Equate Scotland launches a Careerhub designed to attract more women into science, technology and eng
According to the EY and Innovate Finance UK FinTech Census Report(2017) women make up only 29% of the UK’s FinTech sector and 17% of senior positions.
This is not surprising as both tech and finance have traditionally been male dominated fields. As such, these sectors have been limited in perspective and experience, but, the inclusion of more women and greater diversity in general offer fresh insights and ideas. After all, money and technology plays apart in everyone’s lives.
If you are able to identify a problem in the financial system and wonder how it can be improved through technology, FinTech may be career for you regardless of gender, age, race or background. But reaching a wider audience, especially for SME’s can be a challenge.
To address this Equate Scotland have launched the Careerhub. Scotland’s first job board specifically designed to recruit women into science, technology and engineering related roles.
Businesses are aware of both the economic and social benefits of having a diverse workforce, yet time and time again we hear employers say they would like to hire more women, they just simply don’t get applications from female candidates and this is reflective of their workforce. Yet, simultaneously employers say they can’t find people with the right skills.
Over the past 11 years, Equate have built up Scotland’s largest network of women in STEM and through speaking to our network we understand what women look for when applying for jobs. The Careerhuboffers employers advice on inclusive recruitment practice and tips on how to make their job description more appealing to female candidates.
Advertising through Equate offers companies an opportunity to be considered an employer of choice’ for women in STEM, demonstrating that they are actively taking steps towards creating an inclusive working environment.
We know there are qualified women in Scotland, but 73% with a STEM qualification leave their sector eventually. To attract and retain talent, employers need to ask why women are leaving and adapt their business model. There is no silver bullet to achieving gender parity in the sector but small consistent changes can transform culture and the perceptions of the industry.
As FinTech emerges as a leading sector for Scotland it has the opportunity to embed diversity from the beginning and contribute towards creating an inclusive, thriving economy.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ We Have a FinTech Movement
Wow, what an incredible couple of weeks we have had with FinTech Fortnight’, clear evidence that Scotland has a fintech movement on the march!
My head is spinning and adrenalin still pumping as I reflect on the amazing engagement from so many wonderful people at over thirty plus events in the last sixteen days.
The range of events and conferences from Falkirk to Fife, from early mornings to evenings, from Parliament to a pub, from grand places such as Surgeons Hall to Strathclyde University TIC and with guests from Africa to America, and much more, brought alive the fintech movement.
A Community Movement
During recent days many people mentioned how Fintech Fortnight’ was very much a community driven initiative which made it all the more special.
This was evident from the very start two weeks ago with the launch by the local community of the ground breaking Fintech Skills Academy and then carried on everyday thereafter.
For example, the MBN Solutions team delivering three absolutely fantastic events in Edinburgh and Glasgow on topics ranging from Dirty Money, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies and the world of data science.
A massive thank you to the brilliant Michael Young, Rob Huggins and the MBN team for your ongoing fabulous community leadership with these meet ups and for organsing such great talks from Susan Ramonat of Spiritus, David from Castlight Financial, Richard of Previse and Ashrith of H2O.ai.
It was great to talk about the fintech community at the Modulr launch event along with the panel of Myles Stephenson, Jude Cook, Jennifer Houston and Rob Devey, all superbly hosted by Lisa Thomson from Purpose HR. What a terrific atmosphere.
The fabulous atmosphere was also in evident at the Innovate FinTech event held in Codebase, Stirling last Monday evening.
This was expertly organized by the magnificent Rory Archibald and team at Visit Scotland and I must add that Rory has played a broader instrumental role in bringing the whole Fintech Fortnight’ alive.
In Stirling we had three inspiring presenter, Alex Ford of
In Scotland , delighted to see Pinsent Masons launch the first of their regular monthly fintech meet ups this week and it was very appropriate that the theme was global opportunities with so many international friends visiting Scotland in the fortnight.
A Global Movement
FinTech Fortnight neatly coincided with Scottish International Week, a brilliant series of initiatives highlighting Scotland’s global outlook led by the entrepreneurial Russell Dalgleish and the team at Scottish Business Network
This enabled us to demonstrate that fintech in Scotland was also very much a global movement.
