Stories from female fintech entrepreneurs
To celebrate International Women’s Day 2023, we met with two female fintech entrepreneurs to hear about their stories, why they chose to become fintech leaders, their successes and challenges.
Ana Gallacher, founder of BabyReady Finance
Sheila Hogan, CEO and founder of Biscuit Tin
I am Sheila Hogan CEO and Founder of Biscuit Tin a “death-tech” SaaS business – we make life admin easier for you now and easier for those you love in the future by helping you create a digital legacy to be proud of. Biscuit Tin is a digital secure vault holding all your life information that is released to those you nominate when you die, providing them with the direction they need to easily and effectively close down your life and a digital biography of your life to hand down the generations.
I had an entrepreneurial flair from a young age ”“ from making pencil cases that I sold to my school mates, Pencil skirts with my own , clothes label ItFitz and I tried everything to make money ”¦ every party plan going. I left School at 16 and went into Tech as I had a feeling it was a thing of the future. I started at Bradford Council as a Junior Computer Officer, I then went to study Computer Studies part-time at Huddersfield Uni.
A Programmer in the early days, I progressed onto analysis project & programme management and up to creating Biscuit Tin I was a Consultant Business Architect designing the way businesses need to operate to leverage technology. Predominantly for large financial services institutions.
The challenges I faced before Biscuit Tin were mainly my own making ”“ always looking for the next thing’ and trying to find my niche and the career I felt destined for. It appeared after closing down the lives of both of my parents armed with a physical Biscuit Tin of old papers. The two worlds of my professional technology career and personal experience collided as I realised that the life close-down’ process is completely broken and needs to change.
It seems many of my challenges since then have revolved around money ”“ from bootstrapping, winning grants and investing what I could from my pension to get the business off the ground. To the challenges of raising capital I face now to forge ahead to scale-up and deliver to our mission to make a difference in this space and be a global Digital Legacy leader within 5 years.
Pathways: A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship
Last week, the Scottish Government published Pathways: A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship. This landmark report was overseen by tech entrepreneur Ana Stewart and the Scottish government’s chief entrepreneurial adviser Mark Logan, and was commissioned to help identify ways to unlock untapped potential, close the gender gap and boost Scotland’s economy.
We met with John Cushing, CEO and founder of mnAi, who provided detailed data analysis for the report.
The report “seeks to change how we think about the under-participation of women in entrepreneurship, to more rapidly and effectively move our society away from its current extreme gender imbalance in this field of endeavour.”
Startups founded by women in Scotland currently receive only 2% of overall investment capital, representing, the report states, a “denial of opportunity on an industrial scale”.
Just how significant is the report, and its findings?
“It’s the most comprehensive report of female entrepreneurism ever undertaken in Scotland,” says John Cushing.
mnAi use proprietary data and technology to supply unique research, analytics and insight on all UK companies.
“The Stewart Report lays bare the fact that fundamentally things just aren’t moving on as fast as they should be,” says Cushing.
“This is in spite of some amazing achievements by female entrepreneurs in and across Scotland – much more needs to be done to support their ambitions, particularly growth stage companies and those seeking investment. The report not only lays bare the problem, but also identifies the solution. That’s the critical part of all of this, that the Pathways Report actually does exactly what it says ”“ it lays a pathway to success.”
“With 12bn+ data points, our core product is a data asset encompassing 9m+ UK companies and 37m+ people that is updated and refreshed in real-time,” Cushing says. “Our unique insight on hard-to-find data points including emissions, diversity, gender, productivity, investment, debt, grants, financials and more, helps improve decision making, increases efficiency and removes complexity. Having learned about our gender disaggregated algorithms and the work we did with the 2022 Rose Review and The Gender Index, Ana and her team extended an invite to also support her ground-breaking research.”
The report makes 31 recommendations such as tailored funding packages, attention to diversity in education, and quotas to ensure women get proper recognition and a fair share of investment.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the list of recommendations as “compelling”, adding: “The review’s findings are challenging but underline the need to tackle the root-causes, as well as the immediate barriers, of this inequality ”¦ The Scottish Government will respond quickly to the review as a whole, and its recommendations.”
