, Director for Watson at IBM. “This is particularly significant as financial organisations look to further incorporate data and AI insights to provide a better service for their customers and stakeholders, from boosting customer engagement, creating conversational agents or even supporting client representatives as they interact with customers.”
Neil Cunningham, Partnerships Director at Equifax, said: “The Fintech Scotland vision aligns perfectly with our own
aspirations to be the de facto bureau partner for data driven innovation. Increasingly our customers are looking to
us to help solve their problems by creating unique solutions in collaboration with fintech partners. I think we’ve all
been impressed by the blend of complementary strategic partners Stephen has been able to assemble, and excited
at the potential to drive innovation through collaboration. ”
Stephen Ingledew, CEO at FinTech Scotland, said: “Strategic partners of this quality supporting the fintech ecosystem in Scotland will help us achieve our ambition to be in the top 5 fintech hubs in the world. I’m pleased to have a diverse set of strategic partners and with their expertise and global reach, they will play a crucial role in ensuring Scotland’s position on the world stage.”
Previse named as one of the hottest fintechs in Europe
Previse, the global instant supplier payments decisions company with an office in Glasgow, has been recognised as one of the hottest fintechs in Europe by Fintech50 at an exclusive ceremony in London on Wednesday 20 June.
The Fintech50 is a prestigious list of the top fintech companies in Europe, chosen by an expert panel of leaders from around the world, representing investors, financial organisations, global techs and innovation leaders. Previse was selected from over 1,800 fintechs from all over Europe.
In choosing the final 50, the judges look for companies with a track record as well as growth potential for the future. The list included Revolut, the retail FX company which this year was valued at over £1 billion, as well as a number of well-known fintechs serving institutional investors.
This is the latest in a year of positive announcements for Previse. The company opened a new Glasgow office in October 2017, secured R&D funding from Scottish Enterprise and appointed business heavyweights David Tyler, Chairman of Sainsburys, and British Land Chairman, John Gildersleeve, to its advisory board. It also announced partnerships with the leading provider of digital supply chain solutions, Virtualstock, and social enterprise, Auticon.
Earlier this month, co-founder and CEO of Previse, Paul Christensen, was appointed to Innovate Finance and City of London Corporation’s Fintech Strategy Group. The group has been tasked with driving the success of the world-leading UK fintech sector.
Paul Christensen, CEO and co-founder of Previse said: “We are pleased to be included in this prestigious list of the hottest fintechs in Europe. Being selected out of a pool of 1,800 companies is strong validation of the importance of the slow payments problem we’re solving, how we’re solving it, and our tremendous team.
“Slow supplier payments are damaging the world economy. Every year hundreds of thousands of businesses which are fundamentally sound, creating good jobs and with potentially transformative ideas and products close purely as a result of their cash flow challenges.
“Previse solves this problem by enabling corporate buyers to pay suppliers of all sizes, instantly, making slow payments a thing of the past. We use hundreds of millions of data points and sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms to provide a score of a corporate buyer’s likelihood to pay the invoice. This allows funders to instantly release funds to the supplier to meet the invoice. Suppliers get cash on delivery. Widespread adoption of InstantPay will have a major positive impact on the economy.”
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ People Make FinTech
New technologies are providing the opportunity to reinvent all of financial services, but I’ve always believed that it is people that will make fintech a success at all levels.
This people make fintech’ philosophy has been very much reinforced to me in the last fortnight as I meet with a diverse range of innovative and engaging people from all parts of the vibrant fintech community.
People Development
The opportunity to present at the Heriot-Watt University event on graduate apprenticeships was a great opportunity to talk about the importance of people development for a successful fintech economy.
Thank you to Gill Murray and Robert Goodfellow for the chance to share thoughts on future skills for business and finance along with Vice Chancellor Richard Williams and other esteemed University speakers.
We are delighted to be working with a number of universities across Scotland as education programmes are developed at all levels to support the fintech growth aspirations.
In this respect, really pleased to be working with Damien McGarrigle in his new role for the University of Edinburgh as Fintech Sector Lead in in developing academic and financial services industry opportunities
People development is also about leadership skills in a fintech driven economy and this was a key area of discussion in my meeting with the FCA Chairman Charles Randell and Head of Scotland Maggie Craig this week.
