Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ FinTech Momentum and More
This fortnight has further reinforced the massive momentum behind the plethora of fintech initiatives across Scotland and wearing my running shoes has been essential to keep up with the pace!
What is especially exciting about this momentum is the diversity of participants engaging in the fintech opportunity, all embracing our mission of making a better world for all through financial innovation, collaboration and inclusion.
For example, I was very much energised on meeting David Duffy, chief executive of Clydesdale Yorkshire Bank Group last week, hearing how a major financial institution was very much pioneering to embrace the fintech momentum.
Key to this is the open and progressive way in which the CYBG leadership engage with smaller entrepreneurial enterprises to ensure effective collaboration, fueling new innovation for the Bank.
Collaborative Momentum
This collaborative momentum was also very much in evidence at the Baillie Gifford Fintech Event on Wednesday, held at the impressive new Tynecastle Park.
Anurag Agrawal, Adrian Fern and the team put together an excellent programme bringing together the expertise of Baillie Gifford with a range of entrepreneurs from the Scottish fintech community to share insights and mutual opportunities.
Importantly this collaboration extended to involving other key partners on the day such as DataLab, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Business Network and Scotland IS.
It was super to share the stage with Keith Phillips from the Investment Association and hear about their exciting fintech accelerator initiative, Velocity, which we will be collaborating with the team on to link in the Scottish fintech community.
On a broader level, it was great to demonstrate the collaborative momentum with the announcement of Prudential as a strategic partner to Fintech Scotland.
David Macmillan, the managing director for the wealth solutions division, has significant international experience in fintech innovation in the investment and pensions sector and we are looking forward to engaging his innovative team with the fintech community.
Building on the collaborative momentum was very much key to the meetings with the HSBC team led by Colin Halpin who is brilliantly leading inspiring collaboration initiatives in respect of future skills and education, all are imperative to fintech longer term success.
People Momentum
On the subject of skills, it was very poignant to have an advance start to FinTech Fortnight on Thursday in the Kingdom of Fife with the launch of the FinTech Skills Academy.
The community led momentum behind setting up the Fife FinTech Skills Consortium to develop the skills base is really impressive and it was a massive privilege to be at the event hosted by Paywizard in Kirkaldy.
Very much inspired by the people leadership by Jim Tomaney and Jamie of Renovite Technologies as well as Iain Shirlaw and Krystyna Marett to making this happen. Very much an initiative we hope to build upon.
It was great to share thoughts with the Fife fintech community on how we can build on this momentum and further reinforce the region as a leading driving force of innovation working with Fife College and Fife Council.
I must admit it was a bit of a rush over the bridge to Kirkaldy on Thursday as I was speaking at the Inspiring Futures annual Scottish conference beforehand in Edinburgh. This tough was no dress rehearsal!
Thank you to Anna Halliday and the team for inviting me to share with their professional education audience of teachers and career advisers on how the world of fintech was relevant to everybody and the importance diversity of skills the sector needed to thrive in the future.
Hopefully, one day, maybe some of the young people they are guiding on their career journeys will join a fintech skills academy or firm so we can maintain the momentum of innovation across Scotland
Importantly, the focus of the people momentum is also on diversity, for example in progressing a much better gender balance in the skills such as technology that are key to the future of fintech.
So it was fantastic to attend the Women in STEM event last week at Codebase, expertly organized by Lisa Thomson and the PurposeHR team. Terrific to hear from Marcus Corner on how the practical steps the fintech firm Modulr are putting this at the forefront of their people development.
This is also a key strategic theme I very much look forward to further working with Aileen O’Hagan and the Equate Scotland team on to ensure there is continuing momentum behind the question of gender diversity in fintech and broader financial services.
Strategic Momentum
At a strategic level there are a number of initiatives which are gaining momentum across the fintech community.
For example, it was terrific to catch up on Monday with Anthony Rafferty, Ken May, Michael Roe and Iain Muir at Origo on their brilliant leadership in respect of the high profile pensions dashboard initiative.
A challenging but hugely valuable strategic project which will have a direct impact on millions of people in the future as well as importantly playing a key linkage to the open banking developments.
Open banking continues to be a strategic priority and great to be working with Andy Maciver and Gavin Littlejohn in crafting the market positioning for this hugely significant development.
It was also invaluable as always to get the insightful strategic feedback and thoughts from Ian Mckenna of FTRC last week in London on this whole area and share our mutual enthusiasm on how open banking presents a massive opportunity to reinvent financial services.
Infact, it goes beyond financial services and meeting with Lucinda Rivers and Daniel from UNICEF reinforced to me the broader opportunities of strategic collaboration for fintech.
Executing strategic opportunities with Scotland’s fintech community was top of the agenda in meeting Myron Hrycyk and Colin Carmichael of Sopra Steria in London and I am excited about how we can accelerate the strategic momentum working with the University of Edinburgh.
This will be further complemented by of our recently announced academic and industry fintech initiative with the University of Edinburgh being planned for November which will play a key role in driving forward the strategic fintech momentum.
The strategic momentum also extends to working across sectors to develop broader innovation opportunities in Scotland and it was great to continue this conversation with Trish Quinn, Hugh Wallace, Sarah Thomson, Ian Spencer and Promilla Caughey from their respective Scottish Government teams
The strategic opportunities on a global scale are also very important to our ambitions and in this respect I have very much valued the engagement of the Deloitte team of Kent Mackenzie, Chris Brown, Daniel Cheddie and Noornet Singh. Excited about we further build Scotland’s fintech visibility on the world fintech stage.
Visible Momentum
The momentum behind Scotland’s fintech visibility is certainly growing and it was fabulous to see a number of people from fintech community profiled on BBC Scotland News this week with its special news item on the fintech momentum in Scotland.
Terrific TV interview pieces with Steve Tigar of Money Dashboard, John McHugh of Gigly and Tynah Matembe of Money Matix, huge pride in how their fintech innovation was shared across the national audience.
The Money Matix also had the opportunity to showcase on the big stage at the Social Enterprise World Forum in Edinburgh where their fintech innovation received a wonderful response.
Also massively proud of Loral Quinn of Sustainably and Colin Hewitt of Float for creating their fintech visibility by being selected by Tech Nation for their innovation programme,
Congratulation also to Loral and the team for moving into your new home in Leith, it has been wonderful have you all live with us this last month inside our FinTech Scotland home. We miss you already.
On an academic level this visible momentum is going to continue with the launch of the very first Journal on Financial Technology and it was great to catch up this week with Jamie Gabbay from Heriot-Watt who is leading on this, more to come on this soon.
Marathon Momentum
I am planning to take all this momentum into my running this weekend with a marathon race in Lancaster although as I write this blog I am not sure if that is now going to be realistic!
I’ve been hit with a bug this last week and I am wondering whether I can do the 26.2 miles justice or whether I should defer to another race in a few weeks time!!
Some family time on Friday night will allow me to make a decision. What I do know is that I will need to be ready to join the fantastic fintech community and friends across Scotland on Monday for the start of FinTech Fortnight.
Absolutely amazing the programme of events and activities out together by everyone plus so pleased we are able to welcome so many international guests from all parts of the globe during the two weeks.
I hope to see as many of you as possible over this next fortnight and thank you again for making this all happen.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ The Home For FinTech
I’ve always been sure that Scotland is a natural home for fintech growth and innovation and my journeys over the last few weeks has reinforced this belief in so many ways.
The home of fintech really came alive for me during the meeting last Friday to discuss the development of the Fife FinTech Academy with Iain Shirlaw, John Mcfarlane, Krystyna Marett and Ann Salt.
Developing the skills for a bright fintech home of the future is crucial and the Academy initiative with an initial focus on financial payments will ensure the Fife region continues to lead the way globally.
You’ll be hearing more details on this following the launch event as a curtain raiser for FinTech Scotland Fortnight in September.
However, in the meantime the fantastic news from the global fintech player Renovite Technologies to expand further is testament to Fife being a key area of Scotland’s fintech home.
Innovation Home
Meeting new and established fintech firms demonstrated that innovation is alive and well in our home. For example, the credentials and track record of Inside Secure were wonderful to hear about when I caught up with Douglas Kinloch and Neal Michie at their Glasgow office one evening.
I’m excited about connecting the Inside Secure team with the fintech payment firms in Fife to take advantage of collaboration opportunities.
Similarly, from our meeting recently with David Eccles from Wallscope we can see potential to drive innovation in the home by making connections with key stakeholders
The value of an innovation led home was very much in abundance when Mickael and I met up with Mark Doherty, Stephen Pollock and Jason at Avaloq yesterday and then had the chance to join their All Hands’ meeting. Fantastic people with a fabulous working environment.