Despite the progress made in some areas there is work to be done.
“I’m very confident that things will change… however this is a collective issue,” says Cushing.
“From secondary education to investment capital, I think we all have a responsibility to support those in need or who need help. Being a business owner is not easy, and yet many people choose to do it day in, day out so why should my gender make a difference to my ability to grow my company? It shouldn’t. This report presents the facts and now it’s up to all of us to make a difference.”
For more information about mnAi’s data platform, and to book a free interactive demo, click here
Important changes for fintechs as R&D tax relief regime changes
Blog written by Saifur Rahman, Senior Technical Consultant at Leyton.
The UK’s Research and Development (R&D) tax relief regime is undergoing significant changes starting April 1, 2023. These changes include the amount of relief that can be claimed, the types of activities that qualify, and how businesses can claim relief. The changes aim to keep the UK competitive in cutting-edge research, ensure that the reliefs are effective, and use taxpayer money efficiently.
R&D Expenditure Categories: The R&D expenditure categories will be extended to include the costs of datasets and cloud computing. This is particularly relevant for the growing fintech sector, as the use of big data and cloud computing is essential for the development of new financial technologies, processes and workflows. Whether you are running a trading platform ingesting financial data from the likes of Bloomberg or developing large scale data algorithms to understand market conformity ”“ the use of cloud computing and pure datasets will be vital in the R&D project and thus have the ability to account for eligible R&D tax expenses. However, it should be noted that such costs cannot be included in R&D claims on an all-embracing basis ”“ for example, where such costs relate directly to R&D activities, they can be included, but not where they relate to a “qualifying indirect activity” (e.g. where you are including a small proportion of non-technical personnel time attributable to qualifying R&D projects). Additionally, exemptions state that the costs of the data and usage cannot be utilised beyond the R&D project or sold on for commercial purposes.
Pure Mathematics: R&D in pure mathematics will also qualify for relief and can form part of the qualifying R&D activities of the claimants from accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023. This is relevant for fintech companies that use mathematical models and algorithm development in their R&D activities. However, the term “pure mathematics” is not yet defined in legislation, further guidance will be provided on this.
Refocusing Relief to UK Activities: One of the most fundamental changes in the Autumn 2021 Budget was to refocus the R&D reliefs provided to activities performed in the UK: for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023, subcontracted R&D work and the cost of externally provided workers (EPWs) will be limited to work undertaken in the UK. This may present challenges for fintech companies that outsource certain R&D activities to other countries. However, there will be specific exemptions where work outside the UK is permitted for geographical, environmental, social, or regulatory/legal requirements. Examples of such exemptions include deep ocean research and clinical trials, and, by inference, could include medical-tech trials in specific patient groups, international telecoms testing, or technology designed for extreme environments. HMRC will be providing further guidance on the exemptions before April 2023.
Overseas Branch: There is still some uncertainty for companies with overseas branches: currently there is nothing in the draft legislation relating to work carried out by staff of an overseas branch of a UK company ”“ so it is not clear if such costs will qualify for R&D relief in future.
Conclusion: In summary, the changes to the UK’s R&D tax relief regime will have a significant impact on the fintech sector, particularly in terms of the costs that qualify for relief and the focus on UK-based activities. Fintech companies should review their R&D activities and expenses to ensure compliance with the new regulations. We recommend that fintech companies monitor the situation and seek professional advice to ensure they are able to claim the reliefs to which they are entitled.
Photo by ThisIsEngineering: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-women-talking-beside-whiteboard-3861952/
Mistakes to avoid when scaling a fintech
Season 3, episode 1
Listen to the full episode here.
