Swipii releases new feature for local businesses

Scottish start-up Swipii has released its latest feature, the Win-Back Offer enabling local business owners to utilise tech to retarget lost customers.

Swipii is a cashback app that rewards customers with cashback when they spend directly with local bars, cafes and restaurants simply by using their own bank card. Business owners can sign up to Swipii at no cost and use the technology to reach and retarget customers without the need for complicated integrations or marketing experts.

Louis Schena, Swipii co-founder and CEO explains; Local independent businesses form the backbone of our economy. The unfortunate truth is they are decades behind online businesses and big corporations when it comes to the technology they have and as a result are at a significant disadvantage. COVID has widened this disadvantage and our mission is to level the playing field as markets open up! We all have our part to play in shopping local with benefits ranging from investing in our communities to even reducing our carbon footprint!’

To date, businesses featured on the app have been leveraging Swipii’s cashBack offers to target customers at various times and days when they want to drum up footfall such as off-peak hours. Since launching the app in 2018, the Glasgow based app has helped local businesses increase customer engagement and spend, generating spend of £440k to date. Even during lockdown, Swipii cashback offers saw businesses increase customer spend by 16% on average.

Now, businesses can maximise their revenues even more by taking advantage of Swipii’s latest Win-Back Offer. The Win-Back Offer works by targeting customers who haven’t visited a business in a defined period of time, anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months or longer. The technology crunches data in the background and identifies a cohort of users that fits this criteria and the Swipii app will send out a special cashback offer on behalf of the business getting customers back in store spending.

Bringing affordable tech to local businesses has never been more pertinent as:

  • digital adoption surged during COVID with many companies seeing online customer interaction accelerate by 3 years ahead of expected forecasts*

  • 75% of UK shoppers said they had been shopping more online compared to before the pandemic**

Backed by VCs such as LocalGlobe and Par Equity, Swipii is the easiest way for local businesses to increase revenue, loyalty and retention as shopping behaviours adapt post lockdowns.

Customer Experience and Fintech

Season 1, episode 10

Listen to the full episode here.

The Digital Banking Report Research by The Financial Brand shows that Customer Experience is the number 2 priority (just after digital transformation) for financial institution around the globe.

New entrants and changing customer expectations have fuelled this need for a greater focus on customer led design. COVID-19 has accelerated this trend by requiring companies to adapt to a fully digital world with no branches for customers to go to and the need to make customer support more efficient for staff working from home.

In this new episode we’ll explore why the focus on CX is so important; if new innovative firms still have the edge on their incumbent counterparts and what future trends we need to watch out for.

Participants

Andrew Duncan – CEO of fintech SOAR

Chris Speed – Professor of Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh

Lotta Lindstrand – Senior CRO Analyst at Merkle EMEA

How the Open University is supporting employers in Scotland to tackle the digital skills gap

There is a thriving Fintech sector in Scotland ”“ a lot of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are innovating and growing and doing great things. But the sector needs the right skills in order to keep innovating and growing and some of the most business critical skills are in short supply.

With so much demand on skills such as cyber security, coding, data and software development, it can sometimes take time to get the right people onboarded. The Open University’s (OU) Business Barometer 2020 found that 60% of employers are struggling to find the skills they need to fill vacant roles.

But there is the scope to change the situation. Employers recognise that the best way to address talent shortages is not just to buy in skills, but to also build up internal pipelines and so many are embarking on upskilling and reskilling initiatives.

The OU in Scotland works with 260+ local employers, helping with their upskilling and reskilling programmes. They provide high quality, targeted workforce development solutions, helping employers understand and meet their current and future talent and recruitment needs.

 

“We pioneered the concept of continuous, lifelong learning – an approach that is becoming increasingly popular in the workplace. Our innovative tutor-supported online delivery model works particularly well for employers, maximising the opportunity for new knowledge to be readily and directly applied in the workplace. Many of our programmes have a strong work-based element, meaning that individuals enhance their performance through value-add learning on the job’. We ensure learning is flexible and accessible to all,”

Suzanne McQuade, Business Relationships Manager (Scotland) at the OU

 

As a result, with over 20,000 students, the OU is the most popular university in Scotland for part-time higher education. They provide different career pathways ”“ graduate and postgraduate courses and also smaller, modular courses that enable people to do chunks of learning and build up to an overall qualification over time.

In terms of digital skills, the OU provides numerous options ”“ free resources on the OpenLearn platform, microcredentials, apprenticeships, modules and qualifications in computing and IT, cyber security and data science, postgraduate modules and qualifications in computing, cyber security and technology management.