As initial founding partners of FinTech Scotland, Avaloq play a significant role in Scotland and globally and it is exciting working with them to support their growth and people development plans.
During their session, I was asked whether we can measure the real level of innovation taking place in Scorland.
This gave me the opportunity to highlight the innovation audit’ work we have been progressing with the Scottish Government CanDo team along with a couple of other sectors. I’m looking forward to progressing this work with June Love, Joanna McKenzie and the team.
Sharing the exciting innovation happening in our Scotland fintech home is always a privilege and on Wednesday there was the opportunity to do so with Scottish Government Minister Kate Forbes and UK Treasury Minister John Glenn.
Wonderful to hear the broad range of fintech leaders share how they are reinvesting financial services as well as candidly expressed the challenges in driving forward innovation in financial services.
Thank you to all who joined me for the Ministerial visit to Fintech Scotland, you all did the fintech community proud. Big thanks also to Shery, Fiona and Niamh for making everything run so smoothly.
Later that day I ran over Glasgow to join the MBN Solutions and DataLab fabulous event for data scientists to share thoughts on why fintech is a wonderful home to develop a career path in Scotland.
Many thanks to Paul Forrest, Mickael Young, Rob Huggins and their super team, sorry I had to rush off at the end to get back for my daughters 18th birthday!
In a slightly different part of the fintech home, catching up with Suhail Ahmed of Advisory Direct and then later that day with Eleanor Tucker of GangHut at the Product Tank event highlighted to me the power of new collaborations in the fintech home.
Collaboration Home
The subject of collaboration opportunities was very much on the agenda with my catch up with Nucleus Financial chief executive David Fergusson, and of course, chair of FinTech Scotland
David rightly challenged me on whether larger enterprises were genuinely innovating and embracing collaboration opportunities in the market with fintech firms.
There are some terrific examples happening such The ID.Co work with CYBG and the Castlight Financial team with HSBC.
Meeting up with Philip Grant of Lloyds Bank Group and then separately also with Sarah Barry of Sainsbury Bank highlighted that the banking sector is seeing the value in fintech collaboration to strengthen our collective home.
Meeting Colin Carmichael from our strategic partner Sopra Steria allowed us to develop plans to progress this and, furthermore, identify new emerging collaboration opportunities.
For example, my meeting with the Hymans Robertson team John Taylor, Scott Finnie and Barry Smart made it clear that there are fintech collaboration opportunities very much in the pensions and employee benefits space going forward.
Fintech collaboration can go beyond the various financial services sectors and so it was good to meet up last week with Christian Beveridge and Derek Toal of Virgin Media explore cross sector opportunities. Great to hear about their role at the FinTech Summit in September.
For me one of the exemplars of collaboration is JP Morgan, reinforced in my conversation with Douglas of Inside Secure.
So it was a privilege to plays a role in last weeks JP Morgan FinTech Roundtable with a broad spectrum of guests from the asset management sector. Thank you to Stephen Flaherty, Sandy Brodie and the team, much to take on board on how to unlock the collaboration potential in our home.
In this respect, I am delighted to have worked with Scottish Enterprise to welcome the Vivolution team as the FinTech Scotland Network Integrator and into our home to foster the collaboration and support fintech firms in Scotland with growth.
Home of Excellence
Building a home of excellence for fintech firms is a key objective and the expertise of the Vivolution team will support fintech firms with funding and commercial development.
It was good to talk this all through at the FinTech Practitioners Group Meeting recently and it was terrific to have such a great attendance from the community, even if it was a bit of a squeeze!
Thank you to everyone who came along and your valuable contributions and feedback, next main meetings in October will focus on funding sources and options plus a fintech home social’.
Our appreciation to Anneli Ritari-Stewart and the team from our strategic partner Dentsu Aegis for hosting and making us all feel so much at home in Scotland’s epicentre of digital and marketing. And of course, wonderful to see the Whitespace team now part of the Dentsu Aegis family and in the fintech home.
A few days before the Practitioners Forum, we had the latest Open Banking Excellence meet up, great conversation and super to see even more new faces. Thanks again to James Varga for hosting.
Developing the Open Banking Centre of Excellence continues to be a key priority working with the inspiring Gavin Littlejohn plus a core team from the University of Edinburgh. Thanks again Damien, Douglas, Kevin and Triinu Hansen
Really useful meeting with Colin Garland, director of the Competition and Markets Authority on the subject of the centre of excellence strategy and plans, thanks Colin very much appreciated your enthusiasm for this initiative and great to hear about your expansion plans in Scotland.
Similarly, it was tremendously useful to catch up with Simon Thompson, chief executive of the Chartered Bankers Institute who have a key role to play in the emergence of a global open banking centre of excellence. Very much appreciate your insight and engagement Simon, looking forward to collaborating further on a local and international level.
International Home
Another of our key objectives is to embrace the global fintech opportunities for our home here in Scotland and sharing the story to gain interest in what we are doing is something we always grasp.
So, it was brilliant to be given the opportunity to present to some significant Middle east and Far East sovereign fund and institutional fund investors who were being hosted by the University of Edinburgh
Thank you to The ID.Co, Money Dashboard and Sustainably for supporting me with the conversations as well as George Baxter, chief executive of Edinburgh Innovations for including us in the opportunity.
The recent late Friday afternoon meeting with Kent Mackenzie and Chris Brown from our global professional services partner Deloitte got me excited on how we can develop the fintech home on a international stage going forward.
Reinforced this last two weeks with international conversations on our fintech home stretching from as far away as Rhode Island, USA and as near as Ireland. Thank you Paul Snape and David Clarke I look forward to seeing you both during our Fintech Fortnight with your colleagues.
We are delighted that Scottish International Week led by global leader Russell Dalgleish starting 17th September coincides with Fintech Fortnight and we look forward to welcoming many global guests to our fintech home during this time.
A huge thank you to everyone across the community who is contributing to making FinTech Fortnight happen in a few weeks time and the great support from our friends at Visit Scotland.
On the subject of international themes, many congratulations to my global mentor Promilla Caughey on taking up a new role with the Scottish Government, a fantastic career move and so well deserved.
Running for Homes
I’ll be running for homes on Sunday as I take part in the 15 mile urban rush race from South Queensferry to Holyrood for the charity Shelter Scotland.
The Shelter Scotland fight to address the impact of homelessness has always meant a great deal to me and this is my small way of contributing to their great work. Everyone deserves a home that is safe and secure.
This will be a great practice race ahead of my marathon in two weeks time just prior to the official start of FinTech Fortnight on 17thSeptember. Until then!
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ In The FinTech Community
Being with the fintech community every day, is one of the most enjoyable parts of my role, I just wish there were more hours in the day!
Hearing directly from fintech leaders and teams about the opportunities and challenges in reinventing financial services and more is hugely motivating.
Vibrant Community
For example, last Friday it was great to be amongst the vibrant fintech community in Codebase and catch up with the wonderful team at Wallet Services. So exciting to hear from Peter Ferry, Hannah Rudman and Stuart Fraser on the terrific progress they are making.
The Wallet Services are grasping major opportunities beyond fintech itself and they are very much at the cutting edge of shaping the future though new technology. Absolutely inspring.
More generally, the feedback from Hannah on how we take FinTech Scotland forward in the future was hugely valuable and we’ll be discussing more on this at the forthcoming FinTech Practitioners Community Group meeting on 22ndAugust.
Another fintech enterprise leading the way in their field is Previse and meeting up this week with Paul Christensen, the chief executive, reinforced to me the significant role they are playing in improving supplier payment processes which is having a huge positive impact on the broader economy.
I believe the progress being made by Wallet Services and Previse provides enormous encouragement to the wider fintech community who are at an earlier stage of their journey.
For example, talking with Kirsty Thomson and Ron Smith on their plans for an innovative technology proposition engaging the local communities across Scotland further demonstrated to me that there are some exciting developments coming out of Dundee
This was very much highlighted by the fabulous special supplement on fintech produced by the Dundee Courier last week.
Later that same day, it was terrific to catch up with one of the newer members of the fintech community, Joseph Twigg of Aveni. Fascinating to hear how their artificial intelligence innovations can transform the way financial services engages with customers.
I know both the Aveni and The Circle CityCrowd team are going to be very busy connecting with the wider community to discuss their emerging propositions in the coming months
Connecting Community
One of the key roles of FinTech Scotland is connecting the fintech community with new opportunities and the recent meeting with the team at Baillie Gifford regarding their forthcoming innovation fair is a great example of this.
