Fintech Zortrex launches Zortrex Token Vault
Scottish fintech Zortrex launched Zortrex Token Vault yesterday.
The Zortrex Token Vault was created to assist organisations with reducing the cost and complexity of protecting against data breaches, ensure customer privacy and compliance with ever-changing regulatory requirements.
The Token Vault tokenises messages in-line, removing and storing sensitive data such as credit/debit card information at the boundaries of an organisation.
Zortrex’s growth plans are very ambitious wishing to become the tokenisation vendor of choice within the financial sector.
Zortrex Token Vault addresses unique requirements of the financial sector, dealing with sensitive data and financial messaging standards, including ISO 8583/20022, DB and Hadoop, ensuring quick and easy deployment into payment environments.
This flexible solution seamlessly integrates with clients’ legacy services and systems, allows organisations to evolve how they manage sensitive information.
Zortrex Token Vault operates from a centralised control point allowing companies to create or amend token masks as well as safely and securely de-tokenise data, in instances where the original data is required, via a web portal. The platform can be deployed as a Software as a Service (SaaS) in the cloud, in a hybrid cloud/on-premises model or entirely on a customers’ premises.
Zortrex Token Vault can be used with any data or string of data. Tokenisation doesn’t rely on encryption keys so organisations don’t have to worry about managing sensitive data – security travels with the data.
“Technology is driving transformation within the financial services sector, and tokenisation is changing the way sensitive information is handled, controlled and disseminated throughout organisations,”
Zortrex CEO – Steve Clarke
Scottish fintech Autorek selected by Bank of England for their automated reconciliation and data management solution.
Following a competitive tender the Bank has chosen Scottish fintech AutoRek for the automation of their reconciliation processes. The main objective is to increase efficiencies.
Thanks to Autorek, the Bank of England will have access to a centralised platform for their daily and monthly reconciliation tasks.
The key business benefits of Autorek include:
Ӣ Enhanced control
Ӣ Accurate matching at transaction level mitigating risks Ӣ Better insights into processes
Ӣ Best in class automation tools
Ӣ User configured dashboards
“It is a testament to the whole AutoRek team that we have been able to successfully engage with an institution such as the Bank of England. As we enter our 25th year of operations we have and continue to work with a broad range of leading Insurance, Investment Management and Banking organisations. I look forward to AutoRek delivering value and efficiencies for the Bank as we move into the implementation phase.”
Gordon McHarg, Managing Director
Double Boost for Scotland’s Global Fintech Ambitions
FinTech Scotland welcomes two significant developments which will support its ambition to become a globally recognised fintech centre.
First, as announced by Scottish Government today, Scotland’s fintech cluster has been formally recognised for its excellence by the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA) which benchmarks economic clusters across the Europe.
The ESCA undertook a benchmarking analysis, based on 36 economic indicators, of the work led by FinTech Scotland resulting in the award of the cluster excellence accreditation.
Scotland becomes the first fintech cluster in the UK to be recognised for the cluster excellence award and one of only three fintech clusters in Europe to achieve this accreditation.
Second, the cluster award has been achieved as the two-year old FinTech Scotland confirms an increase in the number of strategic partners supporting the next stage of its strategy.
The strategic partners include: financial institutions, global technology and professional services firms, two of leading international universities developing fintech skills; the University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde, as well as Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Government.
In addition, the Financial Conduct Authority continues support with the full-time secondment of a senior regulator to the FinTech Scotland team.
The broad range of FinTech Scotland strategic partners, illustrated below, will participate in a range of innovation and collaboration initiatives to drive further the development of the fintech cluster.
Commenting, Stephen Ingledew, Chief Executive of FinTech Scotland said: “We are very proud of this centre of excellence cluster recognition which will further contribute to being recognised as a global fintech centre.
Achieving cluster accreditation recognises the progressive innovation, collaboration and inclusion initiatives across Scotland over the past two years and will shape the economic and social priorities for 2020 and beyond.
To progress this, we’re delighted to partner with a broad range of forward thinking and innovative strategic enterprises in developing the fintech cluster, all who have recognised the economic, social and international value of our collaborative and inclusive model”
Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy, Kate Forbes said: “The global financial services sector is being transformed by technology which is providing a range of benefits such as speeding up transactions, making payments more secure and helping avoid problem debt.
“Scotland is already at the forefront of these developments and the fintech cluster is ensuring the benefits are spread across the country. This accreditation will further increase our international profile and is another step towards the goal of being ranked among the world’s top five fintech cluster nations.”
