FinTech Scotland marks its eighth anniversary reinforcing its position as one of Europe’s leading fintech clusters
Marking its eighth anniversary, FinTech Scotland reports that the nation’s fintech cluster has more than doubled in size in the past five years – from just over 120 firms in 2020 to more than 260 – confirming Scotland’s position as one of Europe’s most dynamic and collaborative fintech clusters.
This growth has been driven by higher levels of investment, deeper partnerships across industry, academia and the public sector, and more businesses scaling up and trading internationally.
Innovation in practice has also taken a major step forward, with the 10-year FinTech Research and Innovation Roadmap now embedded and over 40% of recommended actions under way. Central to this has been the 2025 award-winning Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), which plays a key role in creating the right conditions for collaboration and product development. A recent example is the partnership between Amiqus and Virgin Money: through the FRIL programme, Amiqus moved from an initial pilot to live production with Virgin Money, using AI to transform business banking onboarding – demonstrating the capability and scalability of its platform.
In 2025, the cluster also launched two major new initiatives: the Centre of Excellence in Distributed Ledger Technology, focusing on digital assets, payments and tokenisation, with digital trust at its core, and the Finance and Health Lab a pilot cross-sector research and innovation programme dedicated to improving financial wellbeing, resilience and long-term financial health in Scotland.
Looking ahead to 2026, FinTech Scotland will focus on translating innovation into economic and social value, in line with UK industrial policy priorities, and enabling all participating in the cluster to thrive.
Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive of FinTech Scotland, said:
“The doubling of Scotland’s fintech density is a clear signal that our collaborative and cluster-based approach is working. The Research and Innovation Roadmap provided a national framework to accelerate purposeful innovation, and it’s been inspiring to see how fintech entrepreneurs, financial institutions, and universities have got behind that shared vision.
As I begin 2026 as FinTech Scotland’s new Chief Executive, I look forward to leading our plans to support the next stages of cluster growth and thereby accelerate successful business growth and innovation in financial technology.”
Jane Martin, Managing Director of Innovation and Investment at Scottish Enterprise, added:
“A major strength for Scotland is its connected fintech cluster, an inclusive network of entrepreneurs, researchers, and industry leaders working together to solve real world challenges. This growth shows that Scotland can have a global impact by focusing on purposeful and collaborative innovation.”
Callum Murray, CEO of leading fintech firm Amiqus, said:
“FinTech Scotland has provided practical ongoing support to Amiqus and many other fintech scale ups across the country for many years. Our involvement in their FRIL innovation programme dramatically accelerated relationships with large scale banks, built trust in our capability to deliver at scale and directly led to us securing a new ongoing client partnership. We look forward to the collaborative opportunities working with the Fintech Scotland team over the years ahead.”
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ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) Leadership
Start-Date: February 2026 (TBC)
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Discount codes
As a valued member of the FinTech Scotland community, and with support from the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), you can use the following discount codes:
- AI & RegTech course: use code ‘FRIL’ at checkout. Standard price £499; FinTech Scotland members pay £349 with this code.
- ESG Leadership microcredential: use code ‘ESGFriends’ at checkout. Standard price £599; FinTech Scotland members pay £399 with this code.
The Delivery and Impact of the FinTech Scotland Cluster in 2025
This report highlights the progress made across the FinTech Scotland Cluster in 2025, a year marked by continued growth and increasing global influence. The cluster has welcomed new firms, attracted higher levels of investment, and seen more businesses scale confidently and trade internationally. Scotland’s fintech SME community has matured significantly, supported by deeper partnerships across industry, academia, and the public sector — reflecting a shared commitment to collaboration as a driver of meaningful progress.
Innovation in practice has also taken a major step forward. The 10-year FinTech Research and Innovation Roadmap is now firmly embedded, with over 40% of recommended actions underway. Central to this has been the award-winning Financial Regulation Innovation Lab, which expanded its scale and earned national recognition for its collaborative, industry-led approach. In 2025, the cluster also launched its second priority innovation environment, The Centre of Excellence in Distributed Ledger Technology, focusing on digital assets, payments, and tokenisation, with digital trust at its core.