Similarly, meeting yesterday with a long standing industry colleague Calum Brewster at the fast expanding Julius Baer to share potential connection opportunities in the wealth management space.
There are an increasing number of large financial institutions who are recognising the opportunities of collaborating with the fintech community and I very much appreciate the support of Graeme Jones, Bronwyn Torrie and the SFE team in this respect.
JP Morgan have led the way on this for some time now and I enjoyed catching up with Stephen Flaherty and Sandy Brodie to discuss how we share fintech collaboration at their forthcoming fintech leadership event.
David Macmillan and the team at Prudential are another terrific example of people embracing this new era of innovation and collaboration for the sector
This week I’ve been working with Douglas Graham, Alice Dreano and Edinburgh Innovations team look at running a collaboration event for later this year which will foster more connections between large enterprises and fintech firms alongside the expertise of the University teams
Plans are already in place for the University of Strathclyde S100 event in September connecting fintech firms with those that can provide practical support to enable their progress and growth.
Brilliant to be working with the excellent Tracy Moore, Fiona Ireland and Alan Feighery from the Enterprise Hub at the University on this.
Similarly, very excited to be supported the plans of our community member MoneyMatix and their plans for a fintech fireworks hackathon’. Very much a chance to engage the wider consumer communities in the positive role of fintech. Inspiring work by Tynah Matembe and Helene Rodger.
Beyond specific events, I am thrilled to be working closely with the energetic Vivolution team (Mark Roger, Andrew McGee, Kevin Lonergan) and Proposition Builder team (Carey McEvoy, Mark Thomson), who are making these connections happen on the ground.
A great example of this was the discussion the Vivolution team and I had with Andy Smith of Agenor Iceflo team on working closely with our strategic partners
I am fortunate I have had the opportunity to share the value of this connected community with June Love at the Scottish Government, so we can consider how we amplify across other sectors through the CanDo initiative. More on this strategy to come
Strategic Community
Talking of strategy, this last two weeks has presented me with the opportunity to share the developments in the fintech community at a strategic level with key stakeholders across the Government and civil service as well as the regulator.
This has included making plans to welcome Government Ministers from Scotland and the UK to Fintech Scotland to hear about the progress and key challenges in driving forward innovation. Thank you to Karen Rodger, Tom Price and Oz Bas for the team work on this.
In addition, I’ve been hugely encouraged by my joint discussions with Maggie Craig of the FCA, Douglas Graham of the University of Edinburgh and Adrian Gillespie and Tim Bedford of the University of Strathclyde over this last fortnight on how we support the fintech community going forward.
This will progress further in various ways in the coming months and one example where it is already gaining momentum is in developing the open banking centre of excellence. Here I’ve valued the team work with Gavin Littlejohn, Kevin Collins and the rest of the project team.
Come along to the Open Banking Meet Up on 20th August where I’ll be sharing more on this and why it has been an absorbing month on this subject!
Sharing Community
Talking of sharing, it was brilliant to catch up with the energetic Hamish Miller, Kevin O’Sullivan and Will Peakin of FutureScot on how we can work together to share more widely the awesome fintech developments happening in Scotland. Thanks guys.
There is going to a huge amount of activity in September and you’ll start to hear details of the Fintech Scotland Fortnight in our newsletter today!
A massive thanks to Rory Archibald from Visit Scotland for enormous support in preparing the fintech Scotland is Now’ plans as well as the numerous people organising specific conferences and meet ups.
A key event will be FinTech Summit on 19th and 20th September run by leading tech commentators Ray Bugg and Pete Swift from Digit where they tell me I will be put in the fintech hot’ seat!!
Very much enjoyed the meeting with Polly Purvis to hear how the impressive ScotSoft 2018 conference plans are coming along which we will be participating in along with members of the fintech community.
I’m really excited about Fintech Scotland closer collaboration with Polly and the team at Scotland IS and this was reinforced to me when meeting with Graeme Smith of Amazon to consider mutual innovation opportunities with the fintech community.
Great chats last week with Glasgow fintech fanatics Bobby King and Sergei Pomphrey as well as Rob Huggins of MBN Solutions about their forthcoming fintech events
With Rob the focus of our discussion soon moved onto how we encourage greater diversity across the community, an important mission for us both.
I know Eva Schuekel at Spotcap through the Fintech Fellowship programme has the aim of inclusion at its core and this is why I have been delighted to be involved
Similarly, working with David Nisbet of University of Glasgow in developing the fintech talent for the future to support academic and industry collaboration.
I’m also excited about the fintech collaboration opportunities with Edinburgh Napier University after meeting with their dean of the business school Gail Boag, thank you Gary Kildare of IBM for making this connection.
The subject of sharing the great diverse talent in Scotland with the fintech community was also a key talking point with Graham Burns and Michael Dickson of FWB Park Brown this week. Looking forward to giving this people factor greater prominence in the fintech community in the coming months.
Community Running
The meeting with Graham Burns on Tuesday got slightly side tracked as we shared our stories of doing the Aberdour Donkey Brae 7 mile race a couple of weekends ago. Always a fabulous race to do despite the challenging community hill’!
The running chat with Peter Ferry last Friday was also fun as we shared our love of pounding the streets. This was just before I completed a beautiful half marathon race at Dunoon the following day and achieved a seasonal PB!
Next up are two more half marathons at each end of the Lothian running community. Starting in the east with the Haddington half marathon race on Saturday and followed by the West Lothian 13.1 mile race at Bathgate next weekend.
Maybe we should start a fintech running community! Until next time.
Fortnightly Fintech Fuse – Fintech Fever Pitch!
Fintech fever has certainly ranked alongside the football world cup excitement and the beautiful summer over the last few weeks, with a huge amount of activity on Scotland’s fintech pitch’.
The combination of fintech firms, the world cup and a lovely sunny afternoon were brought together a couple of weeks ago when we had an informal fintech practitioners meet up to watch the Brazil verses Costa Rica match at the Peartree.
Great to see many of the community join us, with the conversation more focused around fintech opportunities rather than the action on the big screen!
Ray Bugg, the terrific leader of Digit, and I agreed that it was more exciting to hear our diverse range of fintech friends, such as Orca Money, Money Matix and Agrud, share their stories with each other rather than the action on the big screen.
We were of course cheering for the Brazilian team because, as many of you know, they are twinned with the Scottish Brazil in Blue team’ Cowdenbeath FC, from the Kingdom of Fife!
Fife FinTech
Of course, I would argue that Fife is more famous for fintech than football and it was fantastic to see the growth in region noted by the recent City UK report, highlighting it as one of Scotland’s key fintech clusters along with Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Looking forward, this growth has every prospect of continuing with firms such as Revovite Technologies expanding and the economic leadership in the region by people such as Iain Shirlaw with the focus on developing the talent pipeline through a fintech academy.
Developing fintech skills is a key priority and it was valuable to catch up with Gbenga Ibikunle from University of Edinburgh to help with the plans for a new unique degree in Fintech leadership to be launched soon.
Very excited about this development along with the launch by Napier University of their postgraduate fintech degree course
Together with the fantastic leadership by David Steinburg at various universities in ensuring we bring through the human dimension of fintech skills development, I am really optimistic we can work towards building the knowledge and skills for a successful global fintech centre.
Melrose FinTech
The various fintech skill development programmes will ensure we are well placed to support the growth across all parts of the country.
The importance of this was highlighted when I met up with the fantastic Andy Smith and Jason Forsyth of Melrose based fintech Agenor Iceflo to hear about how they have successfully taken their fintech proposition to the Middle East.
Hugely excited about supporting the team develop take their proposition in other parts of the financial services sector and global markets working with strategic partners IBM, Deloitte and Sopra Steria.
I’m very much looking forward to my trip down to the Borders to meet the whole Agenor Iceflo team in Melrose and developing the collaboration opportunities with the team at Vivolution, FinTech Scotland’s commercial partner in supporting fintech enterprise growth.
Working with specialist business consultants such as Vivolution is critical to supporting fintech firms maximise their opportunities in Scotland and internationally.
I do believe this will be a key strength going forward especially when I hear about the great work by people such as Alisdair Gunn at Framewire, Carey and Mark at Proposition Builder, Eddie Curran at CBS Consulting and David Reid at Because Brand Matter all supporting young developing firms to get to the next stage of growth.
This week I’ve also really enjoyed catching up with Sharon Ritchie and Lorraine Politi of Catax who very much complement the range of business consultants supporting fintech growth.
