Amiqus to run Edinburgh Marathon for Scottish Refugee Council

Scottish fintech Amiqus, a prominent provider of compliance and onboarding services in the UK, is eagerly preparing to participate in the upcoming Edinburgh Marathon Festival. Their participation aims to raise funds for the Scottish Refugee Council (SRC), an organisation dedicated to providing practical assistance and guidance to refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland, particularly those who are financially and socially vulnerable.

During the Edinburgh Marathon Festival on May 27th and 28th, the dedicated members of the Amiqus team will collectively cover a distance of over 147 miles through their running efforts. In addition to their physical contributions, the company has pledged to match the funds raised, ensuring a substantial donation to the Scottish Refugee Council.

Amiqus is reaching out to individuals and organisations, urging them to contribute to their fundraising campaign and support the vital work of the SRC. Together with the SRC, Amiqus endeavors to make a meaningful impact on the lives of those who seek refuge and strive for a better future.

When refugees arrive in Scotland, they often encounter numerous obstacles when accessing essential services and assimilating into their new communities. Earlier this year, the Amiqus team actively participated in the New Scot Leadership event organised by the SRC in Glasgow. During the event, they provided laptops to the attendees, aiming to equip them with the necessary tools to navigate online resources, communicate with support organisations, and access vital information.

By supporting the beneficiaries of the SRC with essential IT equipment, Amiqus strives to empower them in their journey, enabling them to overcome challenges and build a hopeful future. Callum Murray, the founding CEO at Amiqus, expressed his firm belief that everyone deserves a safe home. He emphasised the importance of businesses stepping up to support organisations like the Scottish Refugee Council, acknowledging the difficult decisions they face in allocating vital services that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Dr. Sabir Zazai (OBE, FRSE), the Chief Executive at the Scottish Refugee Council, expressed his appreciation for the collective efforts of various actors in Scottish communities, including those in the corporate sector. He recognised their dedication in supporting refugees and asylum seekers as they navigate the challenging and stressful period of their lives, embracing their new identities as Scots.

Snugg secures funding to create greener future

Snugg, the groundbreaking online service dedicated to facilitating energy-efficient homes for all, proudly announces the reception of a substantial grant from the Green Home Finance Accelerator (GHFA), an initiative by the UK Government. The GHFA, funded through the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP), aims to promote the advancement of green finance products. This funding will be utilised to develop a pioneering ‘Green Home Hub’ (GHH), designed to enhance finance providers’ understanding of customers exploring investments in home energy enhancements, such as solar panels and heat pumps, and to offer more appropriate products.

Snugg’s ultimate goal is to ensure that energy-efficient homes become accessible and affordable to everyone. The GHFA grant represents a significant stride towards accomplishing this mission. Aligned with the UK Government’s commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions, the GHFA initiative selected Snugg as one of 26 Discovery Phase projects nationwide, contributing to this crucial cause. Snugg’s participation in the GHFA demonstrates its dedication to creating a more sustainable future for the UK.

The forthcoming Green Home Hub represents an innovative approach to supporting Snugg’s partners, including banks and energy providers. It will provide valuable data insights, including:

Accurate cost estimates (as high costs often deter people from implementing energy efficiency measures)
Grant application wizard (to simplify the complex and challenging process of applying for grants)
House value impact modeling (considering the significant impact on house prices when deciding on home energy improvements)
Progress tracking and guidance (to instill confidence in substantial investments for energy efficiency improvements)
Fuel savings monitoring (establishing a feedback loop through smart meters, enabling gradual implementation of efficiency plans)
Carbon reduction tracking (offering financial benefits to individuals contributing to carbon reduction)

The Green Home Hub will be licensed to partners, allowing Snugg to extend its influence and make a substantial environmental impact by reaching thousands more homeowners throughout the UK.

By addressing the barriers homeowners face when contemplating energy-efficient upgrades, the Green Home Hub aims to empower financial providers to better understand their customers and develop more suitable products, ranging from mortgages to savings accounts. The objective is to transform energy-efficiency upgrades into a clear choice rather than a convoluted decision.