These successes reflect the collective effort and commitment across the ecosystem to drive responsible innovation and sustainable economic growth. They provide a powerful platform for the next phase. Thank you to all who have contributed — 2026 promises new opportunities, new collaborations, and continued progress for Scotland’s fintech community.
Together, these environments are enabling pioneering work and helping firms explore and commercialise technologies shaping the future of financial services. National and international engagement has matched this momentum. From strong representation at Money20/20 Europe to productive activity and engagement across North America, Canada, Hong Kong, and wider Asia, Scotland’s international presence has grown, supporting an increasing number of fintech SMEs entering global markets.
Nicola Anderson, Chief Executive at FinTech Scotland, said:
“These successes reflect the collective effort and commitment across the ecosystem to drive responsible innovation and sustainable economic growth. They provide a powerful platform for the next phase. Thank you to all who have contributed—2026 promises new opportunities, new collaborations, and continued progress for Scotland’s fintech community.”
Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive at FinTech Scotland, said:
“As I step into the role of Chief Executive in January, I do so with genuine excitement for what lies ahead. The foundations built over the past seven years including in 2025 create a strong foundation for the next phase of growth. Scotland’s fintech community is rich with talent, ambition, creativity, and a collaborative spirit that is widely admired – including internationally. I am energised by the opportunity to contribute further to this vibrant cluster, including its innovators, current and future strategic partners, and supporters in the ecosystem. Together, we will build on the momentum already achieved and shape a successful future in which Scotland continues to lead, influence, and inspire across the rapidly evolving fintech landscape.”
Amiqus announces partnership with Virgin Money to transform business banking onboarding through AI innovation
- Amiqus, the compliance platform powering customer and staff onboarding at scale across regulated sectors, agrees a three-year contract with Virgin Money to deliver AI-driven automation within Virgin Money’s business banking onboarding journeys.
- The partnership builds on the success of an initial 12-week pilot, which saw Amiqus reduce the time to undertake key ‘Know Your Business’ (KYB) processes to under two minutes.
- The success of the pilot programme greenlights the full rollout, with Amiqus now set to be fully integrated into Virgin Money’s onboarding system in 2026 for an initial three-year period.
The collaboration will see Amiqus’ scalable technology integrated directly into Virgin Money’s system, enabling faster decision-making, improved regulatory assurance, and a simple fully digital experience for new business customers.
Facilitating faster, seamless onboarding
Virgin Money engaged Amiqus through FinTech Scotland’s Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) to solve their core challenge: how Virgin Money could use AI to strengthen quality control across digital and manual onboarding, ensuring compliance with regulatory obligations while meeting customer service objectives.
Over the initial pilot programme, Amiqus demonstrated their ability to:
- Reduce KYB check turnaround times to under two minutes.
- Support even stronger regulatory assurance through structured, real-time data.
- Improve customer experience through faster, low-friction onboarding.
- Provide scalability for deployment across wider banking operations.
Callum Murray, CEO and Founder of Amiqus, said:
“Partnering with Virgin Money over the next three years, we’ll be supporting their business banking customer onboarding to make complex decisions faster at scale whilst also improving upon their already well renowned customer and product experiences.
Thanks to the FRIL programme via FinTech Scotland, we’ve been able to demonstrate both the capability and scalability of the Amiqus platform from initial pilot into live production with Virgin Money. I expect it’s the start of a long-running relationship where we’re able to move at pace, creating positive outcomes for both their clients and internal compliance teams and we’re proud to play our part in their success.”
A scalable capability built for regulated oversight
By combining real-time data insights and automation, Amiqus gives Virgin Money instant access to company filings, shareholder information, supporting structured extraction, and analysis, delivered via Amiqus’ purpose-built API, supporting fast, accurate, and efficient decision-making.
Graeme Sands, Director of Digital Business Banking at Virgin Money, commented “Business customers want a speedy account opening process and we want the same – but that needs to be done in accordance with rules designed to prevent economic crime. It was clear when we met Amiqus they had a differentiated capability in identity checking and business verification. During the pilot we saw a significant improvement in the time to complete onboarding checks while maintaining their accuracy and that’s what made us want to deploy this for our customers.”
