Fintech ShareIn launch new Payments Product To Address Gap In The Market
Edinburgh based fintech firm launched a new specialist payment product called ShareInPay for platforms holding ISA money.
ShareIn operate investment platforms for clients such as Triodos Bank, the Dutch Ethical Bank, Crowdlords, Residential Property investments and Energise Africa.
ShareIn has been an Innovative Finance ISA Manager since Dec 2016 and many of their investment platforms offer Innovative Finance ISA products.
CTO and Co-Founder, Andrew Pickett says. “We needed a solution for our platforms to hold Client Money that wasn’t e-money. We searched everywhere and couldn’t find an API driven Client Money solution. So we decided we needed to build this ourselves.”
ShareIn obtained the regulatory permission to hold Client Money from the Financial Conduct Authority earlier this year.
CEO, Cook said “To say holding Client Money is difficult is a little bit of an understatement. There are few things in the Financial Regulatory environment more important than holding other people’s money.”
The launch of ShareInPay marks the start of a modular software approach for ShareIn to enable investment business more generally. Modules that work together or separately with an existing platform.
For more information contact:
Jude Cook, ShareIn Ltd, +44 7956123405, jude@sharein.com
LendingCrowd crowned Best P2P Business Lender
Edinburgh-based fintech lending platform LendingCrowd has been crowned the UK’s Best P2P Business Lender at the first ever Growth Finance Awards, held in London.
LendingCrowd, which is the only SME lender of its kind headquartered in Scotland, was recognised for its “best-in-class digital platform, transparency, as well as ample resources for both borrowers and lenders”.
Founder and CEO Stuart Lunn said: “To be named Best P2P Business Lender is testament to the significant strides we have made since our launch in 2014. LendingCrowd exists to help alleviate the funding gap facing the UK’s vital community of SMEs, and we’re delighted to have received this recognition at the Growth Finance Awards.”
The award was presented to Stuart and LendingCrowd Chief Marketing Officer Darren Cairns by Simon Bonney, partner at category sponsor Quantuma.
The Growth Finance Awards, organised by Intelligent Partnership and hosted by television presenter Claudia Winkleman, were designed to highlight the role of the finance community in supporting the growth ambitions of SMEs across the UK. More than 300 guests attended the black-tie event, which took place on Wednesday 11 September at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.
Guy Tolhurst, Managing Director of Intelligent Partnership, said: “Just to be recognised as a finalist is a great achievement in itself, but to take home a prize is a truly impressive accolade. I look forward to next year’s event and continuing to educate growing businesses about the wide variety of financial options that are available to them.”
Since its launch in late 2014, LendingCrowd has facilitated more than 740 loans to SMEs across the UK with a total value of £65 million, with more than £15 million of lending in Scotland.
LendingCrowd has also been named as a finalist in the Impact and Investment category of the Scottish Financial Services Awards, organised by Scottish Financial Enterprise and sponsored by EY. The shortlisting is in recognition of the unique £18.75 million funding partnership that LendingCrowd has created with Scottish Investment Bank and Dutch entrepreneurial bank NIBC to fund the ambitions of SMEs across Scotland and the rest of the UK.
Sopra Steria and the University of Edinburgh launch fintech collaboration programme: Chemistry for Financial Services
On August 23rd Sopra Steria and the University of Edinburgh, supported by FinTech Scotland, launched Chemistry for Financial Services, a collaboration programme aimed at encouraging co-creation initiatives between fintech firms, technology providers, academia and established financial service companies.
Companies that have been selected to join the Chemistry programme will be co-creating and taking to market new solutions which address business challenges and improve the financial wellbeing of consumers.
With the launch, the first two challenges have now been released. Both are focused on mortgages, making them more accessible and improving the customer experience for existing mortgage holders.
Applications are now open until September 23rd, 2019. Mid-October, shortlisted applicants will pitch their ideas to a panel of industry experts and Sopra Steria’s clients. Companies selected by the panel, will then join a design sprint at Sopra Steria’s Digilab before presenting the output to multiple clients leading to potential commercial arrangements.