The fintech sector is growing at pace with more and more entrepreneurs launching their own innovative firm. Whilst starting a new company can be difficult, scaling one to the next stage isn’t any easier and comes with its own challenges. What makes a start-up different is its size, allowing it to be more nimble, faster and more agile which in turns allows for faster innovation. As it grows, employs more people, develops new operating models and uses more technologies, the danger is slowing down, increasing costs to deliver and less innovation. In this podcast we learn about those mistakes and pitfalls scaling fintechs can avoid. What are things to think about and when should you start planning? Guests: James Varga – CEO and Founder at DirectID David Spencer – Head of Analytics Sales, Merkle UK
The Critical Role Partnerships Play When Scaling Fintechs
Blog written by Greg Watts, CEO at Findr
Alongside raising investment, securing the right partnerships is critical for business survival.
Indeed, in a recent research report from PwC, over 75% of CEOs rated partnerships as important’ or critical’ to their success.
Yet with many partnerships taking months if not years to come to fruition, it’s no wonder that so many businesses fail ”“ and waste considerable resources ”“ in the process.
So why do so many fintechs struggle with what we call the partnership problem?
Here are some reasons:
- They haven’t identified the right target partners;
- Their approach is too generic;
- They haven’t spent sufficient time identifying key stakeholders;
- Their offering and content doesn’t resonate with target partners;
- They don’t spend enough time or resources in the right places generating awareness.
In this article for Fintech Scotland, we’ll explore why businesses struggle with the Partnership Problem and provide tools and tips to enhance your approach and accelerate your efforts.
Get focused
In theory, partnership development is a straightforward process.
However, many businesses often fail at the first hurdle ”“ which is to have a razor-sharp focus on targets.
For example, it’s quite common to hear that a fintech wants to create partnerships with all’ retailers or banks in a particular market, then expect their sales teams to hit the phones and secure meetings.
However, with finite resources, that approach often misses the mark.
Fintechs ”“ and indeed, all businesses ”“ need clear partnership criteria.
The criteria for each business will vary, but some questions to consider may include:
- Which verticals, sectors or categories do you want to focus on? Within those, what are the priorities and why?
- What are the characteristics of your target partners? For example, are they high frequency retailers such as coffee chains or do they boast high transaction values, such as luxury brands?
- How easily can you partner with them? For example, a Tier 1 retailer such as BP or Asda is likely to take more time to partner with than a smaller coffee chain. Given how important time to market is ”“ it can often take months if not years to partner with large businesses ”“ targeting smaller partners initially to create case studies that demonstrate the value of your proposition may be a more efficient strategy.
Once you’ve evaluated your target partners, assign weightings to provide focus on where to spend your time and resources.
Sharpen your door opening approach by creating buyer personas
How often have you received a cold, un-researched introductory note on LinkedIn or via email?
It’s remarkable that so many businesses don’t tailor their approaches, then wonder why they don’t receive a response.
In fact, if you haven’t met someone before, you have less than a 3% chance of securing a meeting with them (unless you’re on Findr of course – where we average 27%)
It’s imperative you know as much as you can about your target partners before you approach them ”“ or any resources used to try and engage them will simply be wasted.
To maximise your chances of getting a meeting with a target partner, you need to make assumptions about what they may be looking for to help you tailor your approach.
To do this, it helps to develop buyer personas from which you can create content that makes them want to engage with you.
As you create the personas, points to consider are:
- What problems do you fix?
- What benefits do you offer? How do these compare to other players or competitors?
- Why should they engage with you?
- What channels do they engage with? How can you reach them?
- Which events or forums do they attend?
- Who ”“ if anyone ”“ do they currently partner with? And, critically, why would you be a better partner?
Cluster them to create segments with common challenges and issues you can solve.
Ultimately, you need to articulate why they should engage with you.
Once the personas have been created, you can focus on your content plan, encompassing your website, social media feeds, thought leadership and other marketing efforts.
Make it a team effort
Too frequently, partnership development and lead generation are viewed as the sales team’s responsibility.
Yes, the role of a salesperson is to sell ”“ however, he or she must have the full support of the business behind them to generate leads. Without that, the effort is likely to fail.
At Findr, we believe that the entire organisation should be involved in generating business and creating partnerships ”“ albeit in different ways ”“ and that any efforts not focused on growing the business should be questioned.