Long-term investment in compliance
Amiqus’ partnership with Virgin Money reflects their ongoing commitment to strengthening compliance, enhancing customer experience, and driving operational efficiency across regulated sectors at scale. By investing purposefully in secure automation workflow and integrations, Amiqus enables organisations to reduce friction for end users, streamline internal processes, and uphold the highest standards of regulatory assurance.
To learn more about how Amiqus is supporting KYB checks across regulated sectors and beyond, get in touch today.
New fintech programme aims to help Scotland’s ageing population financially prepare for later life
FinTech Scotland is aiming to help address the growing link between people’s financial situation and their health in later life with the launch of a new initiative that will accelerate innovation through the development of new research, technologies, and services.
The Finance and Health Lab will bring together financial services firms, fintechs, academia, government, health specialists and policy leaders to enhance understanding of the drivers of later life financial vulnerability and to co-design solutions that could improve the financial wellbeing and resilience of people across Scotland. The programme is being enabled by funding from the Scottish Government and delivered in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Innovations, its commercialisation service, leveraging their innovation and research networks.
By fostering collaboration amongst partner organisations, the lab will support the ideation of new ventures, prototypes, and pilot projects, strengthening Scotland’s innovation pipeline and competitiveness in the global fintech market. It will also generate research that will shape future service models, product development, and policy that support good financial and health outcomes.
Participating organisations will collaborate on solving a number of challenge areas, with end outcomes potentially including making digital financial services more accessible and supportive for older people, creating personalised tools that help individuals plan for health events in later life, and strengthening financial confidence and decision-making.
The four-month programme will include a National Conference on innovation in finance and health and calls for projects targeting high-priority issues related to later life and financial wellbeing. In addition, participants will have opportunities to showcase new prototypes, understand data, undertake research, produce policy papers, and exchange knowledge through a series of webinars, roundtables, and other platforms.
A range of studies have drawn a direct link between household wealth and the likelihood of poor health in older age. For example, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)(2023–24), 54% of women aged 55–64 in the lowest third of the UK’s wealth distribution reported at least one mobility issue, compared to just 20% in the wealthiest third.
The UK has a longstanding retirement savings gap. Office for National Statistics figures suggest the average pension wealth in the UK for people between the ages of 65 and 74 stands at just under £146,000, equivalent to just over 4.5 years of ‘comfortable’ retirement income by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Associations’ standards.
Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive at FinTech Scotland, said:
“The retirement savings gap is a longstanding challenge in Scotland and across the UK – and it is only going to grow in importance as more people live longer and, therefore, need more money to fund themselves in later life. The Finance and Health Lab will bring together the best minds from across different sectors to find different types of solutions – whether that is policy, research, or technology – and set out a way forward for ensuring people can have a good retirement, minimising the adverse impact that poor health or limited finances can have.”
Dr Andrea Taylor, chief executive officer at Edinburgh Innovations, added:
“Scotland is the ideal test bed for an initiative like the Finance and Health Lab, with a strong fintech ecosystem, globally recognised universities, and a thriving financial services sector. The solutions that emerge from the programme could make a significant difference to people’s lives and further cement our position as a world leader in collaboration and innovation between the public, private, and education sectors.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish Government said:
“Scottish Government committed £5 million this financial year to support the growth of our key innovation clusters as drivers of economic development in areas with huge value potential, including fintech and life sciences. This project, as an important element of a broader suite of cluster development projects, will strengthen cross-cluster collaboration and contribute to the enhancement of innovation and economic growth of these key clusters.”
Read more about the Finance and Health Lab.
FinTech Scotland strengthens fintech cluster with global leaders CMS and Mastercard
FinTech Scotland has announced that law firm CMS and international payments leader Mastercard have joined the Scottish Fintech Cluster as Strategic Partners; an exciting development enhancing the cluster’s collective strengths. The new strategic partners bring additional world-class financial and professional services expertise that will support fintech innovation and accelerate economic growth across Scotland and the UK.
