Advancing ESG
Everyone’s talking about ESG, but how do we move from ambition to meaningful impact?
This new report from the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) unpacks that challenge and points to a clear answer: regulatory innovation.
While ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) principles have risen to the top of board agendas, the path to embedding them meaningfully into financial services is still full of complexity with ambiguous frameworks, inconsistent data, and evolving disclosure standards. But amid that complexity lies an opportunity for change.
This paper flips the conversation. Instead of focusing on ESG as a reporting burden, it highlights how purpose-driven innovation, especially from fintechs, can reframe ESG as a strategic advantage.
Highlights include:
- How fintechs are creating tools that democratise ESG insights, enabling smaller firms to lead, not lag.
- The power of transparency tech, enabling consumers and investors to make informed choices in real time.
- Regulatory leadership as a catalyst—not a constraint—for embedding long-term sustainability in financial decision-making.
Through FRIL’s ESG Innovation Call, the report captures the pulse of the ecosystem: entrepreneurs, regulators, academics, and institutions coming together to explore how data, collaboration, and innovation can unlock the next wave of ESG progress.
Addressing Financial Crime
Financial crime is no longer just a back-office issue, it’s a frontline threat to trust, security, and resilience across the financial system. With scams growing more sophisticated and regulation constantly evolving, simply reacting isn’t enough. The sector needs to outthink and outpace criminal innovation.
Produced through the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) led by FinTech Scotland, the University of Strathclyde, and the University of Glasgow, this report looks into how the UK financial services industry is embracing innovation to meet the challenge head-on.
Rather than listing problems, the focus is on real-world progress:
- Fintechs using AI and privacy-first data sharing to spot fraud faster.
- Financial institutions embedding intentional “friction” into digital journeys to protect vulnerable consumers.
- Regulators promoting sandbox collaboration and cross-sector signal sharing to shift from reactive controls to intelligent, joined-up defences.
What makes this report stand out is the ecosystem it brings together:
15 fintech innovators, banks, telcos, regulators, and academic partners all contributing to one goal: disrupt financial crime before it happens.
Shaping better consumer outcomes
This report explores how the financial services sector can harness innovation to deliver better outcomes for consumers in line with the FCA’s Consumer Duty.
Produced through the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), a collaboration between FinTech Scotland, the University of Strathclyde, and the University of Glasgow, the report outlines a practical and forward-looking roadmap for industry-wide transformation.
The introduction of the Consumer Duty marks a shift from traditional compliance to a proactive, outcomes-based regulatory approach. This paper highlights how fintech innovation, data insights, and collaborative ecosystems can help financial institutions meet evolving regulatory expectations and rising consumer demands.
Key themes include:
- A changing regulatory and consumer landscape, with rising expectations for transparent, inclusive, and adaptive financial services.
- Challenges for financial institutions, such as legacy systems, siloed data, and fragmented compliance efforts.
- Opportunities for innovation, where fintechs play a crucial role in driving consumer understanding, supporting vulnerable customers, and automating compliance.
- A call for ecosystem-wide collaboration, moving beyond isolated efforts to create shared standards, interoperable systems, and seamless consumer experiences.
The report features insights from the FRIL Consumer Duty Innovation Call, showcasing fintech partnerships that are already delivering tangible improvements in customer support, communication clarity, and regulatory monitoring. It concludes with a multi-year roadmap outlining the necessary steps for embedding Consumer Duty principles across the financial ecosystem.
FinTech Scotland and TSB Launch latest Innovation Labs programme to Combat Fraud and Enhance Trust in Digital Banking
FinTech Scotland unveiled today the latest innovation programme in collaboration with TSB Labs at Money20/20, Europe’s largest fintech conference.
TSB Labs, the award-winning fintech accelerator, is once again partnering with FinTech Scotland to identify, support and scale innovative solutions tackling some of the most urgent challenges in banking. This year, the focus is on preventing one of the nation’s most prevalent crimes – fraud, while delivering a seamless customer journey.
The programme builds on the success of previous cohorts, which resulted in several pilot projects as well as being recognised at the Scottish Financial Technology Awards for Best Financial Services Innovation..
The 2025 innovation programme is now open to fintechs from across the globe who are ready to deploy real-world solutions in a live retail banking environment. Interested parties can apply here.