However, leadership is not just about digital know how and data literacy, it is also about building collaborative relationships, especially in complex ecosystems. So, I was delighted to share my insights on this at the Executive Women’s Leadership Programme last Saturday morning to a probing and talented audience.
This is a fantastic education initiative led by the brilliant Professor Susan Murphy of University of Edinburgh Business School and the inspiring Judy Wagner of FWB Park Brown and it was great to contribute to the session on stakeholder networks and collaboration.
People Collaboration
I’ve been really enthused by fintech collaboration opportunities this last two weeks beyond traditional financial services with people from wider sectors who are embracing the new digital age.
Meeting with Martin Beaton and Evelyn Walker from the Cyber Scotland team on Monday was a great example of this and there is much we will be working on together going forward in this key area where Scotland has terrific expertise.
This was further reinforced when I was invited to join contribute to the Digital Scotland conference on Thursday in Glasgow which was expertly chaired by Alisdair Gunn. Great examples of how the public and private sector can both embrace the digital revolution for economic and social good.
Later that day it was on to collaborating with Polly Purvis and the fabulous team from Scotland IS for their Host in Scotland event with Scottish Futures Trust. A very different audience but delighted by the interest in the role of fintech across all sectors
Then catching up with Amanda Fergusson and Paul Wakefield from Marketing Edinburgh last week to ensure we are capturing all the relevant event opportunities coming to the capital to showcase fintech from Scotland.
Thanks to John Donnelly, the brilliant Marketing Edinburgh CEO, who rewarded me with Sweden in the office World Cup sweepstakes!
Innovation People
The world cup fever did not get in the way of a very engaging open banking meet up on Monday evening which showcased a number of examples of how people are going beyond the new regulations to drive innovation to improve customer outcomes.
Terrific session from Steve Tigar of Money Dashboard which prompted a great conversation that could have gone on all night.
It was great that a long standing friend, the inspiring Sam Seaton, chief executive of Moneyhub, a pioneer in bringing about positive change in financial services, was able to join the meet up with thought provoking contributions. You are welcome in Scotland any time Sam when you can escape from London.
Big thanks to the creative James Varga of The ID Co and for Ross Laurie in driving forward the open banking agenda through these meet ups.
The innovation opportunities with open banking are immense and it has been great to be working with Gavin Littlejohn and Kevin Collins over recent weeks to determine how we can put some strategic foundations down to embrace this opportunity globally.
Thank you to Amy Taylor of University of Edinburgh for arranging for Michael Rovatsos and myself to share the strategic ambitions on open banking with Paul Mason from Innovate UK last week, hoping it can propel us to the next stage of broader engagement. Lots more to do on this though!
The innovation opportunities of academia and industry working together are more than just banking and meeting with an old colleague from Standard Life, Joseph Twigg, highlighted that fintech is a broad church of creativity.
Looking forward to seeing Joseph and the team develop their innovations for the asset management sector
On the theme of creative entrepreneurs, it was great to catch up with Aleks Tomczyk last Friday afternoon in our local Corstorphine coffee house to chat on all things fintech and more.
Aleks is taking a well earned break after leading a successful fintech enterprise over the last decade and is now putting his mind to new opportunities.
One area we discussed was how to connect international talent with the fintech opportunities in Scotland which I hope we can explore further as part of the wider people plans for FinTech Scotland
International People
Excitingly, international fintech people have also very much been on the agenda this last fortnight.
This included a fantastic meeting with Jean Donnelly the amazing executive leader of the Boston FinTech Sandbox where we learned a great deal and see terrific opportunities for the respective fintechs on both sides of the Atlantic.
On a broader global perspective, it was great to be at the quarterly UK Government Department of International Trade FinTech Board meeting last week to consider the various actions to develop global opportunities for fintech enterprises
Then it was good to get into more specifics with the Australian fintech hub, Stone & Chalk this week on how we can build closer engagement on mutual developments, big thanks to Paul Kiernan for setting up this engagement.
Closer to home, it was really great as always to meet up with Julian Wells of Whitecap Consulting who is doing a brilliant job in leading FinTech North.