There are various funded learning opportunities available in Scotland to support employers and individuals. The graduate apprenticeships, which are a great way for employers to recruit new employees or upskill and reskill the existing workforce, are fully funded. There’s the SAAS part time fee grant available to those with a personal income of £25,000 per annum or less and there’s the Flexible Workforce Development Fund offering SMEs funded training up to the value of £5,000.

It is widely recognised that Covid-19 has exacerbated the need for digital skills. Now is the time for employers to be investing in workforce skills, to help them recover from the pandemic and meet the challenges of the future.

To find out more about how the OU in Scotland can support your workforce development needs, visit www.open.ac.uk/business

UK Government Ministers visit Scotland’s thriving fintech community

To recognise the global impact of Scotland’s growing fintech sector, FinTech Scotland hosted a visit by Secretary of State for Trade, Liz Truss and Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack on Tuesday 20th July, at the Bayes Centre, University of Edinburgh.

Financial technology  (“fintech”) uses digital and data driven innovation to improve and enhance financial services, both for businesses and individuals and is making a significant contribution to innovation and the broader economy.

For example, the collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, FinTech Scotland and industry participants on innovative financial technology initiatives has enabled Scotland to be the home to the Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence as well as FinTech Scotland being recognised as the UK’s first accredited fintech cluster.

The meeting at the Bayes Centre provided an opportunity for UK Government ministers to meet with a number of key entrepreneurs from leading firms from the Fintech Scotland community such as Direct ID, Modulr, FreeAgent, Float, EedenBull and Trace AI

 

Liz Truss, International Trade Secretary, said:

“The UK is a world-leader in FinTech and that’s why we’re breaking down barriers, pushing new frontiers in our free trade agreements and opening up markets to boost this growing industry.

“From Australia to Singapore, we are using our independent trade policy to drive foreign investment into UK FinTech and increase export opportunities worldwide.

“Scotland’s FinTech sector is thriving, and I want to ensure that we fuel the future global growth opportunities for FinTech businesses across the UK.”

 

Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack said:

“As home to 180 fintech businesses, Scotland is right at the heart of exciting developments as the UK becomes a major force within the global sector.  Collaboration between academia, industry and government will ensure that Scottish fintech has a bright future ahead.

“It was great to meet with some of the key people behind the industry’s growing success, and I look forward to seeing how their ambition and innovation will further enhance the profile of Scotland and the whole UK within the global fintech community.”

 

Stephen Ingledew, Executive Chair of FinTech Scotland, who hosted the ministerial visit said:

“This visit demonstrated how collaborative leadership by entrepreneurs, large enterprises, academia and government can make a significant impact in delivering impactful fintech innovation which will shape the future economy and people’s lives both in the UK and internationally. Our forthcoming fintech research and innovation roadmap will highlight how we will build on momentum created and foster further collaboration with the regional fintech hubs across the UK.”

 

Peter Mathieson, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, welcomed the Ministers to the Bayes Centre and commented:

“The University has a global reputation for ground-breaking innovation and the Bayes Centre is a great example of creating a creative and collaborative environment delivering new opportunities in data, artificial intelligence and robotics in the emerging new sectors such as fintech”

 

The Ministerial visit coincides with the unveiling of plans for Scotland’s FinTech Festival in September which will showcase financial innovation from across the UK highlighting progress made since the HM Treasury commission Fintech Sector Review by Ron Kalifa OBE was released in March this year.

The Fintech Festival, now in its fourth year, will be a diverse range of 50 plus events and activities taking place over four weeks with fintech leaders and entrepreneurs attending from the UK and virtually from around the world.

The Festival will include major conferences in Edinburgh and Glasgow with examples of innovation from Scotland and the UK amongst many other global fintech leaders.

How Platform Sourcing can help Fintechs win the War for Talent

Current State 

 

The War for Talent had a ceasefire in early 2020 due to COVID-19 but is now back in full swing. The War for Talent is not new, the term was coined by McKinsey and Company way back in 1997. However, this war has evolved due to the increase in digital initiatives and the rise in remote work smashing down the usual geographical barriers. The most in-demand tech roles for companies across the UK are software developers, web designers and data analysts with AI skills quickly catching up. According to Adzuna in April 2021 there were nearly 10,000 vacancies for software developers, compared to 5,630 at the same time last year. Furthermore, the Gartner 2021 CFO survey found that 74% of CFO’s plan to permanently shift employees to remote work after the Covid-19 crisis ends. Many Fintechs including Revolut have rewrote policies to include fully remote work.