Snugg eagerly seeks collaboration with decision-makers in the finance, energy, and related sectors who are interested in utilising the Green Home Hub to support their customers’ transition to more energy-efficient homes. Interested parties are encouraged to reach out and join Snugg in turning this vision into a reality.

Lord Callanan, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, commented, “The government has established long-term commitments to ensure homes across the country improve energy efficiency, reducing bills, energy consumption, and emissions. We are supporting these organisations in developing fresh and innovative approaches to provide greater access to energy efficiency measures like loft insulation, double glazing, and heat pumps.”

Snugg CEO, Robin Peters, expressed enthusiasm, stating, “Securing the Green Home Finance Accelerator grant is a thrilling milestone in our mission to make home energy efficiency simple and accessible to all. With the development of the Green Home Hub, we are poised to revolutionise the perception of home energy investment, transforming it from a seemingly impossible decision to an absolute no-brainer. We have already aligned our efforts with key players like Trustmark, Nesta, and HSBC. Now, we eagerly seek collaboration with additional industry participants as we strive to reach thousands more homeowners and accelerate our collective journey towards achieving Net Zero.”

For further information, please contact: sophie.leang@snuggenergy.com, Tel: +44(0)7496 534 611.

DirectID and Smoothpay to provide stable income to freelancers

Scottish fintech, DirectID, the global credit and risk platform, has recently formed a strategic partnership with Smoothpay, a fintech startup that converts unpredictable income into a dependable paycheck. By leveraging DirectID’s open banking platform, Smoothpay will now offer freelancers, contractors, and small business owners a reliable monthly income.

Smoothpay’s solution aims to remove the anxiety associated with erratic pay schedules, enabling people to pursue the flexible work they desire. By utilising real-time and historical income data through open banking, Smoothpay guarantees gig economy workers a level of certainty, ensuring a consistent income stream.

DirectID’s income verification tool, powered by open banking, is utilised to evaluate the earnings of small business owners and freelancers. Once users undergo a quick 30-second connectivity process, Smoothpay can rapidly analyse up to a year’s worth of customer earnings. As a result, individuals can promptly sign up for the service and start receiving their “Smoothpay” without any delay.

Henry Oakes, Founder of Smoothpay, said:

Reliable income analysis is at the heart of Smoothpay, but so too is a smooth (ahem) and trustworthy customer experience. We wanted our customers to find out their Smoothpay within a minute or so of signing up – and we’ve managed to achieve this with minimal fuss by integrating DirectID into the app.

Clare McCaffery, Chief Commercial Officer, DirectID, said:

When I first heard about Smoothpay, I instantly understood the role open banking could play in helping freelancers earn a stable income. Our mission has always been to promote financial inclusion ”“ that means to help people access the products they need, and help the providers to provide them. The world of work has transformed in recent years, and this is an incredible opportunity to use open banking to support those without a traditional salary for the first time.

Fintechs DirectID and Faciit partner to make accessing credit easier

DirectID, the global credit and risk platform for risk managers, has announced a partnership with Faciit, an alternative lending solution for individuals without a UK credit history. This partnership utilises DirectID’s open banking insights to assist people with new-to-country status in accessing affordable credit.

Faciit’s save-to-borrow solution operates by requiring users to save one-third of their loan requirements for a minimum of three months. Following this, Faciit provides the remaining two-thirds as competitive loans. Faciit distinguishes itself from traditional lenders by not relying solely on bureau data to make credit decisions. Instead, the company employs DirectID’s income verification, using open banking data to determine whether an individual can afford to repay the loan.

James Varga, CEO & Founder of DirectID, said:

We’re delighted to partner with Faciit to help new-to-country individuals access affordable credit using DirectID’s open banking-powered insights. The partnership is perfectly placed alongside our mission to promote financial inclusion and responsible lending practices. By using open banking, we can enable better access to financial services for everyone, regardless of their credit history or financial status.