Furthermore, my recent catch ups with Susan Staiao and Pam Reid of Ekosgen on their research into the need for specific fintech environment has certainly emphasized the need find more effective ways to connect up fintechs with the right support
Leith and Linlithgow FinTech
This all reinforces the key role of Fintech Scotland in connecting up the various players in the fintech ecosystem so collaboration becomes a big driver of growth and innovation.
To this point, it was really motivating to meet with Catherine Bell, Managing Director of Leith based Mearns & Co to hear about their terrific ground breaking fintech innovation called Lightbox and discuss the various collaboration opportunities
As a further example, I had a fabulous catch up with the inspiring Stephen Marshall to talk about the exciting developments with his fintech business Insure Apps and connecting into the vibrant ecosystem.
I’m delighted I was able to connect Stephen with fellow Linlithgow residents Neil Cunningham and Robert McKechnie from our strategic partner Equifax to explore the mutual opportunities.
Bringing alive these collaboration examples is an exciting part of what we do and so it is super to be working with the brilliant Rory Archibald of Visit Scotland for the Innovate the Nation event in Stirling for September where we can share more.
Over this last couple of weeks I’ve also had great conversations with Paul Mosson of the Law Society of Scotland as well as Firas Khnaisser and Rachel Aldigheri of the Marketing Association on how we develop lateral collaboration to bring the fintech opportunities to wider communities.
Greenside and Gogarburn Fintech
A couple of weeks ago there was an opportunity to take a step back from the fever pitch of fintech activity and take stock on how far we had progressed since the start of the year at the first ever FinTech Scotland board meeting.
Hosted by the wonderful Nucleus Financial people at their Greenside offices and chaired masterfully by David Fergusson we had a very constructive Board discussion on what had been achieved to date and the priorities going forward.
I must admit I was a little bit nervous beforehand in bringing together such a diverse set of very successful leaders around the Board table, all with strong views on the potential for fintech in Scotland.
However, everybody gelled and after couple of hours of terrific engagement I was certainly enthused about realizing our ambition of becoming a leading global fintech centre. Thank you to the Board members for the collective endorsement and support.
This was then translated a few days later through the SFE Fintech Development Group meeting held at the RBS Gogarburn conference centre.
This meeting really got focused on how we execute the details of the FinTech Scotland plan over the coming months and was hosted chaired by Graeme Jones and Louise Smith.
Thank you to everyone who came along from the broad range of players across the ecosystem as well as to Janine Stewart and Murdo Connochie for making things happen on the day.
The early follow up conversations are very encouraging on progressing the various fintech opportunities, for example, meeting with Anurag Agrawi of Baillie Gifford at their Greenside offices and talking with Adam Pollock from RBS.
Dundee and Dunoon Running
I had the opportunity to reflect on the fever pitch of fintech activity when I was interviewed by Rob McLaren of the Dundee Courier, sometimes it is only when you take a step back and explain to someone what is going on that the scale of exciting activity becomes clear.
The opportunity to step back is one of the reasons I love my running to reflect on everything that is happening in the fintech community although my participation in the Dundee half marathon last Sunday was of less interest to Rob than the world of fintech!!
For me you can’t separate the important links between the two, I’m sure people like David Steinburg and many others will testify to this!
For example, my next race is a trip to the birthplace of fintech, the Kingdom of Fife for the famous Aberdour Donkey Brae seven mile race a week on Sunday.
This will be followed six days later by the Dunoon half marathon where I am hoping to come across some signs of fintech fever in this beautiful part of West Scotland! More on this next time.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ People Make FinTech
New technologies are providing the opportunity to reinvent all of financial services, but I’ve always believed that it is people that will make fintech a success at all levels.
This people make fintech’ philosophy has been very much reinforced to me in the last fortnight as I meet with a diverse range of innovative and engaging people from all parts of the vibrant fintech community.
People Development
The opportunity to present at the Heriot-Watt University event on graduate apprenticeships was a great opportunity to talk about the importance of people development for a successful fintech economy.
Thank you to Gill Murray and Robert Goodfellow for the chance to share thoughts on future skills for business and finance along with Vice Chancellor Richard Williams and other esteemed University speakers.
We are delighted to be working with a number of universities across Scotland as education programmes are developed at all levels to support the fintech growth aspirations.
In this respect, really pleased to be working with Damien McGarrigle in his new role for the University of Edinburgh as Fintech Sector Lead in in developing academic and financial services industry opportunities
People development is also about leadership skills in a fintech driven economy and this was a key area of discussion in my meeting with the FCA Chairman Charles Randell and Head of Scotland Maggie Craig this week.
However, leadership is not just about digital know how and data literacy, it is also about building collaborative relationships, especially in complex ecosystems. So, I was delighted to share my insights on this at the Executive Women’s Leadership Programme last Saturday morning to a probing and talented audience.
This is a fantastic education initiative led by the brilliant Professor Susan Murphy of University of Edinburgh Business School and the inspiring Judy Wagner of FWB Park Brown and it was great to contribute to the session on stakeholder networks and collaboration.
People Collaboration
I’ve been really enthused by fintech collaboration opportunities this last two weeks beyond traditional financial services with people from wider sectors who are embracing the new digital age.
Meeting with Martin Beaton and Evelyn Walker from the Cyber Scotland team on Monday was a great example of this and there is much we will be working on together going forward in this key area where Scotland has terrific expertise.
This was further reinforced when I was invited to join contribute to the Digital Scotland conference on Thursday in Glasgow which was expertly chaired by Alisdair Gunn. Great examples of how the public and private sector can both embrace the digital revolution for economic and social good.
Later that day it was on to collaborating with Polly Purvis and the fabulous team from Scotland IS for their Host in Scotland event with Scottish Futures Trust. A very different audience but delighted by the interest in the role of fintech across all sectors
Then catching up with Amanda Fergusson and Paul Wakefield from Marketing Edinburgh last week to ensure we are capturing all the relevant event opportunities coming to the capital to showcase fintech from Scotland.
Thanks to John Donnelly, the brilliant Marketing Edinburgh CEO, who rewarded me with Sweden in the office World Cup sweepstakes!
Innovation People
The world cup fever did not get in the way of a very engaging open banking meet up on Monday evening which showcased a number of examples of how people are going beyond the new regulations to drive innovation to improve customer outcomes.
Terrific session from Steve Tigar of Money Dashboard which prompted a great conversation that could have gone on all night.
It was great that a long standing friend, the inspiring Sam Seaton, chief executive of Moneyhub, a pioneer in bringing about positive change in financial services, was able to join the meet up with thought provoking contributions. You are welcome in Scotland any time Sam when you can escape from London.
Big thanks to the creative James Varga of The ID Co and for Ross Laurie in driving forward the open banking agenda through these meet ups.
The innovation opportunities with open banking are immense and it has been great to be working with Gavin Littlejohn and Kevin Collins over recent weeks to determine how we can put some strategic foundations down to embrace this opportunity globally.
Thank you to Amy Taylor of University of Edinburgh for arranging for Michael Rovatsos and myself to share the strategic ambitions on open banking with Paul Mason from Innovate UK last week, hoping it can propel us to the next stage of broader engagement. Lots more to do on this though!
The innovation opportunities of academia and industry working together are more than just banking and meeting with an old colleague from Standard Life, Joseph Twigg, highlighted that fintech is a broad church of creativity.
Looking forward to seeing Joseph and the team develop their innovations for the asset management sector
On the theme of creative entrepreneurs, it was great to catch up with Aleks Tomczyk last Friday afternoon in our local Corstorphine coffee house to chat on all things fintech and more.
Aleks is taking a well earned break after leading a successful fintech enterprise over the last decade and is now putting his mind to new opportunities.
One area we discussed was how to connect international talent with the fintech opportunities in Scotland which I hope we can explore further as part of the wider people plans for FinTech Scotland
International People
Excitingly, international fintech people have also very much been on the agenda this last fortnight.
This included a fantastic meeting with Jean Donnelly the amazing executive leader of the Boston FinTech Sandbox where we learned a great deal and see terrific opportunities for the respective fintechs on both sides of the Atlantic.
On a broader global perspective, it was great to be at the quarterly UK Government Department of International Trade FinTech Board meeting last week to consider the various actions to develop global opportunities for fintech enterprises
Then it was good to get into more specifics with the Australian fintech hub, Stone & Chalk this week on how we can build closer engagement on mutual developments, big thanks to Paul Kiernan for setting up this engagement.
Closer to home, it was really great as always to meet up with Julian Wells of Whitecap Consulting who is doing a brilliant job in leading FinTech North.
Sharing experiences about the developing fintech ecosystem and building collaboration actions will help us all succeed. I’ll be connecting Julian up with Jean in Boston in advance of his forthcoming trip to the USA.