 

The old solution

 

Historically when skills are in demand there are a number of tactics large organisations deploy which include but not limited to:

 

  • Post more (and more and more) jobs on Linked In
  • Create a new Preferred Supplier List (PSL) of agencies
  • Hire contractors from PSL when perm hiring stalls
  • Referrals schemes
  • Recruitment open days 
  • Host tech meet ups (obligatory beer and pizza post)
  • Expensive PR Campaigns to hype up culture and opportunity
  • Increase Salaries

 

Now these are all perfectly good solutions if you have lots of time and money. However, most digital initiatives have an end goal to generate revenue. With a lack of key talent then projects start to delay and so does the revenue. This is when most CEO’s and CFO’s start to get interested. This is usually when the big digital consultancies get brought in.

 

The new solution

There is another way. There is so much talk right now about the “future of work” and there are many debates of what that means. That is for another day, lets focus solely on the platform sourcing element of the future of work. There has been a rise in companies using talent platforms to complete projects using platforms such as Toptal, Freelancer, Innocentive and Upwork. Even NASA use platform sourcing for major software development projects. This has been largely in North America with the UK slow to this model.

A recent Harvard Business School report about building the on-demand workforce states: 

“COVID-19 has only accelerated the move away from traditional, pre-digital-era talent models toward on-demand workforce models.” 

Also, the well-regarded University of Oxford Report on Platform Sourcing stated there will be rapid growth in the next 5 years on how companies use Platform Sourcing including crowdsourcing and outsourcing platforms. The report focused on research around how Fortune 500 firms are adopting online platforms. The report author Greetje Corporaal found the following benefits:

  1. Providing easy access to a scalable source of manpower, skills and expertise 

Platforms provide access to freelancers with highly specialized skills and expertise, making them an attractive option for organizations to quickly and flexibly complement the capabilities of their in-house employees on an on- demand basis. 

  1. Reducing start-up and transaction costs 

Compared to traditional outsourcing vendors and contracting agencies, platforms substantially lower the start-up and transaction costs of a contract. This allows enterprises to quickly hire freelancers to address project needs. 

  1. Eliminating conventional hiring barriers 

Platform technologies eliminate or at least reduce geographical, informational, and administrative barriers in the hiring process. This allows their use for projects of shorter length and scope. It facilitates the hiring of freelancers on a more flexible, on-demand basis, and allows managers to bring in new skills and knowledge to the organization that would otherwise have remained outside. 

 

There are factors to be aware of when using platform sourcing:

 

  • The work needs to be well defined with milestones and outcomes
  • Time zones need to be factored in
  • This does not replace your team but can enhance

 

In conclusion, the next time you are worrying about the impact that losing the war for talent will have on your projects and ultimately revenue then consider a platform approach. There are a number of UK platform companies including Distributed and the Gigged.AI (I am biased as the CEO). Start small and define your outcomes and this could be game-changer.

Candidate Engagement in Fintech Recruitment

I read recently that in the next four years, The Global Fintech Market is expected to grow at a rate of 23.58%. With news emerging that the Scottish Government has appointed an adviser to assist tech, with £7m earmarked for the project, Scottish Fintech has a great opportunity on its hands to grow. 

But this growth will need great talent to sustain it. Talent that will sustain growth and drive innovation – not an easy feat considering the current shortages of candidates across all tech markets. 

This shortage isn’t due to slow in the next few years either. In a recent study, The World Economic Forum pointed out that the global talent shortage in technology, media, and telecommunications alone is due to reach 4.3million workers by 2030. 

What Does This Mean for Fintech Recruitment? 

It means that it’s becoming more difficult to hire top talent and will continue to become harder. We already know that top tech talent hold most of the cards, shortages meaning they have their choice of employers and can command top salaries. 

Businesses that want to continue to innovate and stay at the top of their game need the right people to do so. Which means being able to attract and engage the best candidates. But with many businesses in Scotland at the startup or ramping stage, recruitment often doesn’t come top of their list. 

Getting the right people in place is a combination of being able to access alternative talent pools, and engaging them and your traditional pools. 

How to Improve Candidate Engagement? 

The type of people you’re looking for aren’t usually out of a job. Right now, it’s not just candidates who need to impress employers, employers need to impress candidates too. And that means working on your candidate engagement: 

Working on Your Candidate Value Proposition 

Salary and standard benefits are no longer enough to engage with top talent in the tech space. You need to do more. That means improving your candidate value proposition. What do you offer over and above the competition? 

The easiest way to improve your candidate value proposition is to improve your employee value proposition. Use internal surveys to ask your current team what they like about working for you and what you could be doing better. The happier people are at work, the more likely they are to spread good word of mouth among friends and peers. 