The partnership between DirectID and Faciit is rooted in their shared mission to promote financial inclusion. Faciit aims to provide new-to-country status individuals with the loans they need to achieve their financial goals, while DirectID believes everyone should have access to the financial services they need.

Olaolu Olaleye, CEO & Founder of Faciit said:

Our name Faciit means we facilitate it, and it sums up our mission to help create financial possibilities for those who will struggle otherwise. We are excited to partner with DirectID to deliver our complimentary missions of enabling financial inclusion.

GiftRound and Mangopay strengthen partnership

GiftRound, the specialist platform for group gift collection, has announced an enhanced partnership with Mangopay, a platform-specific payment infrastructure provider, to handle all payment flows on the platform. This partnership was established in 2018, at the inception of GiftRound, which has thus far processed over £10.5 million through more than 75,000 money pots using Mangopay.

GiftRound offers a secure, dependable and user-friendly online service that facilitates group gift collection. The platform’s aim is to bring people together to celebrate and revive the pleasure of giving gifts in groups for the collector, the donor, and the recipient. Presently, there are over 800,000 users for 125 daily created GiftRounds.

The management of payment flows is central to GiftRound’s service. The company required a robust payment provider to process intricate payment flows. Mangopay’s expertise and capabilities were a perfect match for this purpose, with a long track record of working with platform-specific businesses, including crowdfunding companies. With Mangopay’s API, GiftRound can ensure secure money collection, fraud prevention and anti-money laundering measures, all of which are vital for the platform. Mangopay also offers KYC processes alongside secure and diverse payment methods.

Moreover, GiftRound will now incorporate Mangopay’s e-wallet modular technology, which will add an extra layer of protection and security before dispersing funds to the recipient. This functionality will provide flexible and scalable pay-in and pay-out capabilities, which are crucial for the platform and GiftRound’s commitment to delivering dependable and seamless payment experiences to customers.

Craig Forsythe, CEO & Founder, GiftRound highlights:

“Having started this journey with Mangopay in 2018, we’re delighted to continue working together. Payment flows are crucial for us as we work on maintaining our high levels of growth by listening to our customers to improve their payment experience on our platform. It is key for us to work with a trusted partner and we know that crowdfunding payment flows are part of Mangopay’s DNA. Mangopay will enable us to process multiple payment flows daily in the safest way possible and we look forward to continuing to grow a reliable, secure service with our trusted partner.”

Luke Trayfoot, Chief Revenue Officer, Mangopay declares:

“Our modular and flexible payment infrastructure is a necessary asset for platforms, especially as they look to further improve their payment operations, user experience and scalability. We are proud to support GiftRound on its payment journey and help their customers organise gift collections quickly and easily. The UK represents a key growth market for Mangopay and having national partners such as GiftRound is fundamental for our expansion in the market.”

Bravura double win at pensions age awards 2023

Scottish fintech Bravura is delighted to announce two award wins at this year’s Pensions Age Awards.

Taking place on 21 March 2023 in London, the Bravura team brought home trophies for Best Marketing Campaign and Pensions Personality of the Year for its Principal Consultant and Pensions Specialist, Jonathan Hawkins.

After working more than 25 years in the pensions space, Jonathan joined Bravura in 2018 and has worked within the Group ”“ including its subsidiary Delta Financial Systems ”“ to expand the company’s offering in the pensions space. This includes him leading a highly skilled mixed team of developers, consultants, testers, infrastructure, service design and more across the globe to design and build its industry-leading Integrated Service Provider (ISP), Dashboards Connect, as well as acting as a vital source of inspiration for the industry to challenge the status quo and use dashboards to effectively digitise the industry and bring substantial benefits to individuals and firms once dashboards are available to the public.

Last year, Jonathan took a leading role in the company’s Pension Dashboard Week initiative, which also secured gold for Best Marketing Campaign of the Year. The campaign, which saw more than 1,500 industry participants register for its awareness raising week, aimed to inspire the pensions industry to think beyond the upcoming Pensions Dashboard Programme staging deadlines and focus on the benefits the regulation could bring to both providers and individuals. The campaign featured a range of talks, webinars and Q&As, designed to inspire and educate Pension Providers, Schemes, TPAs and Wealth Platforms about what is involved and required to connect to the pensions dashboards ecosystem, whilst also highlighting how best-in-class technology can turn the possibilities that dashboards present into reality.