Linda Hanna, Managing Director, Scottish Economic Development at Scottish Enterprise, said: “A huge amount of credit is due to FinTech Scotland for its leadership in securing this accreditation in such a short space of time.
“It sees FinTech Scotland join the country’s existing family of accredited cluster management organisations alongside ScotlandIS and Technology Scotland, underlining Scotland’s international standing as a nation of innovators.
“We look forward to working with Stephen and his team, plus their new and existing strategic partners, as they continue to nurture and encourage the growth of Scotland’s fintech ecosystem.”
Chief Executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise, Graeme Jones commented “To be identified as the first fintech cluster in the UK is further recognition of Scotland’s position as a thriving, forward-thinking, international centre and is a landmark moment for Scotland. This will present new opportunities to deliver even more economic and social benefits to Scotland and the UK”
Jane Morrison-Ross, Chief Executive of ScotlandIS said,’ We are delighted that FinTech Scotland have achieved this award. This is a huge boost to the developing cluster economy in Scotland. We are very excited by the potential of the Scottish clusters and the opportunity to further collaborate with FinTech Scotland. ‘
The number of fintech enterprises continues to grow as FinTech Scotland reaches its second birthday
FinTech Scotland has confirmed that the number of innovative fintech SMEs based in Scotland has grown by over 60% from 72 to 119 over the last twelve months.
The announcement comes on the second anniversary since the formation of FinTech Scotland, a joint initiative by a number of financial services firms, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise.
The growth in the new fintech enterprises focused on reinventing financial services has been driven by new start-ups such as Visible Capital, SecureTheFile, Open Banking Research, Contract2Pay, Digital Future Capital, Guiide amongst many others over the year.
In addition, the growth in numbers has been fuelled by fintech firms moving to Scotland from other parts of the world such Gobbill (Australia), Polydigi (Hong Kong), EedenBull (Norway), QWallets (USA) who are now part of the Scottish fintech community along with other global fintech firms, bringing their expertise and energy with them. Furthermore, there have been a number of innovative fintech enterprises from the UK who have now set up operations in Scotland such as Xpand, Mudano, Infinity Works, BePayd and become part of the vibrant fintech community.
Since its inception in early 2018, FinTech Scotland has facilitated the growing fintech innovation by fostering the connection between entrepreneurs, large financial services firms, the universities, Government and public sector as well as a range of strategic partners and stakeholders.
Examples of FinTech Scotland’s strategic enabling leadership role over the last twelve months have included:
- The formation of the FinTech Scotland Consumer and Citizen Panel, a first for UK and Europe, launched to encourage the development of new solutions to tackle societal and inclusion challenges
- International trade missions of fintech firms to meet the Scottish community including from Canada, Hong Kong, France, Switzerland, Singapore and USA to name a few
- Scotland’s Fintech Festival over three weeks in September with 60+ events across the country with international fintech guests attending from over twenty nations
- Collaboration with UK fintech organisations to form the Fintech National Network to support investment, innovation and inclusion initiatives
- Founding member of the European Fintech Discovery Programme with eight leading fintech hubs across the continent to offer greater access to innovation across nations
- Ongoing close collaboration with the financial regulator, the FCA, including the extention of the of the secondment of a senior regulators to FinTech Scotland
- Developed financial inclusion and diversity initiatives working with consumer groups, social enterprises and charities such as Money Advice Scotland
- Facilitated cross sector fintech innovation, for example, with ScotlandIS, Law Society of Scotland and as well as Scottish Government Digital Team
- Partnership agreement with University of Strathclyde in developing the Glasgow fintech cluster as part of the City’s Innovation District
“It is a privilege to lead the FinTech Scotland team and galvanise the broad range of support from across Scotland to support the growth of innovative fintech enterprises in this last year.
Our progressive, collaborative and inclusive agenda is certainly establishing Scotland as a major global fintech centre which can contribute to Scotland’s economic and social ambitions.
There is still much to do but with the support of a range of stakeholders from private sector, Government and academia actively participating we can achieve the top ranking global fintech status. I am excited about a number of new initiatives planned for early 2020 which will enable us to build on the momentum throughout Scotland.“
Stephen Ingledew, Chief Executive of Fintech Scotland
“Congratulations to FinTech Scotland for an another immensely successful year. Under Stephen Ingledew’s leadership at FinTech Scotland has galvanised collaboration between Scotland’s innovative SMEs, universities, financial industry and public sector. Together, we are building Scotland’s reputation as a major global FinTech centre and commend FinTech Scotland team for their collaborative leadership over the last year and their vision for the future.”