Nicola Anderson, Chief Executive of FinTech Scotland, commented:
“We are delighted to be partnering once more with TSB and announce this innovation programme at Money20/20. TSB Labs is a powerful example of how established financial institutions can partner with fintechs to deliver real impact for customers. Thanks to our work on the topic of fraud as part of the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab, we’ll be bringing a significant amount of knowledge, expertise and connections to this programme from across the Scottish Fintech Cluster.”
The Lab’s three challenge statements invite creative, practical solutions in:
- Smart Messaging and Education: improving fraud detection through timely, trusted, and effective customer communication.
- Empowered Customer Controls: making faster decisions about authorised payments by giving customers more control and clarity.
- Seamless Resolution: transforming fraud reporting and resolution into a streamlined, customer-centric journey.
Richard Daniels, Fraud and Financial Crime Operations Director at TSB, said:
“Fraud is constantly evolving, and so must we. The TSB Labs programme is a brilliant opportunity for us to work shoulder-to-shoulder with innovative fintechs to find smarter, faster and more effective ways to continue protecting our customers.”
The programme offers two phases of structured engagement, culminating in a final pitch to TSB decision-makers and the opportunity to progress to pilot deployment.
Full details and the short application form can be found on FinTech Scotland’s website . Applications close on 25 June 2025.
HAELO and RegGenome Partner to Launch Horizon Scanning Platform
The pace of regulatory change continues to intensify, with new updates emerging globally every few minutes. In response, Scottish fintech HAELO has partnered with regulatory data specialist RegGenome to introduce REGENESIS, a new platform designed to support compliance professionals in navigating complex and rapidly evolving requirements.
REGENESIS combines RegGenome’s structured and AI-powered regulatory datasets with HAELO’s automation capabilities to streamline the horizon scanning process. The solution targets mid-tier financial institutions and SMEs initially, with plans to scale toward larger firms.
The platform offers governance, risk, and compliance teams a single access point to regulatory information from hundreds of authorities across jurisdictions. It integrates into existing workflows, helping teams prioritise responses to emerging obligations while reducing reliance on manual tracking.
Key features include automated rule detection, curated insights, and contextual tagging to assist users in identifying regulatory developments relevant to their operations. This shift toward automation is expected to allow compliance professionals to reallocate time toward higher-value tasks such as risk analysis and controls assessment.
The collaboration between HAELO and RegGenome has already attracted attention from a broad cross-section of the industry. The platform was recently introduced to representatives from organisations including HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Citi, Baillie Gifford, Virgin Money, and FinTech Scotland.
Commenting on the partnership, Mick O’Connor, Founder and Managing Director of HAELO, said:
“I was looking for a partner who could deliver validated, explainable regulatory data. RegGenome demonstrated both the technical expertise and openness to collaborate in bringing effective GRC solutions to market.”
Mark Johnston, CEO of RegGenome, added:
“HAELO brings a practical approach to regulatory automation. This partnership complements our existing ecosystem and strengthens our efforts to help firms adapt to ongoing regulatory change.”
Accelerating Action: A Celebration of the FRIL Innovation to Address Financial Crime Programme
Welcome back to our spotlight series celebrating colleagues who are inspiring change and Accelerating Action across the technology sector. This month’s edition focusses on celebrating some of the inspirational colleagues who took part in our recent program of work under the 4th Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) challenge – addressing financial crime.
Thank you to all who engaged with us across the programme, and to our spotlighted colleagues for contributing to this important campaign: Christine Sinclair, Skills Programme Director FRIL @ University of Strathclyde; Gill Green, Client Director @ Sopra Steria; Savannah Price, Founder & CEO @ Serene, and Roisin McCarthy, Founder & CEO @ Verifoxx.
Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) – Recapping the progress made in the Financial Crime Programme 2025
The FRIL is an industry-led collaborative innovation and research programme with a focus in its 4th call on bringing together industry, regulators, innovators and academia to tackle financial crime and fraud. The challenge was centred around 5 industry led priority use cases and convened 15 Fintech entrepreneurs to work with regulators, academia and industry leaders to develop their innovative solutions. Across the programme, it was a privilege to work with inspirational colleagues across the cluster and we are excited to be celebrating their achievements in this blog.
Across the programme, BT has played a key role in driving collaboration and knowledge sharing across the cluster to tackle financial crime and fraud. This activity kicked off with the launch of the FRIL innovation programme at the BT offices, convening an audience of representatives from regulatory authorities, telco, academia and financial institutions. Continuing to build on this leadership, the BT team also hosted a collaborative podcast series, chaired by Charlotte Moir BT, offering an opportunity to hear from industry leaders across the FRIL – many of whom feature within the Accelerating Action campaign, to share knowledge and best practices in the fraud prevention sector.