Commenting on the launch Mingaile Vaisnoraite, Customer Experience Consultant at Sopra Steria declared:
“Our Chemistry programme is about working with Start-Ups and SME’s with strong support from FInTech Scotland and Edinburgh University to energise change and create new, innovative solutions. This is a really exciting opportunity where we can re-imagine how financial companies interact with customers and deliver new services and products. There is a wealth of SME and start-up talent in the FinTech sector and with FinTech Scotland and Edinburgh University we want to help them with their ambition to grow, win new business and be successful.”
Dr John Lonsdale, Head of Enterprise at Edinburgh Innovations, University of Edinburgh said:
“We are delighted to be working with Sopra Steria and Fintech Scotland to provide innovation opportunities for emerging Fintech companies. The Chemistry programme contributes towards making Edinburgh the Data Capital of Europe, encouraging company-to-University linkages, and providing opportunities for entrepreneurs to work with leading financial services companies to create innovative solutions for customers.”
To read more and apply for the programme please click here.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Awesome FinTech Atmosphere!!
An awesome August atmosphere has been pervasive across Scotland and the fintech innovation activity, in its many guises, has contributed to this over recent weeks.
Since returning from a few days in the beautiful Mediterranean sun, there has been no respite in the breadth and depth of fintech initiatives which are creating this can do entrepreneurship.
The fintech community gathering at one of the new innovation hubs, The Green Room in Edinburgh, where a good number of us came together last Thursday is a great example.
Entrepreneur Atmosphere
The gathering was a mix of fintech entrepreneurs from across Scotland along with some seasoned investors, coming together to try a few glasses of summer wine.
Delighted that Alistair Forbes from Mercia and Ron Robson from Tavistock Group could join us and a huge thank you to Dag Lee and Sarah Ronald for being terrific hosts at one of Scotland’s newest fintech epicentres’.
We look forward to repeating the gathering during September’s fintech festival, watch this space.
The week before there was another wonderful atmosphere at the Virgin Start Up event in Glasgow which attracted entrepreneurs from far and wide across the country.
Terrific to share the platform with the inspiring Phil Grady of Castlight Financial and Loral Quinn of Sustainably, who brilliantly shared their experiences with entrepreneurs embarking on the innovation journey.
A massive thank you to Andy Fishburn, Alice Mulrooney and the Virgin Start Up team for their leadership as well as Stephen Pearson from Virgin Money for making all this happen.
We are looking to repeat a similar event with David Duffy, Stephen and the CYBG Virgin Money team on 12thSeptember in Edinburgh with the Scotland’s fintech community.
There are many other exciting activities being planned to build the entrepreneurial atmosphere, such as by James Varga, the awesome leader of The ID Co, in embracing the open banking opportunities.
Great to meet up with James a couple of weeks ago to discuss how we support the collaboration with fintech entrepreneurs across the ecosystem.
Similarly, terrific to meet up with Stuart Lunn and Darren Cairns from the market leading firm Lending Crowd and put the world to rights over a few glasses back in the Green Room in Edinburgh.
Thank you Stuart and Darren for your ongoing valuable insights and feedback, looking forward to building on this last eighteen months of Fintech Scotland into 2020 with you.
The awesome atmosphere is not confined to the evenings and it was great to meet up with long standing colleague and one of the very original fintech leaders (for over 30 year) Ian Mckenna for an early morning breakfast.
We were joined by new chief executive Billy Burnside of Criterion Tec, who we are delighted to welcome into the FinTech Scotland community as we lay down the tracks’ for a new data driven innovation future.
In between the Edinburgh fringe festival activity, it was terrific to meet up with Raymond O’Hare last week to share some of these developments and discuss collaboration opportunities.
Very excited about welcoming the Raymond and the Exception team to the FinTech Scotland community in the coming months.
The entrepreneurial atmosphere is also being fueled by a global energy and it is really exciting to meet with successful entrepreneurs bringing their firms to Scotland
Really enjoyed catching up with Gopal Hariharan of Black Arrow in Glasgow and very excited about this fintech enterprise being set up in Scotland
Then it was also fabulous to meet up with Paul Kiernan to hear about the fast developing plans for the innovative Decision Point enterprise in Scotland.
Looking forward to connecting Gopal and Paul into the community and ecosystem across Scotland and building the collaboration opportunities
Collaboration Atmosphere
This last few weeks I have been really enthused about the flourishing collaboration atmosphere and the opportunities to bring together the fintech community with innovative large enterprises.