Digital Economy Minister, Kate Forbes
“Scotland’s rich heritage in financial services coupled with its reputation as a country of innovators means it’s ideally placed to become one of the world’s leading fintech ecosystems. This is evident in both the number of new Scottish fintech companies and those international businesses that are relocating their operations to take advantage of Scotland’s experience and expertise in the sector.
“The fintech movement in Scotland has been determinedly driven forward by FinTech Scotland over the past two years. Stephen and his team deserve great credit for keeping the momentum going ”“ here’s to another successful year.”
Linda Hanna, Managing Director, Scottish Enterprise
The second anniversary was recognised on Tuesday the 8th of January at the joint quarterly Government and financial industry meeting, the Financial Services Advisory Board (FiSAB), chaired by Scottish Government ministers and the Chairman of Scottish Financial Enterprise who is Philip Grant of Lloyds Banking Group, one of the founding partners of FinTech Scotland, and attended by executives from across the financial sector.
New Edinburgh Office for Autorek
Scottish fintech AutoRek recently announced the opening of their new office in Edinburgh at Apex One in Haymarket.
Following a very important recruitment push in 2019, a new office was deemed a priority for the 25 year old successful company which provides financial controls, regulatory reporting and data management software solutions.
The new office is just over 5,000 square foot and equipped with the latest technology. It’s ideally built to accommodate for training courses, helping their customers make the most of of their solution.
This follows another move to a new office in Glasgow and 2020 should see their London team being relocated to a bigger office to prepare for growth as the demands from the industry is also rapidly growing.
“After years of sustained growth we are excited to be able to move into a much-needed bigger office space. Apex one in Haymarket is a great location with amazing views. The space is best in class, and we look forward to welcoming our clients to the along for meetings and training days”.
Gordon McHarg, Managing Director
Edinburgh based fintech crowdfunding for new app
Financial education Scottish fintech MoneyMatiX is launching a fundraising campaign to raise £12,000.
This campaign will support the launch of its KUZAKASH APP using the RBS Back Her Business scheme which pledges to match fund up to 50% of their crowdfunding target. MoneyMatiX was launch by two highly motivated and driven mums passionate about making money management accessible to all.
Financial habits are becoming ever more complex with young people turning to adults for financial guidance but finding them ill-equipped at money management. This led MoneyMatix to develop KUZAKASH, a family finance management APP promoting meaningful financial interactions between children, parents & teachers.
Kuzakash uses visualisation tools to make financial goal setting fun and achievable. Both adults and children can set, track and contribute towards their goals which are used as the educational touch-points to illustrate healthy money habits.
This raise will be used to carry out beta testing of the KUZAKASH APP and a consumer education campaign.
“Financial management skills are one of the most important factors that determine our lifestyle choices. Money is a continuous touchpoint throughout our lives and technology can help make this touchpoint meaningful by enabling people to create healthy interactions with money.”
Tynah Matembe, CEO of MoneyMatiX
“There is an African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child, but I want to add to it that it takes a family and community to foster good financial habits. In this day and age of influencers, young people should not only be influenced by fashion or talent, but they should also be influenced by skills that will last for a lifetime like financial education. We are building a generation of financially savvy youngsters who will not only impact their communities but the economy at large. We can’t do this on our own! We need your help to build financially capable communities.”
Helene Rodger Co-Founder and COO of MoneyMatiX
To get the matched funding from RBS they need to get at least 100 unique backers for their APP. The campaign will run for 30 days and you can get involved to back KuzaKash here.
New fintech set to transform consumer investment experience
Scottish fintech company Visible Capital announced today it had secured £500,000 seed funding from TechStart Ventures and a group of eight private investors.
They also announced the appointment of Preston Rabl (WPP founder) on their board.
The 3 founders, Richard Braidwood, Ross Laurie and Christian Burgin will launch Visible Capital in early 2020. The solution will use Open Banking to assist clients of intermediaries provide their advisors with controlled access to their financial data in order to receive quicker, more informed advice on financial matters.
“Financial advisers and wealth managers still take information from their clients in paper form ”“ which means the advice they give and the strategies they suggest can only be as good as the immediate information they receive. Visible Capital’s technology allows the intermediary agreed and controlled access to real data about spending needs, wants, savings and borrowing, giving an instantly accurate picture of their clients’ ongoing finances ”“ making the onboarding process quicker and easier, and a lot more precise.”