Jonathan Hawkins, Principal Consultant and Pensions Specialist, said:

“I’m obviously over the moon to be named Pensions Age’s Pensions Personality of the Year. I’ve been following the development of the pensions dashboards programme for at least seven years now and it’s a hugely exciting initiative to be part of and help the industry take one step closer to the holy grail of open finance as well as encourage people to better understand and engage with their pensions. It’s not just a huge privilege for me, but a massive validation for the entire talented Pensions Dashboards project team at Bravura and our subsidiaries Delta Financial Systems and FinoComp, who have all been instrumental in creating our scalable ISP microservices ”“ Dashboards Connect ”“ and leading the industry with our innovative and inclusive events. The digitisation of pensions is coming, and I’m excited to be at the vanguard of that revolution and commit to further helping the industry imagine the future.”

Justine Pattullo, Marketing Manager EMEA, added:

“Despite our rich history in pensions in Australia and Delta having more than 30 years’ experience in the UK SIPPs market, this is relatively new territory for Bravura and a fantastic achievement to celebrate two wins at one of the industry’s most prestigious awards. This all in-house-created campaign brought together deep expertise from right across our business and showed how we are able to break into new ground as a Group using the huge amount of talent we have within the business. Huge thanks to all the team for helping to make this happen.”

Age Partnership partners with Scottish fintech Aveni

Scottish fintech Aveni.ai, the AI fintech business, has been chosen by Age Partnership, one of the leading Equity Release Advisory firms in the UK, to transform its Quality Assurance systems and set new standards for customer service and outcomes.

After a successful pilot scheme, Age Partnership has implemented Aveni Detect, an AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based technology platform, to increase oversight of client interactions, maximize process efficiencies, and ensure data-led evidence of compliance to meet Consumer Duty regulations from the FCA.

The adoption of the latest advancements in generative AI, NLP, and large language models will enable Age Partnership to offer an automated element to Quality Assurance (QA) processes across all applications received. This will eliminate errors and increase the speed and effectiveness of customer interaction monitoring. It will provide unparalleled risk management and oversight, which will assist the business in expanding its operations to support more customers and enhance outcomes for them.

Aveni Detect has been established as a “Machine Line of Defense” to analyze all customer interactions, mitigating against a variety of risks, from conduct and complaints to customer vulnerability. It will comply with the data-first requirements of the new Consumer Duty regulation, which takes effect in July 2023.

David Wing, Director of Risk & Compliance at Age Partnership said,

“The pilot with Aveni was a real success. It demonstrated that by using their call transcription service to provide machine-based monitoring across our equity release customer journey, we were able to speedily identify key areas such as potentially vulnerable customers and subsequently then support advisers further through training.

“Ultimately, the technology provided by Aveni Detect helps us at Age Partnership to build upon the high level of service and advice that we provide to every individual client.”

Jamie Hunter, COO, Aveni explains,

“The chance to work with an innovative business like Age Partnership is exciting for Aveni as we work to help enhance its service and maintain its leading position. The business has embraced our AI platform from the very beginning of the pilot and is committed to using it to push boundaries and genuinely deliver better customer outcomes. With oversight across 100 percent of its customer interactions, the emphasis placed on the Quality Assurance function is unparalleled for Age Partnership and will allow real scalability whilst delivering data-led Consumer Duty compliance. The power of generative AI presents the dawn of a new era for financial advice and will be a key determinant in future success when placed at the heart of business operating models.”