“The FRIL is a great opportunity to innovate together to identify solutions”
Paul Taylor, MD Global Banking
Developing the Skills agenda through FRIL – Unlocking AI literacy potential
A key track of activity within the FRIL is skills development, led by our fantastic colleague Christine Sinclair, University of Strathclyde. Christine’s passion and commitment to progressing the skills agenda continues to inspire us to empower colleagues around us, and we are delighted to be sharing further details on the recent launch of the AI Skills Literacy Suite as part of the Women in Tech Campaign:
“AI is transforming the way we live and work at lightning speed, offering new opportunities and challenges – are you keeping up? Whether you’re just starting your AI journey, looking to deepen your expertise, or need a high-impact executive briefing, our AI Literacy programmes are designed to empower professionals at every level.
Unlock your AI potential with Strathclyde Business School by signing up today to one of our five comprehensive micro credentials to earn academic credits and future-proof your career. Find out more herehttps://bit.ly/FRILSkills_ SBS or contact sbs-fril@strath.ac.uk with any questions you may have.”
“Cross-industry collaboration really is key to help us stay ahead…its critical”
Charlotte Moir, Account Manager
We look forward to continuing to celebrate inspirational colleagues across this campaign and will be continuing to publish our monthly blog. If you would like to nominate a colleague to feature in our spotlight series, please reach out to
francesca.2.ritchie@bt.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesca-ritchie-703325210
Large Language Model Application for Regulatory Horizon Scanning: Case Study on ESG Greenwashing Regulations
This white paper explores the application of Generative AI, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), to enhance regulatory horizon scanning within financial services. Using the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) 2024 anti-greenwashing rule as a case study, we demonstrate how LLMs can be integrated into the strategic foresight process to detect early regulatory signals, analyse stakeholder feedback, and forecast future regulatory developments.
Our framework builds upon the traditional horizon scanning model, comprising exploration, assessment, application, and continuation, and incorporates advanced text analysis techniques including semantic similarity testing with models such as BERT and RoBERTa.
The study shows that LLMs can significantly improve the efficiency, accuracy, and scalability of horizon scanning by extracting meaningful insights from large, unstructured datasets. The results highlight the potential of LLM-driven foresight to enhance regulatory preparedness, guide compliance strategies, and inform policy design in an increasingly complex and dynamic regulatory environment.
Innovation Accelerator Fuels Glasgow City Region’s Fintech Future: Driving Growth, Jobs, and Global Leadership
The Centre of Innovation for Financial Regulation, known as the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), is shaping the future of regulatory responsible innovation as part of the UK government’s Innovation Accelerator programme.
Led by FinTech Scotland in partnership with Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, FRIL is delivering pioneering advances in artificial intelligence and accelerating innovation that helps protect people from financial crime. It is also creating digital services that help citizens and businesses get access to the right financial products at the right time, helping citizens live better financially resilient lives.
The FRIL initiative is already in the process of delivering an impressive return on investment of £6 to every £1 in public funding.
It is one of 11 projects funded within the Glasgow City Region portfolio of the Innovation Accelerator (IA) pilot programme, which is transforming the innovation landscape in the UK and paving the way for the future of place-based research and development (R&D) investment.
Since its launch, the Innovation Accelerator programme has invested £100m in 26 transformative R&D projects between 2023-25, focusing on high-potential innovation clusters across three UK regions – Greater Manchester, West Midlands and Glasgow City Region and has been extended by £30m for 2025/26. The programme builds on regional cluster strengths and brings together the innovation ecosystem, to drive economic growth and technological advancement.
The programme is led by Innovate UK, on behalf of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and co-created in Glasgow City Region with regional leadership to ensure it is locally led and focused on harnessing the region’s strengths in advanced manufacturing, space, photonics, healthcare, precision medicine and financial technology (fintech).
With over 250 companies engaged, £47 million in co-investment secured, and a thriving ecosystem of high-growth sectors now flourishing, by focusing on innovation – rather than pure research – the Innovation Accelerator programme has leveraged Glasgow City Region’s existing strengths, infrastructure, and partnerships to accelerate progress. The success of the Innovation Accelerator programme underscores the importance of long-term regional autonomy in funding decisions. With the right support, Glasgow City Region’s innovation ecosystem is poised for sustainable growth, ensuring it remains a premier destination for business, talent, and groundbreaking ideas.
