Driving fintech growth in Scotland

FinTech Scotland, in partnership with Scottish Enterprise, has announced today the appointment of corporate innovation firm Vivolution to support the drive of fintech growth in Scotland.

One of FinTech Scotland’s strategic priorities is to support fintech firms’ growth and innovation by enabling access to funding and professional support services.

To deliver this, Vivolution has been appointed to lead a new Fintech Network Integrator service providing take to market and Investment sourcing services to fintech start-ups and scale-ups.

Specifically, Vivolution will be helping fintech firms from across Scotland to accelerate their potential in domestic and international markets as well as encouraging collaborations between financial services, start-ups, investors, regulators, industry and academia.

Commenting on this announcement, Stephen Ingledew said: “Scotland has got everything it takes to be one of the leading fintech hubs in the world and the appointment of Vivolution will further support the collaboration across the sector. We are looking forward to working closely with the team.”

Fintech director at Scottish Enterprise, Danny Cusick, added: “Our Network Integrator is a tried and tested model aimed at supporting the development of emerging or niche sectors. Through innovation and collaboration, Vivolution will work with Scottish Enterprise to help companies to maximise their growth ambitions and position Scotland as the location of choice for future Fintech investment.”

Mark Roger at Vivolution, said: “We are delighted to be working with Fintech Scotland and Scottish Enterprise to help develop the eco system here in Scotland. Through their ongoing work to encourage and support emerging innovation and investment potential, there is a real opportunity to position Scotland as one of the leading centres for Fintech innovation, collaboration and growth ”“ and we’re delighted to be playing a part in this.”

What FinTechs really need”¦ And why it helps to ask them

Fintech”¦the realm of Open Banking, Data Sets, IOT, VR & AR Platforms, Data science, WCDI, sandboxes, Secure IT”¦..

All very Tech orientated, as the name suggests! So, when global Digital Transformation and IT service providers Sopra Steria teamed up with sector growth enabler FinTech Scotland to support the FinTech community, they made a fair assumption that the most valuable help they could offer would be access to UK banking systems as a development and testing environment.

Seemed logical, so the project to prepare this infrastructure entered the planning phase. However, before moving into build, the team took a step back and decided to present the initial concepts to a selection of Fintech MDs and CEOs.

Good job they did.

25% of Scotland’s FinTechs were interviewed, with only two of them giving the idea the thumbs up, and only one saying it was something they’d value enough to pay for. (note: it wasn’t necessarily going to charged for, but the question was a great indicator of value)

So, the main assumption had been wrong”¦.a discovery that has saved a lot of time and money being invested in something that wasn’t necessarily needed by the customer. Not that it can’t be offered at some point, it’s just not the priority or part of the MVP.

However, the in-depth interviews also unearthed some even more surprising information. When asked about the main issues and challenges facing their businesses, the feedback had a lot in common with start-ups and innovators in other sectors:

Finding the right people, especially IT specialists

Lacking a support network, experienced Execs and mentors who had “been there and done that”

Knowing how to scale operationally

Funding

The verdict”¦?

FinTechs are just like any other business and they face the same challenges. They are founded by entrepreneurs, not necessarily “Tech” experts.

The conclusion”¦.?

Genuine, unbiased customer insight and feedback is vital at the very start of any innovation process, whether it’s starting a new business or developing a new product or service. Under-rated and rarely done properly, it doesn’t have to be an expensive or lengthy process.

In today’s agile world it can done in a matter of weeks, but can save months of wasted time and resource, and £000’s of investment.

https://propositionb.com/proposition-Development

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.