Following the Digital Scotland presentation and Scotland IS talk, yesterday finished off with a really engaging session with the Chevening Scholars trade mission team from India.
Fascinating to get their perspective on Scotland’s fintech potential and looking forward to building more collaborations going forward with India
I must also say a big thank you again to my insightful mentor, Promilla Caughey, who always provides such wise counsel on taking Scotland on the international stage and building the fintech profile.
The team at Visit Scotland, through the Scotland is Now initiative, are also doing a wonderful job in amplifying the qualities of Scotland, including fintech, around the world. Good to catch up with Rory Archibald on this and looking forward to supporting going forward with more great fintech case studies.
Social People
Many of you will have heard me talk about fintech being much more than just reinventing financial services as a sector but the opportunity to have a wider positive social impact, for example enabling greater financial inclusion.
I had the opportunity to share some of our great examples with 11FS team for the video programme they are producing for Tech Nation and explain how Scotland’s enterprises are leading the way in this area.
On a bigger scale, I very much valued the opportunity to share this broader social purpose agenda with Gerry Higgins, the inspiring leader of Community Enterprise in Scotland and the person leading the Social Enterprise World Forum.
Gerry and team are doing a wonderful job in bringing the Forum to Scotland in September and this is very much putting Scotland on the international stage of social enterprise progress and I’m very much looking to support this. Thank you to Darah Zahran of Scottish Enterprise for great engagement on this as well
One of the examples I shared with Gerry was Money Matix and the fabulous work by Helene and Tynah in the area of using technology to improve financial literacy. Really excited about their various plans and welcoming their exciting enterprise into the fintech community.
Running People
It was such a wonderful 10km race in Glasgow last weekend and a brilliant atmosphere throughout the City, you very much could see why they say that People Make Glasgow’ as it was so true on Sunday morning.
This Sunday, it is the quieter surroundings of Dechmont Law near Livingston for a trail 10km race which will be part of a longer 13 miles run I have planned to improve my marathon pace.
This will be followed by an evening with Elvis Costello, who I haven’t seen since 1978, yes forty years ago. I hope we’ll be dancing in the aisles to Oliver’s Army’ and other big hits after a good recovery from a morning of running!!
Finally, my apologies to the various people who I’ve not had time to catch up with and where meetings are due. You are not forgotten, Shery is doing an amazing job juggling various commitments and we will meet up soon.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ FinTech Community from Aberdeen to Amsterdam via Dublin!
One of the really enjoyable aspects of my role is the sense of community around fintech, a community that stretches well beyond the traditional boundaries of financial services and technology.
The way that Scotland embraces diverse and dynamic communities is a going to be a key ingredient to our fintech success and the reason why inclusion sits alongside innovation and collaboration as a core value of FinTech Scotland.
This community ethos was very much in evident during our action packed visit to Aberdeen last week
Aberdeen Community
It was wonderful to meet up with the Aberdeen community for the “Exploring Aberdeen’s FinTech Ambition’ event organized by Elevator and their charismatic leader Jules Lancastle.
The exploring came alive hearing from entrepreneur Chris Herd and how his enterprise Nexves can play a role in transforming how people engage with money was enthralling and very exciting.
Similarly, when Duncan Hart explained how his DeepMiner business is enabling more personal engagement with consumers.
Then it was brilliant to catch up with Ike Ibekwe to learn about his innovative MyPropoertyPlus’ enterprise is applying fintech in the property sector
Earlier in the day I had the opportunity to share Scotland’s fintech opportunities at the Digital Cities event organsied by FutureScot sharing the platform with Jackie Doyle of Opportunity North East. Community wide innovation is certainly very much alive in Aberdeen.
This was further brought alive when we visited the amazing Oil and Gas Technology Centre and Luca Corradi shared with us how creating the right environment and a blend of people can lead to new innovations. There is much fintech can learn from the oil and gas sector in driving innovation through community hubs.
Big thanks to Steve Harrison for organising our action packed engagement with the Aberdeen community where fintech certainly has an important role to play in the future.
The community theme was also very much part of the conversation when I shared the fintech opportunities with the Glasgow Economic Leadership team on Monday evening and how these could be developed in collaboration across the financial services sector, universities and public sector.
Thanks to Mark Napier of JP Morgan for this opportunity and I look forward to supporting the Glasgow community further demonstrate its fintech innovation and deliver great economic results.
Social Community
The focus on community ensures that social as well as economic benefits from fintech are developed in tandem for all and this is a powerful strength of Scotland’s fintech ethos
This was the focus of the “How can fintech be a positive agent for social change’ event at Strathclyde University Business School on Thursday.
It was wonderful to have such a dynamic and diverse full house audience for the fabulous event organised by the Scotsman and brilliantly chaired by David Lee.
It was a privilege to be on the platform along with fintech pioneers Alison McHugh of Gigly and Loral Quinn of Sustainably along with the inspiring Louise Smith of RBS discussing how fintech can be, and is, a real force for good.
Thank you to Daniel Broby and Tim Bedford from Strathclyde University for their deep thought provoking insight on the fintech opportunities along with Andrew Berry and David Goodbrand for making it an engaging conversation
The discussions afterwards with people from all generations and backgrounds brought to life for me even more what a fabulous community with a strong social purpose is being created through fintech.
Many of you know that the social community aspect from reinventing financial services through technology has been the big motivating force throughout my 35 plus years career.
And at a very emotional level, the importance of fintech in driving good social outcomes really came to the fore when I met two amazing people, Tynah Matembe and Helene Rodger, to learn about the wonderful work by their enterprise MoneyMatiX.
Hearing how Tynah and Helene are using technology to create financially literate communities through innovative programmes for young people in Edinburgh and the Lothian region, filled me with absolute joy.
Especially when I began to understand how their work is focused on communities which historically have been overlooked by traditional financial services. This is how fintech innovation is such a powerful enabler for financial inclusion. Wow!
Innovation Community
Fintech innovation will be such a positive force when it is based around communities and this is very much the case when you create the right environment for a diverse set of people to come together.
This is exactly how Prudential M&G are establishing their new environment in Edinburgh, a people focused place focused on creativity, empowerment, progressive thinking and openness.
Going along to the official opening of this new innovation space last week and seeing as well as feeling the buzz was something very special. It was also really good to see some old friends enjoying the new Prudential community (Dave, Michael). This was a traditional financial business, with very much a community heritage, embracing and leading in the new fintech age.
The insightful and progressive leadership of David Macmillan and Richard Caldicott along with the rest of the terrific team means that one of the world’s oldest financial services companies is very much a driving force in Scotland’s fintech community. Watch this space for more.
The time at Prudential M&G reinforced to me that even in this digital age, collaborative physical spaces have a really big role to play in generating innovation throughout the fintech community.
So, it was great to meet with Susan and Richard from Ekosgen a few days ago who will be carrying an analysis on behalf of Scottish Enterprise and ourselves on how we can build on the existing great accelerator and incubator spaces going forward across Scotland
Of course, innovation communities are not just about spaces alone and connecting people to help fintech enterprises grow is fundamental to making businesses sustainable.
In this respect delighted that we will be working closely with the hugely experienced and excellent Mark Roger, Andrew McGee and team at Vivolution to help fintech enterprises connect to the right relationships to support their innovations and growth, whether that be for funding or support services. More on this exciting new partnership in the community to come soon.
Banks have an important role in our communities and radically transforming an established financial business, CYBG, to focus on customers evolving financial needs was the focus of the talk at the terrific FWB Park Brown dinner last Thursday evening, Great to hear from Helen Page on leading the CYBG fintech journey.
The dinner was a great opportunity for me to share Scotland’s innovation ambitions to an audience beyond financial services, from the renewable energy sector to the accountancy profession. Reaching out to wider communities provides more opportunities to drive new innovations.
With this in mind it was terrific to catch up with the insightful Amanda Fergusson and Paul Wakefield from the Marketing Edinburgh team on connecting into the wider community activity around Edinburgh to spread the fintech innovation message as well as on the global stage.
Global Community
Being very much part of a global fintech community is key to our international ambitions and, therefore, it was great to hear about the new European relationships Mickael developed at the Amsterdam FinTech Festival this week.
We are looking forward to working with the Money 2020 team to bring this global fintech festival activity to Scotland in the near future. Thank you to the Dutch hosts for their wonderful hospitality
In the meantime, this week, I am here in very sunny Scotland to develop global collaboration opportunities through the Scottish and Irish Finance Initiative event on Wednesday night, expertly organized by the engaging David Clarke.