Sharing experiences about the developing fintech ecosystem and building collaboration actions will help us all succeed. I’ll be connecting Julian up with Jean in Boston in advance of his forthcoming trip to the USA.
Following the Digital Scotland presentation and Scotland IS talk, yesterday finished off with a really engaging session with the Chevening Scholars trade mission team from India.
Fascinating to get their perspective on Scotland’s fintech potential and looking forward to building more collaborations going forward with India
I must also say a big thank you again to my insightful mentor, Promilla Caughey, who always provides such wise counsel on taking Scotland on the international stage and building the fintech profile.
The team at Visit Scotland, through the Scotland is Now initiative, are also doing a wonderful job in amplifying the qualities of Scotland, including fintech, around the world. Good to catch up with Rory Archibald on this and looking forward to supporting going forward with more great fintech case studies.
Social People
Many of you will have heard me talk about fintech being much more than just reinventing financial services as a sector but the opportunity to have a wider positive social impact, for example enabling greater financial inclusion.
I had the opportunity to share some of our great examples with 11FS team for the video programme they are producing for Tech Nation and explain how Scotland’s enterprises are leading the way in this area.
On a bigger scale, I very much valued the opportunity to share this broader social purpose agenda with Gerry Higgins, the inspiring leader of Community Enterprise in Scotland and the person leading the Social Enterprise World Forum.
Gerry and team are doing a wonderful job in bringing the Forum to Scotland in September and this is very much putting Scotland on the international stage of social enterprise progress and I’m very much looking to support this. Thank you to Darah Zahran of Scottish Enterprise for great engagement on this as well
One of the examples I shared with Gerry was Money Matix and the fabulous work by Helene and Tynah in the area of using technology to improve financial literacy. Really excited about their various plans and welcoming their exciting enterprise into the fintech community.
Running People
It was such a wonderful 10km race in Glasgow last weekend and a brilliant atmosphere throughout the City, you very much could see why they say that People Make Glasgow’ as it was so true on Sunday morning.
This Sunday, it is the quieter surroundings of Dechmont Law near Livingston for a trail 10km race which will be part of a longer 13 miles run I have planned to improve my marathon pace.
This will be followed by an evening with Elvis Costello, who I haven’t seen since 1978, yes forty years ago. I hope we’ll be dancing in the aisles to Oliver’s Army’ and other big hits after a good recovery from a morning of running!!
Finally, my apologies to the various people who I’ve not had time to catch up with and where meetings are due. You are not forgotten, Shery is doing an amazing job juggling various commitments and we will meet up soon.
Be a ”˜Young Legend’ with the Visit Scotland Business Events team this year
VisitScotland’s Business Events team, responsible for attracting meetings & conferences into Scotland has recently launched a new award for young people to become one of VisitScotland’s three Young Legends’ part of Scotland’s Year of Young People.
As the first ever digital only Legends’campaign, the call has gone out for talented individuals to get involved.
A reason for fintech entrepreneurs to get involved
The Young Legends’ awards will recognise innovative work in key sectors for Scotland ”“ of which Fintech is key. The Business Events team are looking for young people (aged between 18 -26 years) who are building businesses of their own, growing existing businesses or conducting research & innovation in this sector.
They are looking to reward ideas and innovation which has the potential tobe legendary’ in the widest sense. In this connected world it will no doubt be work which has national and international reach whilst being rooted in Scotland which has a long history of being one of the financial capitals of the world.
Beyond fintech
The Young Legends award will celebrate Scotland’s reputation for invention and innovation by recognising leading-edge work. Of course, it won’t just be the financial world which provides this innovative swell of activity amongst this age group. Being a Young Legend’ could mean you workfrom any of the which country’s key economic and academic research sectors such as Technology, Engineering, Energy and Marine Biology or the creative arts including design or food & drink. Entering the awards also means the shortlisted finalists will be able to network amongst this talented group.
What about the prize?
The three lucky “Young Legends” will win a unique opportunity to see their work championed internationally within the Legends campaign throughout 2019. The Young Legends’ awardsceremony will be held in November 2018.
The awards are part of a larger digital campaign, Legends’ by VisitScotland Business Events which launched last November. The “Legends” digital campaign highlights a specific Scottish economic orsocial theme every two months, sharing original online content, blogs and video podcasts from every region of Scotland.