Thinking of it in these terms can help galvanise and focus your resources.
Bringing it all together
Creating partnerships sounds easy. However, without the right planning and focus, the results may be disappointing.
Being ruthlessly clear on who you’re targeting and why they should engage with you ”“ and then creating content that resonates ”“ is the most effective approach to creating long term, valuable partnerships.
Photo by Savvas Stavrinos: https://www.pexels.com/photo/monochrome-photography-of-people-shaking-hands-814544/
Fintech ”“ never an overnight success
By Anthony Rafferty, CEO, Origo
At the beginning of 2022 everyone was breathing a sigh of relief as the worst of the two year pandemic appeared to be behind us. We looked ahead to 2022 as a year when we could get back to normal’ again.
A year on and the world is looking at a global recession, we have a war in Europe and in the UK, high inflation, rising interest rates, falling GDP and an austerity budget which will see many people and businesses pay more tax.
With the Bank of England’s warning of a two year recession ringing in our ears, there is plenty of negativity in the atmosphere.
Which is why I believe every company every year should look back on their achievements and celebrate their successes.
The tenets of success, certainly as I have found them in my many years in the financial services industry, are that it takes a lot of hard work and it takes time. “Overnight successes” are rarely ever that, but the cumulation of many hours of hard graft by a dedicated group of people, propelled by a vision, a passion for what they do and a resilience to make it work.
This is no better evidenced than in Fintech.
Origo has a long history of working collaboratively with the industry to deliver ground breaking technology. This includes the Origo Transfers Service, our current work to establish the pensions dashboard central digital architecture and our Origo Dashboard Connector, as well as Unipass Identity, Unipass Mailock, Unipass Letter of Authority and the Origo Integration Hub.
Every one of these are developments offering industry-wide benefits, helping to make the industry more streamlined and efficient, helping companies to achieve their ESG goals, as well as delivering better service to the end consumer.
Yet, despite the considerable efficiencies, cost savings and other benefits they bring to the industry, none of them have been overnight successes.
If we take the Origo Integration Hub as an example, it was launched in 2016 as a service for products providers, platforms and software houses in the savings and investment market.
We had spotted that we could help these participants achieve considerable efficiencies, cost, time and resource savings by doing away with the need to undertake resource heavy, time consuming and costly point-to-point integrations with the companies with which they needed to exchange data. Instead we built a centralised hub to which they could link once and then connect to any other user of the hub for key services such as investment valuations, bulk valuations, account opening, remuneration, transfer tracking and bulk transaction history.
It is a common-sense strategy for the industry, fulfilling the very real need for companies to be able to integrate with each other as quickly and as easily as possible. In addition, it meant the industry could become more efficient and competitive, as integrations did not depend on having deep pockets or a significant business case.
Genius, right? Everyone told us so and yet by August 2020, only 21 firms had joined the Hub.
There were plenty of good reasons for it, not least the incredible drain on resources, time and money caused at the start of the pandemic.
But having been in the market for 30+ years we were not fazed by this, as we know with projects of this kind it can take time for momentum to build. You often need your early adopters to demonstrate the benefits before the rest of the industry will come on board.
And this is what happened. As we go into early 2023, we will be looking at over 50 companies, including top industry names, who will be using the Origo Integration Hub, with others in the pipeline.
To achieve success, we have learned that along with the hours of hard graft, dedicated people, a vision, passion and resilience, it also helps to have a little patience.
So, as we head towards the end of the year, we are celebrating our successes, bit by bit and no matter how long they take to come to fruition. I recommend you do the same.
AccelerateHER Awards 2023 target ”˜force for good’ female Fintech founders
Female founders can once again raise their company’s profile and benefit from a significant business growth support package by entering this year’s AccelerateHER Awards.
The 2023 programme has now opened for applications from women behind companies focused on being a force for good’, with four new entry categories. The first of these, Technology, is open to women behind innovative fintech businesses. The other categories are Health; Environment; and Culture. There’s also a Rising Star’ award for the female founder with the best early-stage business idea.