Brought alive with the Global Fintech Opportunities event at the start of the fortnight with terrific examples of exporting fintech by Bill Tennent of Payment Centric, Jason Forsyth of Agenor Iceflo and James Varga.
Complemented by hearing from international guests Stefan Pryor, Secretary of State for Commerce from Rhode Island, USA and Joel Ko from Marvelstone, the world leading fintech incubator in Singapore.
Then added to by really great expertise from Lorraine Mallon of SDI, Mark Roger of Vivolution, our Fintech Scotland commercial partner and Nick Sherard from strategic partner Deloitte.
Wow what a session that was for a Monday afternoon!
The worldwide opportunities for Scottish fintech are numerous and so it was great to have specific sessions with our fintech friends from Ireland on Thursday organized with David Clarke of the Scottish Irish Finance Initiative. Thank you to Pinsent Masons for being such fabulous hosts.
Many thanks also to Frazer Lang of Scottish African Business Exchange for inviting Money Matix, Payment Centric and Caseblocks to join me in presenting to the African Heads of Trade from fifteen different countries. A terrific opportunity to develop fintech global collaboration.
On Monday it was great to meet up with Natalia Lyarskaya from Zest Money to share more on why global fintech firms are looking to grow further in Scotland.
Thank you again to the MBN team, Susan Ramonat and the DataLab for meeting with Natalia on Tuesday to share more about Scotland as well as to Cherise Mascarenhas of SDI in India for setting up.
Tuesday evening, I managed to squeeze in time for the Scotland Germany Group meeting at Parliament to consider joint technology opportunities. Good to meet you Stephen Taylor of Technology Scotland.
On Wednesday morning it was good to have an early morning coffee with Brian Brodie to chat through the benefits of building fintech enterprises in Scotland, hope to see you back home’ again soon Brian.
The Deloitte fintech home and away’ event on Thursday was a great way to consider how Scotland can accelerate its move to being a top five global fintech centre.
Many thanks to Kent Mackenzie and Chris Brown for their valuable insights and ongoing strategic support for Fintech Scotland.
Last Thursday evening I was invited to share with the Edinburgh Ambassadors group our ambition to make Scotland a major global fintech centre and how our focus on inclusion and collaboration was key to the success of the fintech movement.
It was a super evening to meet wonderful people from very diverse backgrounds and I very much appreciated the opportunity, thank you the Marketing Edinburgh team and the inspiring Amanda Fergusson.
Talking of taking the message to a wider global audience, it was fabulous to hear about Graeme Jones, chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise take the Fintech Fortnight’ messages across to Brussels and the important European Union audiences.
Very important as we enhance Scotland’s collaboration with Europe and demonstrate how the Scottish fintech movement is global, innovative and dynamic.
A Dynamic Movement
The two day Digit FinTech Summit at Dynamic Earth was very much the mega cornerstone event of the Fintech Fortnight’.
Storms and gales could not stop there being a full house of four hundred plus people on each day to hear from a range of thought provoking and innovative fintech leaders.
Ray Bugg, Pete Swift and the Digit team did an amazing job in putting on such a superb summit which brought alive the very best of the dynamic fintech movement in Scotland.
It was great to share the platform with Stuart Lunn from LendingCrowd, Sofie Blakstad of Hive Online and the Government Cabinet Secretary Derek MacKay MSP.
Congratulations Team’ Digit for a mega magnificent couple of days. Thank you also to Callum Sinclair and David Goodbrand for hosting the speakers dinner the night before.
The FinTech Summit was followed on Friday by the excellent Future of FinTech’ conference at Strathclyde University Technology and Innovation Centre led by fintech pioneer Daniel Broby.
It was a privilege to be on the platform with such esteemed speakers including the fintech leaders Martin Leonard of Castlight Financial, Amy Roberts of Spotcap and David Brown plus team from Previse.
The Fintech Fortnight’ has also shown we have much to look forward to with new talent and innovations coming through to grow the fintech movement in Scotland.
The University of Glasgow FinTech Society is a leading example of this and the student engagement at the event last Tuesday was absolutely fantastic.