Fabulous event to share the respective Scotland and Ireland fintech developments and it was great to be alongside Pete rock star’ Townsend, Andreas Hoepner and Government Minister Derek Mackay.
Massive thanks to Andy O’Callaghan, Allan McGrath and Cathorina Finlay of PWC for hosting such an excellent “North Atlantic fintech’ corridor’ event.
Working with our strategic partners Pinsent Mason and Dentsu Aegis we are already developing those mutual Scotland and Ireland fintech opportunities and looking forward to the return in Dublin later in the year.
Running Community
I’m hoping the return event in Ireland may coincide with a bit of community running such as the Dublin marathon!
After a really enjoyable Edinburgh marathon a week last Sunday with a time of 3.25, I now feel ready to push on and work towards the sub three hour time that I still dream about!!
So, focus is on building up running speed over these Summer months and the next race is the Glasgow 10km a week on Sunday finishing in George Square.
I’ll be wearing my fintech community colours’ so please give me a cheer if you out on the Glasgow streets and see me aim for a seasonal PB! Until next time
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Collaboration, the Fintech Fuel”¦
This last two weeks has further shown me how collaboration across a range of people and organisations is helping to fuel a vibrant and growing fintech environment in Scotland
Excitingly, this collaboration goes well beyond the traditional boundaries of financial services and embraces a diversity of people who share a common purpose in driving progressive change.
For example, the opportunity to share my thoughts at the recent Digital Cities event, expertly organised by FutureScot, was ideal in highlighting how fintech innovation can support public sector digital objectives.
This conversation continued when I met up with the brilliant Alexander Holt to talk about the very successful CivTech initiative, with stage three of the programme about to be announced in early June.
We both share a strong view that collaboration provides a real opportunity for fintech enterprises to further develop financial services and public sector innovation by working in unison focused on good social outcomes.
City Collaboration
Innovative collaboration also requires active engagement with a broad range of stakeholders across our cities and it was good to talk through data driven innovation ideas with Liz Mcareavey at the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce a few days ago.
This citywide collaboration was also very much in evident in the discussions at the University of Glasgow and Chamber of Commerce event on Wednesday on the ambitious plans for the Innovation District’ over the next few years.
Such collaborative partnership between public, private and the academic sector will provide further impetus for the City being a major innovation hub and I look forward to exploring further how fintech enterprises can participate in this significant development.
Last week, I enjoyed the conversation with Mark Napier of JP Morgan on how City wide fintech collaboration can drive innovation as well as progress our mutual inclusion and diversity objectives. I’m looking forward to sharing more at the Glasgow Economic Leadership financial services meeting next month.
The collaboration fuel’ was also very much in evident when I caught up with Professor Jim Macdonald, Adrian Gillespie and Tim Bedford of Strathclyde University as we explored how fintech could embrace opportunities of working within their world leading Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow City centre.
Very excited about the opportunity of fintech playing a key role in enabling this citywide collaboration with Scotland’s world leading universities playing a central role and working with international thought leaders such as Danial Broby, who shared with me the latest thoughts on blockchain.
Talking with Maggie Craig and Alan Drainer at the Financial Conduct Authority this week, the opportunity to build even closer collaboration with the regulator as we develop the university led citywide initiatives will further enhance the innovation environments we can create in Scotland.
Creative Collaboration
Making collaboration work in practice requires creative and courageous interaction and this was certainly brought alive to me when meeting with John McHugh and `Alison McHugh of Gigly at the end of the day in Glasgow on Wednesday.
Their businesses Gigly and Adlantic are such amazing enterprises, focused on creatively addressing people’s financial needs through proactive collaboration and it was a privilege to hear the wisdom and passion of two such inspiring leadership role models.
Hugely motivating, massive thank you John and Alison for bringing alive how fintech is making a difference (and for the tips on being a better swimmer!)
My meeting last week at Codebase in Edinburgh with the engaging Trish McClay, Simon Lewis, Graham Cambridge, the Barclays team working with fintech people, was all about creative collaboration in action with great new firms such as Mark for Market. Thanks Andy Cunningham for arranging such a super session.
The role of creative collaboration in a highly regulated sector such as financial services is key to unlocking the opportunities going forward and I shared some thoughts on this with the annual gathering of the Group Internal Audit team at RBS.
Very much appreciated the engagement from the session and thanks to Martin Ambrose for inviting me to share how risk management, audit and fintech innovation can positively work together in a collaborative environment.
Creative collaboration also very much applies to the subject of cyber security and it was valuable to have distinguished guests at the joint Cyber Scotland and FinTech Scotland dinner on Thursday evening.
Cyber and fintech are areas where Scotland has the potential to excel and it a terrific roundtable conversation with Minister Derek MacKay and a cross section of investor community on how we can maximize the opportunity. Thank you to the fabulous Evelyn Walker and Martin Beaton as well as BTO for organising a splendid evening with an abundance of collaboration spirit and ambition.
Working with our recently announced strategic partners, Deloitte, Pinsent Masons, Dentsu Aegis and Sopra Steria, we are looking forward to progressing a number of other strategic fintech themes that Scotland can showcase around the world through global collaboration.
In this respect, I am very fortunate to be mentored by Promilla Caughey, who provides such fresh insightful counsel on navigating the international opportunities and global contacts in this changing world. Great to see you again this week Promilla and thank you for joining me on my meeting engagements in Glasgow.
Global Collaboration
Global collaboration has always been a key objective of FinTech Scotland and so it was great to be invited by SDI colleagues Racquel Largo Martinez and Laurent Melin to join a presentation in Barcleona for senior people from the banking community.
There was much interest in how we are developing Scotland’s fintech ecosystem. albeit, my participation was via Skype as much as I would have loved a visit to the beautiful European city at this time of year!
The presentation highlighted to me once again how the fintech community in Scotland is very much taking a leadership role when it comes to Scotland wide and global collaboration.
Further reinforced by Mickael and Graham Hatton of SDI, who did a fabulous job along with the engaging Myles Stephenson of fintech firm Modulr in sharing with a big London audience at Scotland House on how we are making a mark in the global fintech scene.
This is also very much the thinking behind the Open Banking Centre of Excellence developments and it was good to agree some constructive steps on how to progress with Gavin Littlejohn and Kevin Collins, from the University of Edinburgh Data Innovation Programme last week.
The recent announcement by Phil Grady and Martin Leonard at the brilliant Castlight Financial on their collaboration with global banking player HSBC is a really great example of the valuable work being driven forward by Scotland’s fintech enterprises and leaders. Fantastic news.
Of course, the global collaboration goes beyond open banking and a terrific example last week was the University of Edinburgh Business School event on Social Finance and Finance Technology.
I was delighted to share thoughts on how fintech in Scotland can contribute to the broader social finance agenda along with some excellent speakers from around the world.
Well done to Marcel Lukas, Augosto Rocha and Arman Eshraghi for a very innovative and collaborative event, possibly the first of its kind in the world, again Scotland leading the way.
Of course, my fortnightly blog can only skim the surface of the scale of fintech activity taking place across Scotland. Therefore, I delighted to see the comprehensive fintech supplement from Scotsman newspaper appear this week bringing alive the unique opportunity we have to make a difference in Scotland and globally
Very much appreciate the work by David Lee and Ian Davey in bringing alive Scotland’s fintech opportunities and community. Another brilliant example of the value in engaging collaboration.
Marathon Collaboration
As my mind turns to my marathon in Edinburgh this weekend, it strikes me how my running success is also dependent upon great community collaboration.
Yes, running is very much an individual sporting activity focused on physical and mental endurance but the ability to successfully complete the 26.2 miles also relies on the extensive collaboration of the race organisers, fabulous volunteers, sponsors, cheering supporters, fellow runners and, of course, family
For me, a marathon is as much about an inclusive community and collective collaboration as it is about personal endeavour and performance. This is also so true of what we are trying to achieve with fintech in Scotland.
Give me a fintech cheer’ if you are out and about on Sunday morning and see me as I join the many thousands of runners enjoying every minute of this super Edinburgh marathon race, it may just be the extra bit of encouragement I need at that point!
Until next time.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ 100 Days and Counting”¦
Well, that’s nearly one hundred days in the role heading up FinTech Scotland since the start of the year.
Infact, it is a bit more than one hundred if you include the weekend days that have been necessary to keep on top of the high level of engagement email and social media traffic!
This first four months can best be summed up as being positively inspiring and diverse and the last fourteen days have continued along these lines with a broad range of engagements focused on taking forward Scotland’s fintech opportunities.
Innovation Days
Our roundtable meeting in Fife with the local fintech community on Tuesday was a great example of how the innovation heritage in Scotland provides a valuable foundation for future fintech developments.