The sectors featured are: Technology; Education; Life Sciences; Engineering; Digital; Marine; Creative; Energy; Health; Space; Food & Drink and Surgery. The campaign will run for two years in total using the hashtag #ideasbecomelegend and the ultimate aim is to attract to Scotland even more business events (conferences, meetings and congresses) from each sector.
Neil Brownlee, Head of Business Visits & Events at VisitScotland, said:
“Scotland’s reputation for innovation stretches back hundreds of years and continues to this day. We think it’s time toshowcase the breadth and depth of the country’s young talent who are heirs to the many famous Scottish inventions and innovations that are known throughout the world. I encourage all young people working in Scotland to apply for the Awards ”“ we know there are some unsung heroes outthere who deserve to be recognised for their amazing work and pioneering spirit.”
Scaling up to meet Pension Dashboard demand
This blog has been written by Anthony Rafferty, Managing Director at Origo.
As the fintech tasked with improving the financial services industry’s operating efficiencies, Origo has been involved in Pensions Dashboard developments since 2014. During this time, as well as developing prototypes, we have also been working on delivering a systems architecture that is scalable to meet the anticipated launch and future usage levels by consumers.
The Pensions Dashboard will be both a brand new and free service pertinent to millions of people in the UK, which means there is a high likelihood that it will receive significant volumes of requests when it goes live.
Indeed, our analysis* shows that Pensions Dashboard must be ready to support at least 15 million consumers accessing their pensions data. This figure of 15 million is also closely aligned with discussions that we have held with providers/banks who operate consumer-facing platforms.
Therefore, the infrastructure underpinning the Pensions Dashboard must be built from the outset to support significant volumes of consumers from day one, cope with peaks and troughs in usage, and scale to the target of 15 million consumers.
Not surprisingly, one of the main concerns of those responsible for delivery of this critical project has been the sheer complexity in scaling up the central IT infrastructure to deal with this anticipated volume of consumers. It is vital that this is achieved securely, efficiently and at acceptable cost to Government and industry stakeholders.
So, a vital part of the work we have been doing in developing the find’ service ”“ the process of the Dashboard which, with consumer consent, orchestrates the calls to all pension providers to check if they have a matching policy for the consumer ”“ has been to successfully scale test for that anticipated usage by 15 million active consumers all wanting to find their pensions.
We have benchmarked our solution against example test scenarios and factors, including:
â— A 15 million user population;
â— 80% of these users active onPensions Dashboard(s) on a given day;
â— Invoking an additional find’ request every 30 days;
â— 200 pension provider systems (or end points’) in the ecosystem.
As Kenneth May, Chief Architect at Origo, explains this required analysis of the performance and stability of the ‘find’ process at high volume. “Averaged out over a day, this testing requires a throughput of just over 1,000 transactions per second to deal with incoming traffic from the Dashboard(s) and to collate responses from pension providers.
“We have tested at more than double this rate to ensure that we can cope with typical usage patterns which have significant peaks during the working day. Our test results give us confidence that we can reliably achieve, exceed and sustain the required throughput and provide a robust low-latency service.”
Needless to say, we are delighted with the progress we’re making on behalf of consumers, with our recent testing proving that the solution scales.
The offering also provides centralised authorisation services to enable Dashboard access to the pensions which are found and includes advanced features such as Delegated Authority (access) for advisers, guidance bodies and other trusted parties
We have not achieved this alone. It has been done working in collaboration with providers and industry bodies over the years, as well as with the support from our strategic technology partners ”“ MuleSoft and ForgeRock. But now, having successfully tested the plumbing of the Pensions Dashboard, for us the technology is ready for 15 million consumers.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ FinTech Community from Aberdeen to Amsterdam via Dublin!
One of the really enjoyable aspects of my role is the sense of community around fintech, a community that stretches well beyond the traditional boundaries of financial services and technology.
The way that Scotland embraces diverse and dynamic communities is a going to be a key ingredient to our fintech success and the reason why inclusion sits alongside innovation and collaboration as a core value of FinTech Scotland.