Two years since its launch the projects supported are demonstrating globally competitive research and development that is putting the region’s innovation strengths on the map, including FRIL.
FRIL is built on four workstreams namely innovation challenges, actionable research, skills and education, and knowledge exchange. Crucially FRIL’s industry-led accelerator model has demonstrated how to drive economic growth, job creation, and productivity in financial services and the broader economy as well as position Glasgow City Region’s as a global powerhouse for next-generation fintech innovation. It is accelerating business development by up to 12 months, advancing technology adoption and enabling fintech partnerships that are driving strong commercial outcomes.
This has all been reinforced by the industry co-investment in FRIL, with commitments reaching up to £20 million across financial services institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Lloyds Banking Group, Aberdeen, NatWest, TSB and Advanced Credit Union that have enabled the new services to be created and new fintech enterprises to emerge, as well as job creation projected and realised by FRIL FinTech grant award winners.
Through FRIL there are also 18 diverse fintech SMEs creating new jobs. Examples of this include the fast growing Scottish based scale-up Amiqus, which delivers a product that solves compliance and onboarding challenges for businesses taking on new clients or hiring staff. Amiqus has hired over 20 new employees with further growth plans in the pipeline, following an award from the FRIL innovation challenge initiative.
FRIL is also helping UK regions beyond Glasgow City Region, including Greater Manchester and West Midlands to become globally competitive R&D powerhouses for financial technology, delivering strong economic returns and high-value employment.
Science Minister, Lord Vallance, said:
“The Innovation Accelerator programme is unlocking new opportunities for growth in regions across the UK and this £30m investment backs further collaboration between business, academia and government to build on local innovation that can improve lives across the country.
“Glasgow City Region’s Financial Regulation Innovation Lab’s return of £6 for every £1 invested is helping to strengthen the economy, while its work in advancing technology in financial services will help position the Glasgow City Region as a hub for next generation fintech innovation that benefits the economy across Scotland and the wider UK.”
Susan Aitken, Chair of the Glasgow City Region Cabinet and Leader of Glasgow City Council, added:
“Glasgow has long been at the forefront of financial services and innovation, and setting up the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab cements our position as a leading global fintech hub. The FRIL initiative is driving significant economic impact, creating high-value jobs, driving investment, and fostering collaboration between industry, academia, and government.“It’s exciting to see how the Innovation Accelerator programme has been the catalyst to driving locally led innovation, resulting in significant economic growth and technological advancement.”
Nicola Anderson, CEO of Fintech Scotland, commented:
“We are incredibly proud of the impact that The Financial Regulation Innovation Lab is making, harnessing the power of financial innovation to drive economic growth. The investment in FRIL has been game changing, allowing us to support more businesses and drive meaningful economic impact both at a national and global level.“We continue to build on this momentum by further accelerating innovation and technology adoption whilst developing the skill base, enhancing academic application and driving better financial product engagement for customers.”
For more information and to find out about other projects that have been funded through the programme, visit the Innovate UK Business Connect website.
Sustainable Financial Products and UK Pension Schemes
Sustainable financial products have gained significant traction in the financial world as climate change and social responsibility concerns continue to dominate public discourse. In the UK, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and sustainability considerations have been steadily gaining attention as both financial product designs and risk management tools.
Economic trends, regulations, and soft laws have been reactive over the last decade to growing transparency and demands for accountability (Palea, 20221; Escrig-Olmedo, Muñoz-Torres, Fernandez-Izquierdo, 20132).
This paper explores the growing role of sustainable financial products in the UK’s Defined Contribution (DC) pension schemes. It highlights key challenges and opportunities, focusing on the interplay between sustainable investment products, pension dashboards, Fintech, and institutional perspectives.
Strategic Foresight in FinTech: Harnessing Scenario Planning for Future Readiness
Strategic foresight is an essential approach for anticipating and preparing for potential developments in a rapidly evolving ecosystem. This white paper explores the critical importance of future thinking and foresight methods in fintech ecosystem. It highlights scenario planning as a powerful tool for strategic foresight in fintech ecosystem. It examines the value of scenario planning for businesses, governments, and regulators, while addressing the challenges and limitations of its application.
The paper reviews specific use cases of scenario planning in government and financial institutions, offering insights into how it can further benefit these sectors. Ultimately, the paper calls on stakeholders to embrace future thinking and scenario planning as integral elements of their strategic planning processes.