Their involvement reflects the continued momentum for growth across the FinTech Scotland Cluster and its commitment to collaborative innovation, to shape the future of next generation financial services.
Payment giant Mastercard is championing fintech developments across the world and is driving innovation in fields such as AI and Open Finance, both themes closely aligned to FinTech Scotland’s Research and Innovation Roadmap. This new partnership will present fintech businesses in Scotland with more innovation and collaboration opportunities that can build new commercial pathways and access to global markets.
CMS, which has more than 5,000 lawyers across 70 offices worldwide, brings extensive expertise in advising high growth fintech and established financial institutions in cutting-edge developments that are transforming the financial services sector. Their expertise in fields such as digital assets and blockchain technology supports Scotland’s plans for the new Centre of Excellence in Distributed Ledger Technologies developed by FinTech Scotland in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University.
The two new strategic additions further strengthen an already dynamic group of over 35 strategic partners, all working together to shape a world-class environment for fintech development and regional growth. The diversity of experience and perspective within the cluster continues to drive impactful collaboration and positive impact for the sector and society. These partnerships align with the UK Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy announced on the 23rd of June, highlighting firstly the importance of industry-wide collaboration in delivering economic growth alongside more place-based approaches and the importance of regional clusters to deliver successful growth.
Nicola Anderson, CEO at FinTech Scotland said: “We are delighted to welcome CMS and Mastercard to the FinTech Scotland Cluster. Their global reach, commitment to innovation, and deep sector expertise align perfectly with our ambition for the future of fintech innovation in Scotland. Together with our existing strategic partners, we are building a purposeful, connected, and impactful fintech Cluster, driving action for positive economic gain.”
Bruce Harvie and Fiona Henderson, Partners at CMS Scotland, said: “We are delighted to announce CMS’s strategic partnership with Fintech Scotland, a collaboration that underscores our shared commitment to driving innovation, excellence and growth across Scotland’s financial services ecosystem. This collaboration brings together our deep industry expertise and Fintech Scotland’s dynamic cluster to support the development of cutting-edge solutions that will benefit businesses and consumers alike. We look forward to contributing to Scotland’s thriving fintech community that champions collaboration, sustainability, and economic growth.”
Tackling the eSignature challenge in financial services
For established financial firms and fintechs, getting documents signed is a routine part of doing business. However, in regulated sectors, this far from a simple click and can be time demanding. The challenge is ensuring that each signature is genuine, the signer’s identity is verified, and the process stands up to legal and compliance scrutiny.
The problem: when speed meets risk
Digital transformation has made signing a document as easy as pressing a button, but not all eSignatures are created equal.
- Click-to-sign methods offer convenience but can leave gaps in proving who actually signed.
- In high-value transactions such as lending agreements or investment contracts, these gaps create legal and regulatory risk.
- For scaling fintechs, enterprise-grade solutions that meet evidentiary standards can be expensive, with licensing fees adding hidden operational costs.
This leaves many firms in a bind: how to balance speed, client experience, and compliance without breaking the budget.
The solution: a verified approach
Syngrafii emerged from a unique collaboration between CEO Matthew Gibson and Canadian author Margaret Atwood, initially to create remote wet-ink signatures for book signings. That invention evolved into a secure document execution platform designed for high-trust environments.
The system combines:
- Biometric ink signature capture – recording pressure, speed, and stroke data.
- Live video signing sessions – visually confirming the signer’s identity in real time.
- Tamper-proof audit trails – preserving every step of the transaction in a MasterFile™ for evidentiary use.
The result is a signing process that mirrors the assurance of in-person signing, but with the reach and efficiency of digital.
For growing fintechs, Syngrafii’s Pay-As-You-Sign™ model removes the barrier of large annual license fees. Firms pay only for the transactions they complete, making enterprise-grade compliance achievable without committing to long-term, high-cost contracts.
Use cases range from:
- Client onboarding with ID verification.
- Loan and mortgage approvals requiring verified signatures.
- Wealth management agreements where client trust is paramount.
View Syngrafii’s profile on FinTech Scotland’s website.