Winners will be selected for each category at the awards final event being held at the new Barclays campus in Glasgow on 16th March.
The AccelerateHER Awards, now in their eighth year, provide a springboard to growth for participants by opening doors to new opportunities and market-building connections through the organisation’s global network. The awards are backed by the Scottish Government and open to women who are founders or co-founders of companies which are Scottish-based or actively trading in Scotland. Winners will benefit from a prize package that is potentially worth thousands of pounds and includes a six-month mentoring programme from Investing Women Angels, Scotland’s first all-female business angel group.
Former awards participants have also secured places on AccelerateHER trade missions to Europe, North America and the Middle East, to showcase their business to industry contacts and global investors. This includes three of last year’s winners who will attend next month’s mission to California, connecting with money-can’t-buy network-building opportunities and investors from a range of global industries. More than 5,500 female founders have joined the AccelerateHER community to date.
Last year’s Scotland-based AccelerateHER Award winners were Ishani Malhotra, founder and CEO of cancer treatment pioneers Carcinotech; Lynne Darcey Quigley, founder and CEO of fintech innovators Know-it Global; Xiaoyan Ma, CEO of Danu Robotics, a company focused on addressing the global waste challenge; and Danae Shell, CEO of Valla, a DIY law platform which helps resolve employment issues.
To apply for the 2023 AccelerateHER Awards, entrants will complete a short application form, which includes a description of how their business is a force for good, and submit a brief video pitch outlining their business, its ambitions, growth plans and international potential. More details can be found at: www.accelerateher.co.uk/awards2023
Deadline for entries is Friday, 9th December 2022. Shortlisted companies will be announced in early January 2023.
Launching this year’s awards programme, AccelerateHER CEO Elizabeth Pirrie said:
“Over the last seven years, the AccelerateHER Awards has helped inspire and support hundreds of female-led companies, including those behind
fintechs, from across Scotland and beyond. It provides an ideal platform that enables aspirational women to connect with our global network of angel investors, commercial advisers and other successful business people. The financial impact has also been significant, with the companies involved in the AccelerateHER programme securing more than £45 million in external investment.“I would encourage women behind growth-focused companies that aim to be a force for good to come forward and apply.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney MSP said:
“The AccelerateHER Awards are a fantastic way of recognising and celebrating the achievements and contributions of women in Scotland’s entrepreneurial landscape.
“The Scottish Government is working to identify and support additional ways to unlock the full potential of Scotland’s entrepreneurs and at the same time address the existing entrepreneurial gender gap. Gender equality in business is essential for Scotland to achieve its vision of becoming the most entrepreneurial and innovative society in the world.”
Why you can stay ahead of competition with the 4th generation of data-driven NoCode technology
You might have heard that Lowcode/Nocode are rising fast as one of the most promising enablers of the digitalization, especially with the pandemic situation urging all organisations, public or private sectors to release various apps fast to keep track of staff, customers monitoring as well as keep business running as normal. However, one can be easily confused by so many lowcode/nocode products in the market and not really sure what would really benefit his/her particular company. Let’s take a look at the evolution history of lowcode/nocode first.
Lowcode appeared on the horizon around 30 years ago along with the internet hype where we all had some kind of encounter with the 1st generation of lowcode, which provides pre-stored templates to drag and drop to create some websites without knowing how to do coding. That’s the very first generation of lowcode, we call template-driven, or form-driven lowcodes. Still today in the lowcode market, a majority (around 95%) of lowcodes are based on this mechanism, but this type of template-based lowcodes is not very flexible to change already-set templates and certainly not capable for enterprise-class software development which demands highly complex operational process and logic building.
Then around 15 years ago came along a more advanced lowcode type called model-driven, today’s most dominant enterprise-class software development market is this type of lowcodes, as they brought along the model-building mechanism which enables much more complicated and sophisticated enterprise-class environment applications. These lowcodes represent the 2nd ”“ 3rd generation of lowcodes.