For example, great to progress the development of opportunities with Sam Bedford, Gary McLellan and the CYBG Virgin Money team as they further extend their market leading innovation initiatives
Similarly, excited to be working with Ali Law, Julian Reichert, Ricky McKinney and the rest of the team at Royal London as they revolutionize long term savings sector.
Terrific also to engage with the Barclays team, Danielle Sheerin, Sonal Lakhani, Stuart Brown and Alex Ball to explore collaboration initiatives, including the Tech Stars programme during the FinTech Festival.
Delighted to be taking forward the collaboration with Aberdeen Standard Investments and working with Mario Cugini, David Scott, Geoff Aberdein and Ruari Grant to explore fintech collaboration in the asset management sector.
The retail banking sector has already demonstrated the value of closer fintech collaboration and my meetings with the inspiring Kristen Bennie of RBS highlight numerous good examples of this.
Sharing the examples of collaboration across the broader financial sector provides enormous opportunity to build the fintech innovation cluster in Scotland.
In this respect, the last few weeks has seen constructive conversation with Asif Abdullah, Cyndi Shettle and Martin Little of Franklin Templeton from the investment sector and David Skinn from the insurance sector.
It was also valuable to catch up with Tara Foley of Bank of Scotland to consider how we work more closely to progress specific initiatives on consumer engagement working with the fintech community.
On this note, thrilled to see the Chemistry’ Fintech Accelerator go live last week working with strategic partner Sopra Steria and the Edinburgh Innovations team of University of Edinburgh.
Terrific leadership by Kerry Nicolaides and Mingaile Vaisnoraite, exciting to be working with banks and fintech firms on this.
Brilliant to also talk through with Mags Moore of Sopra Steria on how we can develop the fintech collaboration across Government with similar initiatives to improve citizen and consumer outcomes
The engagement of consumers in fintech is a growing development and I was delighted to join Dave Shaw and the Tesco Bank team in sharing how they are taking a human design centred approach to customer engagement.
Fantastic to see the work with Chris Speed and team of University of Edinburgh come alive, all very much in line with the collaboration co-design atmosphere, and in a super festival setting at the University.
Another example of collaboration that serves social purpose is the great work lead by Nicola with the launch of the fintech customer panel announced today. This initiative will bring the innovation from the fintech firms together with consumer representative bodies to tackle societal and economical issues. You can read more about it here.
Festival Atmosphere
Talking of festivals, we have been overwhelmed with the support for the FinTech Festival in September, amazing engagement from so many people for the three weeks of activities.
Huge thanks to the wonderful Rory Archibald of Visit Scotland and Karen Craib of Scottish Enterprise who have worked tirelessly with Mickael to bring it all alive.
It was brilliant to meet up with Hazel Gibbens of Tech Nation recently to share plans for the Festival, I’m hoping Hazel will be joining me on the stage for a few events to highlight the support for innovative enterprises across Scotland.
It was super to talk about the growing festival atmosphere across the fintech community at my recent catch up with Huw Martin and Joseph Apted of Head Resourcing recently, very much appreciate their ongoing valuable support for fintech leaders.
Similarly, in meeting up with Graeme Jones of SFE to talk through the plans for the next cross industry and Government meeting, FiSAB, which will take place in the middle of the Festival programme.
It is very apt that the first festival showcase event will take place in Glasgow at the University of Strathclyde with the FinTech Future conference.
University of Strathclyde has led the way in both fintech knowledge and skills development on the global stage and I am hugely excited about the broader development of the fintech cluster as part of the Glasgow Innovation District
Fantastic to be working with Eleanor Shaw, Martin Hughes, Mick McHugh, Emma Stephen and the team at the University as we progress the strategic opportunities
Very much looking forward to taking forward the fintech engagement initiatives being led by Daniel Broby, Devraj Basu, George Wright and John Quigley amongst others.
Fintech and broader tech skills are crucial to the further success and progress of the cluster and economy, in this respect it has been a privilege to be working with the awesome teams at Skills Development Scotland and IBM.
A couple of weeks ago it was an excellent workshop session on developing the skills for young people across Scotland with the motivational Damien Yates, Neville Prentice and SDS team along with the inspiring Gary Kildare, Charlotte Lysohir, Nicky Cooper, Dominic Nolan, Mairi Cairney, Bill Hughes of IBM.