Encompass unveils pKYC maturity model

Encompass Corporation has recently introduced a perpetual Know Your Customer (pKYC) maturity model, which aims to set a new standard for regulatory compliance to combat financial crime. The model has been developed by the pKYC Advisory Board, a group consisting of representatives from global banks and trusted data, technology, and consulting partners. It aims to evaluate financial systems and assess their readiness to identify and prevent financial crime by placing them in a pKYC framework.

pKYC is a desirable state for many in the banking industry, as it uses automation technology to detect risk more accurately and quickly, while also increasing operational efficiency without the need for more headcount or time commitment. Typically, financial institutions re-evaluate customer data every one, three, or five years, depending on the level of risk, leaving the door open for undetected activity to occur over long periods.

The pKYC maturity model evaluates financial institutions in five core areas: Policy, People, Process, Data, and Technology. These factors are then further broken down into subcategories and assessed against the four stages of KYC: Manual KYC, Early Automation, Mature Automation, or pKYC. This provides a benchmark to determine the institution’s readiness for pKYC.

Encompass is providing banks with the means to assess their readiness for pKYC, facilitate discussions among stakeholders, and evaluate the progress of their transformation journeys. They are offering advice and technology solutions to expedite the process. According to Howard Wimpory, KYC Transformation Director for Encompass, financial institutions need to adopt automation technology to avoid undetected financial risks, comply with regulatory requirements, and protect themselves and society against financial crime.

Encompass has also released an industry whitepaper titled Planning your journey to perpetual KYC, which offers a comprehensive understanding of pKYC and the core components necessary to achieve this goal.

Scottish fintech Biscuit Tin shortlisted for UK StartUp Award

Biscuit Tin, a startup based in Dunbar, Scotland, has been announced as a finalist for the Fintech StartUp of the Year award at the upcoming Scottish Final of the StartUp Awards.

The StartUp Awards aims to celebrate the thriving startup scene across the UK, which has seen a 4.3% increase in new businesses founded since 2021, totaling over 800,000.

The program received a record-breaking number of applications this year, with 1,100 firms shortlisted across ten UK regions, all of which were started in the last three years.

These startups have collectively created over 5,000 new jobs and generated annual sales of £584 million. Biscuit Tin, launched in 2020 by serial entrepreneur Sheila Hogan, is a personal, digital legacy vault designed to simplify life administration for individuals and their loved ones by creating a digital legacy.

The StartUp Awards are supported by several national sponsors, including Starling Bank, BT, and British Business Bank. The finalists will be judged by a panel of experienced judges, including entrepreneurs and industry experts. The StartUp Awards were launched in 2022 in collaboration with the team behind the successful Great British Entrepreneur Awards.

Strategic AI Investment Partnership in fintech Level E Research by M&G

Level E Research has announced that it has received a minority stake investment from M&G plc in its latest seed funding round. The two companies are collaborating to develop a suite of investment strategies using Artificial Intelligence (AI). The AI investment strategies will be focused on regional equity markets and will be supported by an initial investment of GBP £100 million each. The first strategy, AI Smart US, has already been launched, with the aim of outperforming the US S&P 500 Index. The other strategies will have a similar aim of delivering excess investment returns compared to specific financial indices.

AI investment strategies rely on powerful computers to analyse vast amounts of data to identify investment opportunities. They can uncover value in areas that are difficult for humans to recognise and execute investment decisions faster and more efficiently. Additionally, they benefit from economies of scale and scope, making them more cost-effective.

Edinburgh-based Level E Research, founded by Dr. Sonia Schulenburg, is pioneering an innovative approach to AI-driven investing using a process called “Co-Creation.” Institutional investors can use this approach to create bespoke AI-driven investment strategies that run on Level E’s in-house “E-platform.” The strategies are backed by rigorous academic research.

M&G and Level E Research aim to bring AI and Machine Learning to the forefront of investment management. Dr. Sonia Schulenburg, CEO of Level E Research, expressed her excitement about the partnership with M&G and stated that Level E Research is perfectly positioned to provide AI solutions that empower the investment industry in the UK and beyond. David Montgomery, Managing Director at M&G Wealth, emphasised that AI solutions are becoming increasingly important in constructing bespoke investment options and that the partnership with Level E Research will help to offer a wide range of investment choices at a great value to financial advisers and clients.