I am very much looking forward to working with the President of the Society Elisabetta Trasatti and Society team, especially on the Applied FinTech Project.
On the same evening Strathclyde University held their inspiring S100 event for emerging entrepreneurs who are leading fintech initiatives. Congratulations to John McHugh from Gigly, Chris Herd from Nexves and Fraser Edmond from Broker Insights for dynamically leading the way on this.
The conversation at the fintech pub quiz in Glasgow was also very dynamic on Wednesday although a slight hiccup meant it was happening in two places at once! A replay is definitely called for and many thanks to Sergei Pomphrey, Bobby King and Kim Ndungu.
The deep technical know how and leadership of Scottish fintech movement was further in evidence at the Scotland IS Scotsoft Conference on Thursday.
I was delighted to chair the fintech stream and host such brilliant sessions from Ulrich Meyer of KAL ATM, one of our longest established fintechs, Nicola Marham from our strategic partner Sopra Steria, Colin Hewitt, CEO of brilliant Float and Thomas Leritz of the ground breaking Blockpass.
Many thanks to Polly Purvis and the team for such a terrific dynamic conference and the opportunity to show the fintech movement is deep and diverse.
A Diverse Movement
Being a diverse fintech movement is a key Scottish strength and FinTech Fortnight’ has enabled me to share the fintech opportunity to a wider audience
For example, it was great to do a double act with Yvonne Dunn, from our strategic partner Pinsent Masons, at the Financial Services Law Conference on Wednesday chaired by Miller McLean.
Many thanks Anna Bennet for the opportunity to share how the development of fintech and lawtech are very much aligned.
This is a conversation I’ve been having in recent weeks with Paul Mosson from the Law Society of Scotland as there a major areas we can collaborate on.
The importance of being a diverse movement was also a key focus in the presentation to the SFE Professional Services Group with Graeme Jones this week.
Thanks, Ruari Urquart for arranging to discuss how mutli disciplinary collaboration is key to fintech future success.
In addition, being a diverse movement enables us to explore how fintech can be a key enabler in other sectors, including the public sector. I am enjoying the opportunity to work with Trish Quinn and Hugh Wallace on this.
It was a real privilege to meet and listen to Ricky Nicol last week, reinforcing to me the opportunity of fintech enterprises building scale by collaborating with larger institutions.
What a truly amazing story Commsworld is for anyone building a sustainable successful business. One day the story could be a best selling book and even a film!
Developing a business from its early stages was the theme of the Conference on Wednesday for SME’s organized by the engaging David Hood of Edinburgh Institute.
Thank you, David, for inviting me to share the relevance of fintech and our diverse movement with the business leaders during Fintech Fortnight.
I was also given the opportunity to talk about the importance of the fintech movement with other sectors at the Scotland CanDo Forum this week sharing innovation snapshots along with Claire Mack from Renewables Scotland and Henk Berits from the tourism sector.
We very much appreciated the support of Joanna McKenzie from DataLab along with June Love and Karen McAvenue in presenting to the Government Ministers and Forum members.
The breadth of the opportunities for fintech is enormous and in the coming months we will need to prioritise on key areas
This was a key discussion point at the quarterly FiSAB meeting chaired by the First Minister last Wednesday as it was at the FinTech Scotland board meeting a few days before.
It is certainly encouraging to have the broad set of Government and industry executives engaged in the progress of the fintech movement.
Marathon Movement
Fintech Fortnight’ has at times felt like a very demanding albeit enjoyable marathon and I must give a shout out to Shery and Mickael for their continuing unstinting valuable support. Fantastic
Especially as I was suffering from a bug for the early part of the fortnight which had meant I could not do the planned marathon race in Lancaster two weeks ago.
However, I recovered in time to do the Scottish Half marathon in East Lothian last Sunday and surprised myself with a personal best time for the year of 1 min 33 sec !!
This Sunday coming, I hope to follow up with another race, the Great Scottish half marathon in Glasgow.
What a very appropriate place to finish off the FinTech Fortnight. The City’s slogan is People Make Glasgow’ and this also rings true for FinTech Fortnight. People Make Fintech’.
The people across the fintech community and wider have been very much behind bringing the fortnight of activities alive across Scotland, demonstrating we very much have a fintech movement.