This community ethos was very much in evident during our action packed visit to Aberdeen last week
Aberdeen Community
It was wonderful to meet up with the Aberdeen community for the “Exploring Aberdeen’s FinTech Ambition’ event organized by Elevator and their charismatic leader Jules Lancastle.
The exploring came alive hearing from entrepreneur Chris Herd and how his enterprise Nexves can play a role in transforming how people engage with money was enthralling and very exciting.
Similarly, when Duncan Hart explained how his DeepMiner business is enabling more personal engagement with consumers.
Then it was brilliant to catch up with Ike Ibekwe to learn about his innovative MyPropoertyPlus’ enterprise is applying fintech in the property sector
Earlier in the day I had the opportunity to share Scotland’s fintech opportunities at the Digital Cities event organsied by FutureScot sharing the platform with Jackie Doyle of Opportunity North East. Community wide innovation is certainly very much alive in Aberdeen.
This was further brought alive when we visited the amazing Oil and Gas Technology Centre and Luca Corradi shared with us how creating the right environment and a blend of people can lead to new innovations. There is much fintech can learn from the oil and gas sector in driving innovation through community hubs.
Big thanks to Steve Harrison for organising our action packed engagement with the Aberdeen community where fintech certainly has an important role to play in the future.
The community theme was also very much part of the conversation when I shared the fintech opportunities with the Glasgow Economic Leadership team on Monday evening and how these could be developed in collaboration across the financial services sector, universities and public sector.
Thanks to Mark Napier of JP Morgan for this opportunity and I look forward to supporting the Glasgow community further demonstrate its fintech innovation and deliver great economic results.
Social Community
The focus on community ensures that social as well as economic benefits from fintech are developed in tandem for all and this is a powerful strength of Scotland’s fintech ethos
This was the focus of the “How can fintech be a positive agent for social change’ event at Strathclyde University Business School on Thursday.
It was wonderful to have such a dynamic and diverse full house audience for the fabulous event organised by the Scotsman and brilliantly chaired by David Lee.
It was a privilege to be on the platform along with fintech pioneers Alison McHugh of Gigly and Loral Quinn of Sustainably along with the inspiring Louise Smith of RBS discussing how fintech can be, and is, a real force for good.
Thank you to Daniel Broby and Tim Bedford from Strathclyde University for their deep thought provoking insight on the fintech opportunities along with Andrew Berry and David Goodbrand for making it an engaging conversation
The discussions afterwards with people from all generations and backgrounds brought to life for me even more what a fabulous community with a strong social purpose is being created through fintech.
Many of you know that the social community aspect from reinventing financial services through technology has been the big motivating force throughout my 35 plus years career.
And at a very emotional level, the importance of fintech in driving good social outcomes really came to the fore when I met two amazing people, Tynah Matembe and Helene Rodger, to learn about the wonderful work by their enterprise MoneyMatiX.
Hearing how Tynah and Helene are using technology to create financially literate communities through innovative programmes for young people in Edinburgh and the Lothian region, filled me with absolute joy.
Especially when I began to understand how their work is focused on communities which historically have been overlooked by traditional financial services. This is how fintech innovation is such a powerful enabler for financial inclusion. Wow!
Innovation Community
Fintech innovation will be such a positive force when it is based around communities and this is very much the case when you create the right environment for a diverse set of people to come together.
This is exactly how Prudential M&G are establishing their new environment in Edinburgh, a people focused place focused on creativity, empowerment, progressive thinking and openness.
Going along to the official opening of this new innovation space last week and seeing as well as feeling the buzz was something very special. It was also really good to see some old friends enjoying the new Prudential community (Dave, Michael). This was a traditional financial business, with very much a community heritage, embracing and leading in the new fintech age.
The insightful and progressive leadership of David Macmillan and Richard Caldicott along with the rest of the terrific team means that one of the world’s oldest financial services companies is very much a driving force in Scotland’s fintech community. Watch this space for more.
The time at Prudential M&G reinforced to me that even in this digital age, collaborative physical spaces have a really big role to play in generating innovation throughout the fintech community.