It was an insightful and engaging session for Mickael and myself in the Glenrothes Enterprise Hub with a good part of the discussion focused on the need to improve skills and talent development in the sector if we are to embrace the payment fintech opportunities ahead.
A big thank you to Iain Shirlaw for his fantastic leadership and energy in making the event happen and it was great to session from the Glenrothes local Ian Cunningham on the brilliant LendingCrowd business.
The previous day it was an opportunity to catch up with Professor Chris Speed and the Edinburgh College of Arts team on how we could work together to help the sector innovate and reimagine a new financial services world. So much potential around using data to drive innovation with a strong social purpose.
Embracing the open banking opportunity is one example of this and I am very excited about our emerging plans for the Centre of Excellence we’ve been developing with Ross Laurie and Gavin Littlejohn. Scotland’s innovative fintech firms are very much embracing this and looking forward to sharing more on this strategy at the Meet Up in a couple of weeks.
Strategic Days
Wednesday was my opportunity to share the open banking and the broader FinTech Scotland strategic plans with the quarterly Financial Services Advisory Board jointly chaired by Scotland’s First Minister and Jim Pettigrew, the chair of SFE and CYBG.
As we reach 100 days since launch, this meeting was an important milestone for FinTech Scotland in sharing the two year strategic plans with Government Ministers and senior figures from across financial services sector.
I came away hugely encouraged by the enthusiastic and collaborative support from all in attendance at the Board, especially for the confirmation of the inaugural chair and strategic partners for FinTech Scotland (See here for more)
There was certainly a commitment to making fintech a major success in Scotland and achieving a top five global status with a focus on data driven innovation combined with strong social purpose and outcomes.
This valuable Scottish Government and industry support was also mirrored in conversations during this last fortnight with very insightful Councilor Lezley Cameron as well as Paul Lawrence at Edinburgh City Council.
Hearing the exciting strategic plans for the City along with the ambition of the University of Edinburgh from Hugh Edmiston and Gordon Donald further demonstrated to me the opportunity for fintech to contribute to a broader thriving economy.
It further highlighted to me that the joint team efforts of the public sector, academia and private sector can really make a difference in making a strategy come alive for all to benefit and a shared focus on inclusive growth initiatives.
Collaboration Days
Of course, this requires everybody being focused on how we improve collaboration, and, in this respect, it was great to host the team from Blenheim Chalcott on how we could work together to create the right innovation environments for fintechs to scale and grow.
Very much looking forward to taking forward the ideas and initiatives that Mark Sanders and the team have to help exciting businesses such as Myles Stephenson’s Modulr continue to expand in Scotland.
This reinforces that collaboration needs to go beyond the financial services sector itself and it was great to catch up last week with Liz McAreavey, Chief Executive at the Edinburgh Chambers of Commerce.
Looking forward to further working with Liz on bringing alive the data driven innovation opportunities across the region through fintech with a diverse range of participants.
During this first one hundred days of FinTech Scotland, the collaborative support from the Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International teams has been immensely valuable.
I’ve very much appreciated the ongoing day to day collaboration from Sharon Hamilton, Graeme Rennsion and wider SE team as we consider the practical steps to improve fintech opportunities, for example, by making the network of services more integrated and creating good physical environments for collaboration.
Days talking about collaboration also require a global perspective and so it was wonderful to meet up with David Clarke to talk through the exciting Scottish-Irish Finance Initiative event in June.
Certainly looking forward to this and discussing how it will reinforce the mutual opportunities across the Irish Sea collaboration bridge for fintechs and the wider economy.
People Days
Of course, collaboration is all about people and an exciting part of the role is meeting a diversity of people all with a common bond of wanting to make fintech a success in Scotland and on the global stage.
For example, my regular catch up last Friday with the inspiring David Ferguson, chief executive of Nucleus Financial was as valuable as ever from which I gain a great deal from.
I am absolutely delighted that David has agreed to become the inaugural chair of Fintech Scotland and very much looking forward to his ongoing wide counsel and strategic insights as we execute out plans. See Here for more details
Earlier in the week I had the opportunity to see another of my role models, Judy Wagner of FWB Park Brown who is always so focused on making a difference through inclusive people engagement.
It was really wonderful to see Judy again along with hearing from Susan Murphy, Maeve Gillies and Jacqui Gale to discuss our sessions for the Emerging Women Leader Programme at the University of Edinburgh in June.
This focus on people development was also top of the conversation last week when seeing Maggie Morrison of CGI to share thoughts on initiatives to embrace the breadth and diversity of people skills across Scotland
A point which was also top of mind when talking with Eva Schueckel on my involvement with the Fintech Fellowship programme sponsored by Spotcap, such a critically important initiative in supporting young people in the fintech sector.
The people focus was also very topical at the iMultiply event on the role of humans with artificial intelligence last Thursday.
Very much enjoyed sharing the platform with the innovative Colin Hewitt of Float, the dynamic Melinda Matthews of CodeClan, all expertly hosted by Kirsty Mackenzie and Heather Corcoran. Great engagement from the audience and I think we could have carried on all night!
Running Days
I must admit I’m trying to avoid days that turn into late nights at moment as my running days intensify leading up to the Edinburgh marathon at the end of the May.
Before then, this weekend it is a warm up half marathon race at beautiful Loch Leven to test how much speed I have in my legs at the moment
This means another short trip to the Kingdom of Fife, a lovely place to run and, of course, the original home where fintech all started forty years ago as Bill Tennant from the excellent fintech firm Payment Centric rightly pointed out on Tuesday at the Glenrothes Enterprise roundtable.
Until next time.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Purpose Driven FinTech
One thing that has really struck me since taking on the role at the start of the year to lead FinTech Scotland is the real sense of purpose behind the vibrant fintech innovation activity in Scotland
A purpose that goes beyond being commercially successful and creating job opportunities in Scotland but is driven by bigger overarching drive to improve people’s experience of financial services.
A brilliant example of this more significant motivating purpose was very much in evident when I met with the inspiring Phil Grady and the excellent team at Castlight Financial last week in Glasgow.
I was very much struck by Phil’s bold purpose of a “safer financial world for all’ and how this had a powerful meaning for the team members. It is no wonder Castlight Financial is successfully attracting attention in the financial world in Scotland and globally with its bigger purpose.
The same is true of Previse and my meeting with David Brown this week once again reinforced to me how their ambitious purpose of transforming trade finance to improve the well being of small enterprises is so important to all of us.
Collective Purpose
This purpose driven fintech becomes even more powerful when the collective forces of our ecosystem come together in Scotland to make a difference.
This was very much the case on Monday evening at the inaugural Open Banking Centre of Excellence meet up hosted at The ID.Co in Edinburgh with over 80 people from across the ecosystem. Listening to the stories of Colin Hewitt of Float, James Varga of The ID Co, Steve Tigar of Money Dashboard, Manu Peleteiro of InBest and Phil of Castlight showed to me we have the collective purpose in Scotland to make a progressive difference.
Especially when we have globally recognised leaders in the inspiring Gavin Littlejohn and Brian Costello of Yodlee championing how open banking fintech can make a positive contribution to citizens across the land.
Big thanks to Ross Laurie for making this inaugural meeting happen and be something we can build on going forward, more to follow soon.
Thank you also to Mickael, who stepped in for me to share Scotland’s existing fintech activity with the London community along with Paul Christensen of Previse, Kirsten Bennie of RBS and Graham Hatton of Scottish Development International last week. Great feedback on this.
A fabulous example of collaboration around a common purpose in action.
This was also the case at the SFE FinTech Group meeting a couple of weeks ago, thank you to Graeme Jones for the continuing valuable support in getting behind the collective purpose of Fintech Scotland.
Collaborative Purpose
Attending the Can Do Business Innovation Forum chaired by Government Minister Paul Wheelhouse on Tuesday was another example of the power of collective purpose through collaboration. Representatives from all sectors of the economy sharing how innovation can really drive inclusive growth and deliver positive outcomes for people and enterprises. I was particularly inspired when talking to entrepreneur Reemah Shanab and learning about her business Lucidly.
The Can Do meeting reiterated to me the benefits of cross sector collaboration to drive innovation and growth and this was further demonstrated when I met up with Alexander Holt to hear how CivTech is making such a huge difference in the public sector.
I’m sure Alexander won’t mind me saying but for me he is very much role model in driving real practical change with a strong sense of purpose. Alexander and his team have already been working with fintechs such as Wallet Services and there is much we can build on especially in the area of payments. Talking with Colin, Director of Digital at the Scottish Government further showed me we have a huge common purpose around this.