Thank you again to everyone involved who participated and joined in, until next time!
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Announcing The Scottish BREXIT Business Summit 2018
Paul Hooper is Head of Marketing for City & Financial Global Ltd
City & Financial have just announced a 0ne-Day Conference on 21st November 2018 in Edinburgh.
The objective of the summit is to examine the implications of Brexit for Scotland’s future in the round, including the critical devolution issue, how Scotland can preserve its important links with Europe and the various scenarios for trading in the post-Brexit future.
Building on the success of the BREXIT portfolio including The Post-Brexit UK Trade Policy Summit, The UK Financial Services BREXIT Summit, and The EU Withdrawal Bill Summit, this event will bring together leading experts from the Scottish and UK Governments, as well as representatives from a range of Scottish companies, in order to provide a cross-cutting view of the implications of Brexit for the future of the Scottish economy and how Scottish companies should be planning for it.
The event will also provide a forum in which industry can share its ideas and concerns with government.
The speaker line-up includes:
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Michael Russell MSP,Cabinet Secretary for Government Business and Constitutional Relations
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Adam Tomkins MSP,Scottish Parliament
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Murdo Fraser MSP,Scottish Parliament and Member of Brexit Cross Party Group
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Stephen Ingledew,Chief Executive, FinTech Scotland
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Graeme Jones,Chief Executive, Scottish Financial Enterprise
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Gary Marshall,Head of EMEA, Standard Life Aberdeen
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Andrew McRae,Scottish Policy Chair, Federation of Small Businesses
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Alexandra Renison,Head of Europe and Trade Policy, Institute of Directors
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Neil Francis,Director- International Trade and Investment Operations, SDI
Key themes in the programme include:
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The UK Government’s BREXIT plan
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The Scottish Government’s perspective on BREXIT
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The EU Withdrawal Bill and the devolution issue
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The transition period and contingency planning
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What does Scotland need from a Free Trade Agreement?
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How will the proposed Free Trade Area in Goods work in practice?
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Understanding the planned customs arrangements
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Trade in financial and non-financial services: how will the UK Government’s expanded equivalence regime operate?
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Global Britain’ and Global Scotland’: making allies and forging new trade relationships with other developed and developing countries
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Freedom of movement and the long-awaited Immigration Bill
As demand for attendance at the event is likely to be high, early booking is recommended.
The full event programme and confirmed speakers can be viewed on the event website by clicking here.
We’ve agreed a discount with FinTech Scotland. When registering, use the code BREXSC1FT
Cost:
Delegate Fee: £495 + VAT. Discounted fee with code: £396.00 + VAT
Public Sector: £295 + VAT. Discounted fee with code: £236.00 + VAT
Small Company (less than 50 employees in company or group): £195 + VAT. Discounted fee with code: £156.00 + VAT
Scotland’s first ”˜Fintech Skills Academy’ launches in Fife
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payment processing
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systems testing
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device certification
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business domain knowledge
4th International Call by Spanish Bank Bankia
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Solutions for SMEs
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RegTech
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Blockchain
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WealthTech
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Alternative Scoring
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Cyber security
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Artificial Intelligence ”“ Machine Learning
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ FinTech Momentum and More
This fortnight has further reinforced the massive momentum behind the plethora of fintech initiatives across Scotland and wearing my running shoes has been essential to keep up with the pace!
What is especially exciting about this momentum is the diversity of participants engaging in the fintech opportunity, all embracing our mission of making a better world for all through financial innovation, collaboration and inclusion.
For example, I was very much energised on meeting David Duffy, chief executive of Clydesdale Yorkshire Bank Group last week, hearing how a major financial institution was very much pioneering to embrace the fintech momentum.
Key to this is the open and progressive way in which the CYBG leadership engage with smaller entrepreneurial enterprises to ensure effective collaboration, fueling new innovation for the Bank.
Collaborative Momentum
This collaborative momentum was also very much in evidence at the Baillie Gifford Fintech Event on Wednesday, held at the impressive new Tynecastle Park.