Many thanks to the magnificent Michael Young and Georgia Boyle and the MBN Solutions team for being wonderful hosts for the meet up with the senior IBM team from all sides of the Atlantic the day before.
Once again, the MBN Solutions team are hosting a range of terrific fintech meet ups as part of the festival and their valuable ongoing leadership makes such a positive difference across the community.
Running Atmosphere
The Kirkcaldy half marathon a couple of Sundays ago was probably the best running race atmosphere I’ve experienced from a local community ever, just amazing!
The Kingdom of Fife community turned out in huge numbers for a very special race and it was a privilege to savour the magnificent support throughout the 13.1 miles.
Thank you so much Kirkcaldy, I’m still buzzing from the race even now and I think the buzz will carry on to the Fife Fintech Festival event on 17thSeptember.
The half marathon was part of my training leading up to the Loch Ness Marathon in October and proceeded another half marathon the week before at Bathgate and a rural midweek eight mile race in the Fife countryside around Ceres.
Next up is the Kilmacolm half marathon as part of a 23 mile training run next Sunday followed by the Scottish Half marathon in east Lothian, all before the trip to Inverness for the marathon in early October.The next few weeks will be the real test on whether I can get back to my marathon racing best although the atmosphere from the forthcoming fintech festival in September should propel me one way or another!! Until next time!
FinTech Scotland launches its Consumer Panel
FinTech Scotland has launched a Consumer Panel to support inclusive fintech business development. It will connect consumer and citizen advocate groups into the fintech ecosystem with the emphasis on citizen financial inclusion, problem solving and innovation.
The panel will provide ease of access to a citizen and consumer voice for fintech innovators, and build an inclusive network across consumer groups, innovation and technology. The objective is for open, practical and diverse engagement, to bring citizens and consumers directly into fintech product design.
Recent UK research showed 24% of UK adults have little or no confidence in managing their money, with 18-24-year-olds rating themselves as the least confident.
Scottish entrepreneurs are achieving true change. They are introducing easier and better ways to deal with money as well as new products and services that adapt to the changing needs of today’s society. Many are presenting updates during FinTech Scotland’s Festival in September.
The Consumer Panel offers a practical way to connect fintech entrepreneurs and their growing ability to find new and innovative solutions, with real and everyday financial issues impacting customers/consumers.
Founding members come from a range of Consumer Advocate organisations, Third and Public sector, as well as Academia. Those participating include, Money Advice Scotland, Scottish Government, University of Strathclyde and University of Edinburgh, The Big Issue, The Money and Pensions Service, Step Change, Age Scotland, Fresh Start Edinburgh, Passion4Fusion and Mental Health and Money Advice.
Stephen Ingledew FinTech Scotland’s CEO said “This is an important aspect to the work of FinTech Scotland. Fintech provides a major opportunity to improve the way people can engage with their money and finances. The consumer panel aims to bring people directly into the conversation and increase inclusion within fintech and the financial services industry more broadly. It will give greater access to customer insights enhancing the focus for good customer outcomes which is our definition of what the fintech movement is.”
Speaking for Money Advice Scotland, CEO Yvonne MacDermid welcomes this initiative. “Working with fintech propositions will help the debt advice sector connect with more people in a range of different ways and enable consumers to gain confidence in using digital applications”
Kate Forbes MSP fully endorsed this initiative saying “The FinTech consumer panel will help drive inclusion across our society and economy as we make new technological and digital developments. This is a hugely positive and practical step that will ensure that our people are fully involved in the digitalisation of our technology and financial services”.
Autorek and the Automation Revolution
AutoRek have just announced that they had partnered with Worldwide Business Research (WBR) to generate an industry report. The report will be focusing the state of automation and data management within the financial services sector.
The survey includes feedback from 100 individuals within the operations, IT, business change, finance and data management business functions. They were asked how automation will affect the financial services industry in the next 5-10 years.
Key findings include:
- The majority of those interviewed are implementing blockchain, semantic data management, machine learning and automation
- Respondents think that AI is likely to impact product development and innovation the most.
- 46% of respondents are looking for new technologies to assist data governance.
Investing in the Automation Revolution’ will launch at Sibos London between 23rd”“ 26thSeptember.