Changes could be more flexible hours, the ability to permanently work from home, better choice of benefits, company shares (particularly for start-ups), or better work culture. Many people are also looking for more social responsibility from their employers, both with charitable efforts or sustainability. 

When you have identified what areas are important to your current team, ensure these are clear on your careers site, on your social media, and in any candidate collateral, you issue. 

Put More Effort into Diversity and Inclusion 

Currently, just 24% of people working in fintech in Scotland are women. Considering women makeup 51.5% of the population, that figure looks low. Just 1.4% of fintech workers are black and 6.2% Asian. (Solutions Driven 2021)

All of these are untapped, diverse markets that businesses should be engaging with to diversify their talent pools and find candidates their competitors can’t. But do you improve candidate engagement in these areas? 

  • Talk to the diverse people in your current teams – what could you be doing better to make them feel included? Is there anything you’re doing wrong? 
  • Set up diversity groups – is there scope for a women’s panel in the business? Could you set up a diversity workforce? 
  • Embed diversity into your KPIs – set targets for diversity and make them part of your recruitment team’s KPIs. 
  • Improve diversity branding – make diverse figures visible on your website, your social media, and your candidate content. 
  • Improve your language – masculine language using words like “ninja” and “rockstar” turn women off applying for roles. Look at making your language more inclusive. 

 

Spend More Time Engaging Candidates 

Candidates like to feel sold to. They want to feel as though joining your business will benefit them and you, and that they’d be a valuable member of the team. 

If “candidate engagement” consists of sending a couple of messages or emails, that’s not going to cut it. Much like a sales process, great talent needs multiple touchpoints from your company to attract the candidate. After all, a 2019 survey by Indeed showed that 13% of job seekers have ghosted a business because there wasn’t enough engagement with the hiring manager or recruiter. 

If your own team doesn’t have the time to carry out a longer process like this, you need to ensure your recruitment partner does. They must be well-versed in the complexities of tech talent and spend the time and energy showing them why your business is the right one for them. 

At Solutions Driven, our candidate engagement works alongside our 6F Methodology, where we ensure someone is right for a role and a company by looking at their compatibility in Fit, Freedom, Family, Fulfilment, Fortune and Future. If someone matches with your business in these areas, they’re more likely to feel an affinity with the business, feel fulfilled, and become long-term employees. 

Great candidate engagement has a multitude of benefits for your business. Not only are you more likely to find and attract the talent you need right now, you also build a pipeline of connected talent for the future. If people have a great experience, even if they don’t get the role, they’re more likely to re-apply or be open to an approach further down the line. Word of mouth is vital in smaller sectors and by ensuring your employees, prospects, and potential prospects all have a positive view of your business, you’re setting yourself up for future hiring success, as well as current. 

To find out more about how to connect with alternative talent pools, engage candidates, and power your growth, get in touch with Nicki Paterson at Solutions Driven today on npaterson@solutionsdriven.com

Fintechs and cybersecurity

Season 1, episode 9

Listen to the full episode here.

According to the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) cyberthreats are on the rise, with more and more Phishing attempts, Identity Theft, Ransomware. The COVID-19 seems to have been an accelerant with attacks on homes, businesses, governments and critical infrastructure. In this podcast we’ll discuss the issue with cybersecurity experts. What are the current threats and those to watch out for in the next few years? What are the new solutions being developed by innovative firms to fight those threats? We’ll ask ourselves if fintech firms, that are introducing new technologies and solutions to the financial services sector, are well prepared to face cyberthreats.

DirectID and Doconomy partner on climate functionality

FinTech DirectID have just entered a collaboration agreement with pioneering Swedish impact tech company Doconomy.

Doconomy is an impact-tech company that uses the power of data raise awareness of the impact of consumption whilst offering solutions to reduce it. With Doconomy users can understand and drive positive movement to tackle climate change.

DirectID is the world’s expert in global credit risk enabled by the usage of real-time bank data. They tackle current problems found within the credit risk lifecycle:

  • Affordability
  • Income and account verification
  • Emerging financial distress
  • Spend categorisation & classification

Doconomy and DirectID have decided to partner to bring climate functionality to the masses, helping consumers make more informed decisions and encourage a more sustainable lifestyle.

This is another great example of how using bank data can help develop new innovative solutions beyond greater access to financial products.

James Varga, CEO of DirectID, said:

“As we continue to grow our reach and capability, having a trusted set of partners is critical to our future success. We are delighted to have signed this agreement with Doconomy.