Anurag Agrawal, Adrian Fern and the team put together an excellent programme bringing together the expertise of Baillie Gifford with a range of entrepreneurs from the Scottish fintech community to share insights and mutual opportunities.
Importantly this collaboration extended to involving other key partners on the day such as DataLab, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Business Network and Scotland IS.
It was super to share the stage with Keith Phillips from the Investment Association and hear about their exciting fintech accelerator initiative, Velocity, which we will be collaborating with the team on to link in the Scottish fintech community.
On a broader level, it was great to demonstrate the collaborative momentum with the announcement of Prudential as a strategic partner to Fintech Scotland.
David Macmillan, the managing director for the wealth solutions division, has significant international experience in fintech innovation in the investment and pensions sector and we are looking forward to engaging his innovative team with the fintech community.
Building on the collaborative momentum was very much key to the meetings with the HSBC team led by Colin Halpin who is brilliantly leading inspiring collaboration initiatives in respect of future skills and education, all are imperative to fintech longer term success.
People Momentum
On the subject of skills, it was very poignant to have an advance start to FinTech Fortnight on Thursday in the Kingdom of Fife with the launch of the FinTech Skills Academy.
The community led momentum behind setting up the Fife FinTech Skills Consortium to develop the skills base is really impressive and it was a massive privilege to be at the event hosted by Paywizard in Kirkaldy.
Very much inspired by the people leadership by Jim Tomaney and Jamie of Renovite Technologies as well as Iain Shirlaw and Krystyna Marett to making this happen. Very much an initiative we hope to build upon.
It was great to share thoughts with the Fife fintech community on how we can build on this momentum and further reinforce the region as a leading driving force of innovation working with Fife College and Fife Council.
I must admit it was a bit of a rush over the bridge to Kirkaldy on Thursday as I was speaking at the Inspiring Futures annual Scottish conference beforehand in Edinburgh. This tough was no dress rehearsal!
Thank you to Anna Halliday and the team for inviting me to share with their professional education audience of teachers and career advisers on how the world of fintech was relevant to everybody and the importance diversity of skills the sector needed to thrive in the future.
Hopefully, one day, maybe some of the young people they are guiding on their career journeys will join a fintech skills academy or firm so we can maintain the momentum of innovation across Scotland
Importantly, the focus of the people momentum is also on diversity, for example in progressing a much better gender balance in the skills such as technology that are key to the future of fintech.
So it was fantastic to attend the Women in STEM event last week at Codebase, expertly organized by Lisa Thomson and the PurposeHR team. Terrific to hear from Marcus Corner on how the practical steps the fintech firm Modulr are putting this at the forefront of their people development.
This is also a key strategic theme I very much look forward to further working with Aileen O’Hagan and the Equate Scotland team on to ensure there is continuing momentum behind the question of gender diversity in fintech and broader financial services.
Strategic Momentum
At a strategic level there are a number of initiatives which are gaining momentum across the fintech community.
For example, it was terrific to catch up on Monday with Anthony Rafferty, Ken May, Michael Roe and Iain Muir at Origo on their brilliant leadership in respect of the high profile pensions dashboard initiative.
A challenging but hugely valuable strategic project which will have a direct impact on millions of people in the future as well as importantly playing a key linkage to the open banking developments.
Open banking continues to be a strategic priority and great to be working with Andy Maciver and Gavin Littlejohn in crafting the market positioning for this hugely significant development.
It was also invaluable as always to get the insightful strategic feedback and thoughts from Ian Mckenna of FTRC last week in London on this whole area and share our mutual enthusiasm on how open banking presents a massive opportunity to reinvent financial services.
Infact, it goes beyond financial services and meeting with Lucinda Rivers and Daniel from UNICEF reinforced to me the broader opportunities of strategic collaboration for fintech.
Executing strategic opportunities with Scotland’s fintech community was top of the agenda in meeting Myron Hrycyk and Colin Carmichael of Sopra Steria in London and I am excited about how we can accelerate the strategic momentum working with the University of Edinburgh.
This will be further complemented by of our recently announced academic and industry fintech initiative with the University of Edinburgh being planned for November which will play a key role in driving forward the strategic fintech momentum.