The broader collaborative purpose was very much in evident in my discussions with Maggie Craig at the FCA this last few weeks which is really valuable as the fintech ecosystem develops in Scotland
On Thursday, there was the opportunity to get together with Scotland’s many exciting fintechs enterprises from across the ecosystem at the Practitioners Forum.
The key areas of discussion were growing talent in Scotland and getting the right quality of investment in place and committed investors on board to help scale and grow. Terrific insights (again) from Stuart Lunn of LendingCrowd
My conversation with the impressive Steven Morris of ESM Investments this week was really insightful on how we could take some steps to address some of the funding issues in the fintech ecosystem at the moment.I am hoping to take forward a couple of ideas and they will certainly be forming a key part of the FinTech Scotland strategic plan and will be key if we are to achieve our ambitious goals for fintech in Scotland.
Another aspect I have on our strategic agenda is how to help fintech enterprises navigate the range of funding solutions available to them at present ranging from public funding through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Funds, to the University Innovations Funds to the mix of R&D relief allowances available.
In this respect, very appreciative of the guidance on public funding opportunities by Steve Harrison from Scottish Enterprise a positive change agent who is helping good ideas flourish in across the ecosystem.
Going forward, the focus hear will be to make sure we are much better at connecting the funds available to the innovators and entrepreneurs. In this respect, I’m delighted that Matt Smith, Kent Mackenzie and the Deloitte team will be playing a valuable role in helping us in these areas.
The other hot subject over the last fortnight and from fintech practitioners is finding talented people to support business growth and this is a subject I know Scotland can further excel in.
The visit to the Technology and Innovation Centre of Strathclyde University was a fantastic testament to the strength of the skills development taking place in Scotland at the moment. Wow!
Having a terrific working session with academic leaders from all part of the Strathclyde University highlighted how to me the new opportunities in fintech can be embraced and I am very excited on how we progress on a number of fronts together.
Big thanks to Adrian Gillespie and Team Strathclyde.
The bringing together of academia and industry was further brought alive on Thursday evening when I was given the opportunity to join a distinguished speaking panel at the University of Edinburgh Business School event.The subject was Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin!” Captivating words from amazing Professor Chris Speed of Edinburgh College of Arts and insightful Tim Jones of Tibado meant I only needed to play a small bit part thankfully! Brilliantly chair Bill McCall of Chartered Bankers Institute.
The fintech people skills agenda also presents the opportunity to bring alive our purpose of being more inclusive and I was delighted to catch up with the inspiring leader Promilla Caughey of EY Foundation.
Promilla’s work in creating opportunities for young people from less advantaged background is something we will very much embrace and part of the fintech bigger purpose.
My favourite music has always given me a strong sense of purpose beyond fintech and last Friday I had chance to see live one of my musical hero’s Swill at the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh along with the legendary Bobby Valentino.
What a wonderful evening and I can’t wait to see Swill with the rest of the awesome band, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, back together again for the gig in Glasgow at King Tut’s in December, anyone want to join me for probably one of the best bands in the world!This weekend I’ll be running with purpose in a half marathon race, enjoying the beautiful city of Stirling as I prepare for the big Edinburgh marathon in four weeks! Until next time
FinTech Scotland does the talking in the Big Apple and beyond.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Talking Fintech
Fintech is very much the talk of the town’ at the moment across all quarters of the financial services sector and beyond.
One of the great things about this fintech talk is that it is so ubiquitous with such a broad range of topics and themes being discussed within the conversation.
The variety and diversity certainly make the conversation fascinating as does the way in which people from many different backgrounds have an active interest in talking about fintech.
This is presenting me with enormous opportunity as I shape the strategic plans for FinTech Scotland in the coming weeks.
New York Talk
The opportunity to hear thoughts and feedback from members of the New York financial services community last week about Scotland’s fintech progress was a great example of this.
Hosting the roundtable session with Cabinet Secretary Keith Brown to talk through our fintech aspirations and how this could be developed on a global stage was hugely valuable.
The discussions certainly reinforced the importance of existing and new relationships for Scotland in the USA which will be very critical as we develop our global fintech footprint.
The New York trip also provided the opportunity to catch up with a number of people to talk through the plans for Fintech Scotland and see what we could learn from one of the most vibrant fintech centres in the world.
I particularly valued the opportunity to catch up with Greg Schoenberg, the founder of Financial Revolutionist, the leading global thought leadership voice of fintech. The talk with Greg was both terrifically insightful as well as illuminating and will undoubtedly help me shape the plans for Fintech Scotland. Thanks Greg.
International Talk
The visit to New York coincided with preparation for the Visit Scotland Scotland is Now global campaign led by the brilliant Charlie Smith.
It was a privilege to be at the preview for the launch in downtown Manhattan and meet up with so many people enthused about Scotland’s story and potential.
Bringing fintech into this story about Scotland being a wonderful place to live, play, invest and work will be a key piece part of our work in the coming months.
I learned a great deal while in New York in talking with colleagues from Scottish Development International and I am looking forward to progressing the fintech opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic with Michelle, Raymond and Shannon in the coming year.
It is great to see that James Varga from The ID Co will be part of the delegation visiting the USA as part of New York fintech week to continue the dialogue and many thanks to Maria Deam and the team at the British Consul for helping spread the talk on Scotland’s fintech opportunities.
The international talk does not always have to be several thousand miles away of course, and I am delighted I will have the opportunity to join David Clarke for a Scottish-Irish Finance Initiative event in June to talk through the fintech collaboration opportunities on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Scotland Talk
One of the many great aspects about fintech in Scotland is the talk is very much countrywide.
For example, I’m really pleased we have the Where is Fife Leading Fintech Next? event in May at the Glenrothes Enterprise Hub where I will be joined by Ian Cunningham of Lending Crowd.
Thank you to Iain Shirlaw in arranging this talk to consider Fife’s longstanding record of developing world leading technology for financial services, especially in payments and security and how this can support the next stage of our fintech ambitions.
Before then, I have the opportunity to share Scotland’s fintech credentials with the entrepreneurial community in London along with the brilliant team from Previse and Kristen Bennie from RBS when the talk will be mixed with some sampling of Scotland’s finest gin!
There’s also going to be plenty of talk back home in Scotland in the coming weeks and I am very much looking forward to seeing the team at the University of Strathclyde next Wednesday to discuss how we share their great work with more audiences.
A great example of this is the Auditing a Digital Future event on 30th April at the Strathclyde Business School led by the inspiring Daniel Broby where the talk will be covering the range of topics from blockchain to cryptocurrencies.
This all demonstrates that Scotland does have a number of fintech topics that we can talk and, in fact, shout about.
So, I’m very excited about the inaugural meeting of the Open Banking Centre of Excellence next week being set up by the forward-thinking Ross Laurie along with the driving force behind global open banking Gavin Littlejohn
Theme Talks
With Spring arriving, it must be the season for these specific themed fintech events to take place as they seem to be hitting my diary thick and fast!
For example, very much looking forward to joining the talk at the University of Edinburgh Business School event entitled downBitcoin and Blockchain – what goes up must come down event in a couple of weeks.
Then soon after is the event on artificial intelligence organized expertly by Heather Corcoran where my talk with Kirsty Mackenzie of iMultiply, Melinda Matthews of CodeClan and Colin Hewitt of Float is all about the future of human and technology interaction!
And on this human theme, there is another great talk I’ll be joining in May also at the University of Edinburgh Business School on Social Finance and FinTech and joining a great line up of expert speakers such as Arman Eshragi who will share his thoughts of behaviourial finance and fintech.
In amongst all these talks, I will be continuing to fill my diary with the many people interested in engaging with the fintech ecosystem in Scotland.
I really value the timely meetings with people such as Mark Rodger and Andrew McGhee of Vivolution in considering how we help fintech enterprises to scale up after their initial success
My apologies if we have not had chance to meet yet, Shery is working hard to coordinate and plan my diary so I can get to meet and talk with everyone over the coming months.
Running Talk
The few days in New York gave me the opportunity to meet up with an inspiring friend Paul Skinner and our talk went beyond fintech on to our other mutual passion, that of running.
Of course, being in New York we could run the talk’ during the few days with a couple of great sunrise running sessions around Central Park, saluting the Fred Lebow statue each time as we passed.
The highlight though was the Saturday morning and an eight-mile run out to Flushing Meadows for a 10km race where I came in third in the over 50 age group, earning a bronze medal for Scotland!
Let’s hope the snow now stays away and I can get back to some races closer to home as the running season starts to hot up along with the exciting fintech talk in Scotland.
Until next time.