However this kind of lowcodes also has a serious drawback, which is inflexibility caused by human-created modelling. As it requires highly skilled IT professionals to build the data modelling to enable front end applications, whenever, yes we all know how often it happens, the front end user requirement changes, or new business situation arises, or any changes happened on the business front, the already-built modelling cannot work with the new changes anymore. With no choice, it demands the backend modelling to be rebuilt. However, in the data model, each data is linked with a complex web of data in a multitude of tables in database, a small change will involve a huge amount of work to redo the whole modelling, which demands not only highly skilled IT staff but also someone familiar with the original modelling, which poses the greatest difficulty for most companies, not to mention time and money to invest in. Therefore, the 2nd-3rd generation of model-driven is not flexible enough to cope with today’s VUCA era with bigdata environment.
When it comes to the 4th generation of data-driven NoCode technology, it takes a completely different and innovative approach to application development: leveraging integrated data sources from various operational IT systems and turn the data into data assets, it allows data to become highly intelligent and autonomous, can auto-detect relationship with data from heterogeneous data sources to create auto-data modelling, this automatic modelling by data themselves greatly eliminates the human intervention, reduced hefty skilled IT staff workload and ensures high level of flexibility, as the modelling can be broken down and rebuilt at any time- anywhere with front end requirement.
For data-driven NoCode, it also differentiates from lowcode in the aspect that Lowcode serves more target users of IT professionals by providing system generated coding for them to copy and paste into their programming, but Nocode removes the coding barrier once for all, that the users don’t have to know anything about coding and can drag and drop to build any workflow, analytical reports and applications according to their needs. This character means it allows not only non-IT business users to build their own bespoke workflow and applications they truly need and tend to use more frequently, but also can largely reduce the qualification for software developers for software vendors, reducing their personnel expense and therefore improve bottom line. On Average data-driven NoCode can deliver enterprise-class complex applications within 3-6 weeks with a handful of junior engineers, around 70% further lead time reduction from model-driven NoCode products, and even more from the traditional fully human coding (high code) software development lead time of 1-2 years.
Till now you must be able to realize, how much faster time-to-market and time-to-cashflow the bigdata powered NoCode can bring to the customers, that’s why in many cases start-ups and scale-ups can attract VC investment much more easily with Nocode platform built in.
Even with the IT skill barrier removed, it does not mean NoCode replaces the programmers. Instead, the programmers can be relieved from many hours of low-value-added mechanical coding work to focus on higher value-added business know-how and customer centric work, while delivering software and applications much faster, thus creating much more value for their companies.
So to wrap it up, you can see quite clearly what values one can get from the 4th generation of data-driven NoCode technology:
- Faster software development lead time (Average 3-6 weeks)
- Reduced IT skills = reduced personnel cost
- Great time-to-market and time-to-cashflow
- Eliminated data silo problem due to bigdata platform foundation (this is very important feature which we will have a dedicated article to talk about it, stay tuned in)
- Multi-party coordinated development as well as software building on-the-go with auto-modelling, what you see is what you get
- Enterprise-class competency and real big-data capabilities
- Highly improved profitability
- Non-IT business user friendly, higher success rate of applications built
Written By Shan You, SVP / MD for Overseas at Smardaten Technologies
Photo by Christina Morillo: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-using-silver-macbook-pro-1181467/
Made in the UK, Sold to the World’ – Government’s campaign to get encourage export
DIT (the Department for International Trade) is focusing on Scottish SME’s in the next phase of its nationwide export campaign.
DirectID, Emergency One and AAC Clyde Space are some of the companies that will feature in adverts on local radio, in print, and on billboards in train stations across the UK until the end of November.
The purpose behind this campaign is to encourage more businesses to export by promoting the free expert advice that SMEs can access through UK Government.
Minister for Exports Marcus Fysh said:
“Exporters create jobs, pay higher wages and help grow our economy, which is why we want the UK to be an export-led economy and reach a trillion pounds of exports a year by 2030.