The strategic momentum also extends to working across sectors to develop broader innovation opportunities in Scotland and it was great to continue this conversation with Trish Quinn, Hugh Wallace, Sarah Thomson, Ian Spencer and Promilla Caughey from their respective Scottish Government teams
The strategic opportunities on a global scale are also very important to our ambitions and in this respect I have very much valued the engagement of the Deloitte team of Kent Mackenzie, Chris Brown, Daniel Cheddie and Noornet Singh. Excited about we further build Scotland’s fintech visibility on the world fintech stage.
Visible Momentum
The momentum behind Scotland’s fintech visibility is certainly growing and it was fabulous to see a number of people from fintech community profiled on BBC Scotland News this week with its special news item on the fintech momentum in Scotland.
Terrific TV interview pieces with Steve Tigar of Money Dashboard, John McHugh of Gigly and Tynah Matembe of Money Matix, huge pride in how their fintech innovation was shared across the national audience.
The Money Matix also had the opportunity to showcase on the big stage at the Social Enterprise World Forum in Edinburgh where their fintech innovation received a wonderful response.
Also massively proud of Loral Quinn of Sustainably and Colin Hewitt of Float for creating their fintech visibility by being selected by Tech Nation for their innovation programme,
Congratulation also to Loral and the team for moving into your new home in Leith, it has been wonderful have you all live with us this last month inside our FinTech Scotland home. We miss you already.
On an academic level this visible momentum is going to continue with the launch of the very first Journal on Financial Technology and it was great to catch up this week with Jamie Gabbay from Heriot-Watt who is leading on this, more to come on this soon.
Marathon Momentum
I am planning to take all this momentum into my running this weekend with a marathon race in Lancaster although as I write this blog I am not sure if that is now going to be realistic!
I’ve been hit with a bug this last week and I am wondering whether I can do the 26.2 miles justice or whether I should defer to another race in a few weeks time!!
Some family time on Friday night will allow me to make a decision. What I do know is that I will need to be ready to join the fantastic fintech community and friends across Scotland on Monday for the start of FinTech Fortnight.
Absolutely amazing the programme of events and activities out together by everyone plus so pleased we are able to welcome so many international guests from all parts of the globe during the two weeks.
I hope to see as many of you as possible over this next fortnight and thank you again for making this all happen.
Fintech 2018 Summit: Connecting the Scottish Financial Technology Community
Scotland is home to a burgeoning financial technology scene; driven by an ecosystem of exciting Fintech start-ups, large FS firms, universities and public sector bodies, it has attracted almost £37 million worth of investment in the past decade.
Fintech is a highly competitive global industry and, although there are numerous challenges to be overcome, we have the right mixture of ingredients for this thriving sector to continue to go from strength to strength.
Heritage, innovation and skills
The country has a rich heritage of financial services and, outside of London, Central-Scotland is seen to have the most well-rounded financial and business services cluster in the UK.
Scotland boasts an impressive track record of innovation and invention, with word-class universities and a diverse skills base across critical related disciplines such as data science, cyber security, software development and entrepreneurialism.
And while the Scottish ecosystem may be dwarfed in scale by larger hubs in the US and China, for many the small size, close proximity of stakeholders and the cohesive nature of the ecosystem is perceived as Scotland’s greatest strength.
Networking and collaboration
Networking and collaboration are key to the continued development of Scotland’s tech industry. That’s why events, such as DIGIT’s fifth annual financial technology summit Fintech 2018are so important.
Fintech 2018 will explore the evolution of the financial services sector, from developments in established tier-1 firms to the disruptive innovators within the start-up community that are reshaping the FS market.
The summit is geared for senior technologists, business leaders, academics and investors from across the financial service landscape. The event will bring these key stakeholders together for knowledge exchange, discussion and cross-pollination.
Hopefully, these kind of events will help the industry to create the open, collaborative ecosystem required to ensure Scotland becomes a leading global Fintech hub.
Fintech 2018 will be held at Edinburgh’s Dynamic Earth on 19th and 20th September. For full conference details, visit https://www.fintech18.com/
FinTech Scotland announces Prudential UK as a strategic partner
FinTech Scotland is delighted to announce Prudential UK as a strategic partner.