Richard Braidwood, Co-Founder of Visible Capital
Earlier this year Visible Capital received approval from the Financial Conduct Authority.
Eika Makes Major Investment in EedenBull
Norwegian banking group Eika announced a large investment into Scotland based fintech EedenBull. Eika’s member banks will have access to EedenBull’s existing and future solutions and thereby increased competitiveness in the payments market..
EedenBull was founded in 2018 by a team of payments experts from around the world and expanded into Scotland with. the opening of their new office on September 2019. EedenBull already has a large number of customers in Europe and is now launching its new and innovative payments and spend management programme through more than 65 banks in the Nordic region for more than 9,000 businesses. The company is said to onboard a new customer every 4 minutes.
EedenBull’s solution gives companies simplicity and control for managing employees’ purchases made on their behalf. The solution includes payment cards, a web-based and mobile app management module.
“To us, it is important to create partnerships with players who possess specialist expertise in their areas, as the collaboration with EedenBull is an example of. This investment is strategically important to the Eika Group and our member banks for us to strengthen and secure our ability to compete effectively in the complex world of payments going forward.”
CEO Terje Gromholt of Eika Kredittbank
“The investment made by Eika and the partnership that follows is a testament to our ability to provide significant value to banks and their customers through combining our expertise and experience with payments with access to and utilization of new technologies. We are excited about the opportunity we have to not only embrace change in the way consumers and businesses think about payments, but continue to take a leading role in setting the agenda and driving change”
EedenBull CEO Nicki Bisgaard
Scottish Young Edge winners HubSolv ranked 33rd in UK’s top tech list
Technology directors gathered from across the UK last week on November 7th for the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards ceremony in London; one of the UK’s foremost technology awards programmes. The directors from Glasgow-based firm HubSolv Limited, Fraser Hamilton and Lewis Black, were among the guests, following Deloitte’s recognition of HubSolv as one of the top 50 fastest-growing technology companies in the UK.
HubSolv was one of the three Scottish firms to have made it to the influential list and ranked 33rd in the prestigious Technology Fast 50. The rankings are based on percentage revenue growth over the last four years, and HubSolv has experienced 1,058% growth.
The team at HubSolv have come a long way since its foundation only five years ago, when they designed their specialised software for the niche industry of personal insolvency. In 2015, the firm won a Scottish Young EDGE award ”“ a grant prize that recognises the most promising firms and businesses with directors under the age of 30. The following years saw the Glasgow team further developing tech solutions and extending their product portfolio, growing their client base and tripling their workforce.
“We’re thrilled to have ranked 33rd in the UK Technology Fast 50. Since we embarked on this journey back in 2014, we have strived to innovate and evolve our product offer, which aims to digitise processes for the industry. Deloitte’s ranking is a recognition of our achievements and denotes HubSolv’s accelerated growth as we concurrently progress with our software solutions.”
Fraser Hamilton, co-founder at Hubsolv
The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards came back in its twenty-second year. This year, the competition saw fintech businesses comprising 30% of the winners and fintech companies dominating the top three places. Revolut ranked first on the list; while Credit providers OakNorth and Dividebuy achieved second and third place.
“As part of the growing fintech community, it’s been very encouraging for us at HubSolv to see the pace of growth across the sector and a strong performance from fintech businesses, who have managed to thrive in spite of the recent waves of economic uncertainty in the country. These are exciting times for our team; we have promising plans in the pipeline and a talented, high-skilled team in place to support our growth and innovative development. We’re looking forward to seeing what 2020 holds for HubSolv.”
Fraser Hamilton, co-founder at Hubsolv
Crypto currency ATM’s appearing in more Scottish cities
Photo by David McBee from Pexels
Crypto currency ATM’s now in Dundee and Aberdeen
2 Scottish cities, Dundee and Aberdeen, have installed their first ever Bitcoin ATMs.
Alphavend UK, Scotland’s leading Digital Currency ATM operator, has just announced that it had installed Bitcoin ATM machines in Dundee (Nethergate) and Aberdeen (Bridge Street).
Citizens can now buy Bitcoin, without having to make long journeys to cities such as Glasgow or Edinburgh and in a way that’s easier than easier than before by simply exchanging cash for the famous cryptocoins.
Alphavend has planned to instal more machines in the UK and is growing rapidly to keep pace with the growing interest and demand which has never been higher.
The high demand can be explained by Bitcoin being chosen more and more as a cost-effective way of sending money around the world.