“This campaign highlights some fantastic businesses punching above their weight, selling their brilliant products and services made here in the UK to the world. I hope they serve as inspiration to others looking to get onto the exporting ladder. As the campaign says: if you make it in the UK, why not sell it to the world?”
In 2019, there were around 12,400 Scottish companies exporting goods or services, and in 2021 Scotland accounted for 9% of all UK goods exports at £27.0 billion.
UK Government Minister for Scotland Malcolm Offord said:
“From fintech to fire engines to our world-famous food and drink sector, Scotland’s businesses have huge exporting potential.
“This campaign will highlight some fantastic Scottish companies that are already benefitting from selling their products around the globe. I hope it will inspire more businesses to follow suit, boosting the economy in Scotland and across the UK and supporting jobs.”
Minister for Trade, Scott Mann said:
“People around the world are lining up to buy British food, and this government is making sure that they can get it. From our fantastic seafood and meat to our world class produce, British food and drink is renowned for its high-quality and exceptional standards.
“This campaign ensures that all businesses making wonderful products have the tools they need to sell them around the world, bringing even more jobs and growth to a flourishing sector of our economy.”
Winner of Phoenix Group’s first Innovation Forum for customer engagement and financial well-being announced
Phoenix Group announces that Behavioural Finance is the inaugural winner of its first Innovation Forum.
In collaboration with FinTech Scotland and TCS’s Co-Creation and Innovation Network (COIN), the Phoenix Innovation Forum invited FinTech enterprises to develop innovative new tools that improve financial wellbeing, engagement and make a genuine positive impact on customers’ lives.
The Innovation Forum launched in May 2022 and seven companies were shortlisted to provide an initial pitch of their idea to an expert judging panel. In June, three companies were selected as finalists and assigned mentors from among Phoenix Group’s senior leadership team to develop their concepts further.
A final pitch took place on September 22nd before Behavioural Finance was confirmed as the winner. The judging panel said Behavioural Finance’s WealthPersonality concept stood out for its ingenuity, creativity and ability to engage customers. It uses psychometric testing so users can see how their personality will affect their relationship with money.
The runners-up were Airfunders and Moroku.
Edinburgh-based Behavioural Finance will now work with industry experts from Phoenix Group to further develop their concept.
Colin Williams, Managing Director of Pensions and Savings at Standard Life, part of Phoenix Group, said: “Phoenix Group is always looking to fuel creativity and come up with new solutions that really support our customers and build greater engagement and financial inclusion, which is so central to our social purpose and part of our long term sustainability strategy.
“Our first Innovation Forum has not just met these objectives but exceeded them, and I want to share my congratulations with Behavioural Finance for their winning concept, which will help better engage and support customers.
“Across all the phases of the Innovation Forum, the competition was extremely strong and all deserve thanks for their superb contributions.
“We now look forward to seeing Behavioural Finance’s WealthPersonality tool develop further, and to more great ideas being uncovered at Phoenix Group’s future Innovation Forums.”
Chris Tweed, co-founder and CEO of Behavioural Finance, said: “We are delighted to have been chosen as the winner of the inaugural Phoenix Group Innovation Forum, which has been a valuable and rewarding experience for us.
“Improving financial outcomes is the corner stone of our WealthPersonality tool, and we look forward to working in partnership with Phoenix Group to build a new concept that will really support their customers now and into the future.”
Vivekanand Ramgopal, Global Head ”“ TCS BFSI Products and Platforms, commented: “TCS is committed to driving technology advancement that improves our communities and the lives of all people.
“We are honoured to be part of the Phoenix Group Innovation Forum, and join our valued client, Phoenix Group, and our fellow collaborators in congratulating the 2022 winners.”
Nicola Anderson, Chief Executive of FinTech Scotland, commented: “I am delighted to congratulate both Behavioural Finance and Phoenix Group for their success in this programme.
“Behavioural Finance is a truly innovative business and worthy winners from a field of very strong applications. It is inspiring to see the range of FinTech entrepreneurial talent across Scotland and the UK. This talent and aptitude instil confidence for the future of finance.”