So, it was great to meet with Susan and Richard from Ekosgen a few days ago who will be carrying an analysis on behalf of Scottish Enterprise and ourselves on how we can build on the existing great accelerator and incubator spaces going forward across Scotland
Of course, innovation communities are not just about spaces alone and connecting people to help fintech enterprises grow is fundamental to making businesses sustainable.
In this respect delighted that we will be working closely with the hugely experienced and excellent Mark Roger, Andrew McGee and team at Vivolution to help fintech enterprises connect to the right relationships to support their innovations and growth, whether that be for funding or support services. More on this exciting new partnership in the community to come soon.
Banks have an important role in our communities and radically transforming an established financial business, CYBG, to focus on customers evolving financial needs was the focus of the talk at the terrific FWB Park Brown dinner last Thursday evening, Great to hear from Helen Page on leading the CYBG fintech journey.
The dinner was a great opportunity for me to share Scotland’s innovation ambitions to an audience beyond financial services, from the renewable energy sector to the accountancy profession. Reaching out to wider communities provides more opportunities to drive new innovations.
With this in mind it was terrific to catch up with the insightful Amanda Fergusson and Paul Wakefield from the Marketing Edinburgh team on connecting into the wider community activity around Edinburgh to spread the fintech innovation message as well as on the global stage.
Global Community
Being very much part of a global fintech community is key to our international ambitions and, therefore, it was great to hear about the new European relationships Mickael developed at the Amsterdam FinTech Festival this week.
We are looking forward to working with the Money 2020 team to bring this global fintech festival activity to Scotland in the near future. Thank you to the Dutch hosts for their wonderful hospitality
In the meantime, this week, I am here in very sunny Scotland to develop global collaboration opportunities through the Scottish and Irish Finance Initiative event on Wednesday night, expertly organized by the engaging David Clarke.
Fabulous event to share the respective Scotland and Ireland fintech developments and it was great to be alongside Pete rock star’ Townsend, Andreas Hoepner and Government Minister Derek Mackay.
Massive thanks to Andy O’Callaghan, Allan McGrath and Cathorina Finlay of PWC for hosting such an excellent “North Atlantic fintech’ corridor’ event.
Working with our strategic partners Pinsent Mason and Dentsu Aegis we are already developing those mutual Scotland and Ireland fintech opportunities and looking forward to the return in Dublin later in the year.
Running Community
I’m hoping the return event in Ireland may coincide with a bit of community running such as the Dublin marathon!
After a really enjoyable Edinburgh marathon a week last Sunday with a time of 3.25, I now feel ready to push on and work towards the sub three hour time that I still dream about!!
So, focus is on building up running speed over these Summer months and the next race is the Glasgow 10km a week on Sunday finishing in George Square.
I’ll be wearing my fintech community colours’ so please give me a cheer if you out on the Glasgow streets and see me aim for a seasonal PB! Until next time
LendingCrowd hails record month for deals
Hot on the heels of its recent £2 million funding round, peer-to-peer (P2P) platform LendingCrowd is celebrating a record month of lending activity.
The Edinburgh-based fintech company, launched in 2014 by CEO Stuart Lunn and chairman Bill Dobbie, completed loan deals in May totalling more than £3 million for small businesses across Britain.
Head of Origination Adrian Innes said: “It was a great team effort to get to this milestone, helped by our improved processes and a fantastic working relationship with our community of introducers.”
He added: “Not only was May a record for us in terms of the total value of loans, the number of deals completed also hit a new high, up 40% compared with our previous best.”
In March, LendingCrowd announced that angel syndicate Equity Gap had led a £2m external funding round that also included the Scottish Investment Bank and private investors from Scotland’s entrepreneurial and finance scene.
The company, which is fully authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and launched its debut television advertising campaign in March, is now targeting total lending of about £40m for 2018 ”“ more than double last year’s figure.
Mr Lunn said: “The support from our investors highlights the progress we’ve made since our launch in late 2014 and the potential for us to scale significantly this year.
“I’m confident that, as we expand our sales and marketing activities, we’ll continue to grow our loan book as more small businesses turn to us for their funding needs.”
LendingCrowd was one of the first P2P platforms to launch an Innovative Finance ISA and all of its investment accounts can be held within this wrapper for tax-free returns*.
*Capital at risk. Tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each investor and may be subject to change in future.