“We are increasingly seeing new and diverse ways that bank data can support use cases across industry and sector. Using bank data to help us to understand business and consumer’s environmental impact is yet one more way that DirectID’s bank data expertise can support another tech company.”

Mathias Wikström, CEO of Doconomy, said:

“With DirectID joining us in shaping a new normal based on impact transaparency, we are excited to see additional opportunities for continuous development of tools in support of climate action. DirectID bring equal amounts of expertise and passion to the table and we are excited to team up on the most important challenge of all.”

Experian supplies Decision Analytics solution for Soar

Digital banking platform Soar will use Experian’s Decision Analytics solutions to support its work in the community banking market.

 The new partnership will see Soar clients utilise Experian’s SaaS PowerCurve Customer Acquisition platform to help automate lending decisions, transforming their digital onboarding and customer application journey.

Incorporating affordability and eligibility insights based on Experian bureau data, anti-fraud checks, and advanced data analytics all within one cloud-based solution, Soar clients will now have a clear picture of their customers helping them to access the most appropriate lending for their circumstances.

Typically, organisations like Credit Unions and Community Banks have relied upon manual application processes, leading to customers waiting up to a week ”“ and sometimes longer ”“ for their applications to be reviewed and completed.

The solution will significantly improve that wait, returning a decision within minutes, boosting acceptance rates at the beginning of the customer application due to the rich level of customer insight provided.

 By removing the need for organisations to attempt to build a similar solution in-house, PowerCurve will enable clients to quickly modernise their operations and, at the same time, attract new customers who otherwise wouldn’t consider a Credit Union as an option for a financial product.

Steve Pulley, Managing Director Decision Analytics, Experian UK&I, said: “Today’s customers expect digital services to work seamlessly and almost instantaneously, while the impact of Covid-19 means it’s critical that lenders can accurately assess a potential customer’s suitability for lending.”

“Our software plays a critical role in organisations’ decisioning, radically improving their efficiency and outcomes for customers and I’m delighted that those in the community banking market will feel the benefit that data-led analytics can bring.”

Andrew Duncan, CEO of Soar, said: “The community banking market has traditionally been underserved when it comes to technology advancements. We’re committed to changing that, giving organisations the chance to provide their customers with the best digital offering possible

“The breadth and accuracy of what Experian software can offer will be central to us in meeting that ambition and modernising the ethical banking sector.”

LiquidShare selects BTP’s Sextant for Daml platform

LiquidShare has selected Sextant for Daml, a platform provided by Blockchain Technology Partners (BTP), the blockchain and smart contract management and operations platform.

LiquidShare, created in 2017 by eight major European financial institutions (AFS Group, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Caceis, Caisse des Dépôts, Euroclear, Euronext, S2iEM and Société Générale), was established with the mission to build a European post-trading blockchain infrastructure for the financial industry. The company’s post-trade offering secures and streamlines back-office operations in financial markets, whilst also enhancing transparency and trustworthiness of post-trading operations, leveraging the open-source distributed ledger Hyperledger Besu, and Daml, an application platform.

“We chose Daml as our smart-contract language for its strong potential to embed business logic, and because it enables us to build multiparty business processes easily and rapidly. The fact that it is supported by BTP on our ledger of choice, Hyperledger Besu, was also a main driver for us,” said Jean-Marc Eyssautier, CEO of LiquidShare. “Sextant for Daml has accelerated our time to market by allowing us to focus on customer needs.”

BTP’s Sextant for Daml solution simplifies the deployment and management of the Daml  runtime environment on distributed ledgers, enabling innovators such as so LiquidShare to focus on the application rather than the underlying infrastructure.

“We are delighted to facilitate such financial innovation by freeing LiquidShare from technology infrastructure frustrations,” said Duncan Johnston-Watt, CEO & Co-founder of BTP.  “This is a great use case that showcases the business value of distributed ledgers and smart contracts, by lowering the barrier to entry to capital markets.”

Digital Asset’s Daml is an application platform purpose-built for coding complex multiparty business processes. It provides a robust framework to better manage transactional workflows for improved operational efficiency without compromising privacy and trust. This is particularly relevant to capital markets.

“LiquidShare is at the forefront of innovation in post-trade markets,” said Yuval Rooz, Co-founder & CEO at Digital Asset. “Post-trade processes can significantly benefit from the efficiency and trust provided by distributed ledgers and Daml, which is quickly becoming the de facto standard in capital markets. It’s great to see LiquidShare using Sextant for Daml. It is the right platform to help LiquidShare bring its new blockchain-enabled offering to the market.”