Prudential UK, part of the UK and European savings and investments business of Prudential plc,is driving digital transformation and fintech innovation across a wide range of its long-term financial solutions to createa simple, modern savings and investment business focused on customers and financial advisers.
The strategic partnership with FinTech Scotland reflects Prudential UK’s strong ongoing commitment to playing a lead role in the digitalisation of financial services in Scotland and across the UK and is demonstrated by the opening of its new innovative, ground-breaking office hub in Edinburgh, for its Wealth Solutions business.
From its new Edinburgh office, the firm will drive digital and data innovations to create financial solutions for customers and independent financial advisers. It will bolster the broader fintech developments in Scotland by increasing collaboration with innovative entrepreneurs and develop opportunities for talent in order to accelerate the digital transformation of its business.
On securing the FinTech Scotland strategic partnership, Prudential UK’s Managing Director of Wealth Solutions, David Macmillan said: “In a short-period of time FinTech Scotland has assembled an impressive range of strategic partners which we’re delighted to be joining. Innovation through collaboration is the key to firmly establishing Scotland’s long-term fintech credentials and FinTech Scotland is uniquely positioned to help make this happen. The quality of the fintech community in Edinburgh convinced us to locate our new facility in the city and since doing so in May we’ve not been disappointed.
“We look forward to actively developing the already solid reputation of the community and relish the opportunity to work alongside our universities, government agencies and the other partners to foster entrepreneurial talent across the sector.”
With the pension savings, investments and wealth management sectors being so prevalent in Scotland, the partnership with Prudential UK was an important step for FinTech Scotland.
Chief executive Stephen Ingledew said: “We’re delighted to welcome Prudential UK as a new strategic partner who are very much leading the way to innovate in the pensions, investments and wealth management sectors with new technologies.
“I am hugely impressed with their ambitious plans and leadership in transforming financial services. Their appointment very much complements the other recently announced strategic partnerships and ensures we are reflecting the fintech opportunities across all aspects of financial services in Scotland and globally.”
Prudential UK is joining IBM, Equifax, Pinsent Masons, Deloitte, Dentsu Aegis Network and Sopra Steria as strategic partners to progress the development of the fintech ecosystem in Scotland and its Managing Director of Wealth Solutions, David Macmillan, will also join FinTech Scotland’s board.
Interview with Loral Quinn on being chosen for the Tech Nation programme
Well done Loral! What drove you to enter Tech Nation 2018?
We heard Eileen Burbidge’s keynote when we were pitching at EIE this year – as a Monzo investor, and with Sustainably’s beta being available for Monzo Bank customers, there were clear synergies with what we were doing at Sustainably, so we really wanted to meet her. We were very excited to pitch our idea to Tech Nation, with access to incredible judges including Eileen, who we want to help us on our journey.
It’s been a great year for Sustainably it terms of industry recognition. How do you explain it?
It’s been a positive year for us as a business, winning a number of industry awards, and meeting Richard Branson, who even wrote a blog about us! There is a real shift towards more social responsibility and sustainability in business, and a rise in ethical consumerism, and that fits in perfectly with our mission. We’re also seeing a lot of charities hire innovation managers, who are coming to us to help them to engage and attract new audiences through our technology.
It’s not the first time you’ll be travelling to the US, how important is it for fintechs to develop an international network?
Our growth strategy for Sustainably is very much international. The US is a key market for us and we’re looking to build our partnerships there for international growth.
What does entering this programme mean for Sustainably?
The Tech Nation fintech programme will enable us to connect with other fintechs for peer learning, and access entrepreneurs in the fintech eco-system who can help coach and mentor us through our next growth phase. For us it’s all about learning, to enable us to create products people love and make more positive impact in communities.
What does the end of the year look like for you?
We need to be laser focused on product, so that’s our key priority, as is onboarding additional members of the team and our pipeline of good causes. We hope to make some major announcements soon in terms of partnerships, and we’ve got some great people lined up to join the team.
What challenges do you hope to overcome thanks to Tech Nation?
We hope that by being part of Tech Nation it will help raise our profile, help us with our ambitions for international expansion, and connect us to a peer group to help us learn, partner, grow.