The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology recruits

The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) is delighted to reveal that it has teamed up with Recruit121, a worldwide expert in talent acquisition within the finance and technology industry, to locate its core senior leadership squad.

CFIT’s objective is to remove the obstacles to expansion in financial technology, and the achievement of this goal depends on creating a robust and efficient leadership unit.

The roles are:

Head of Talent, Engagement & Placements

Director of Coalitions & Research

Director of Ecosystem & Partnerships

New identity verification standards for new home sales

The Home Builders Federation (HBF) has announced the launch of new and updated customer identity verification (IDV) and anti-money laundering (AML) checks following a successful 3-month consultation period run by Etive. The new process aims to improve the customer experience and align with emerging Government legislation and standards.

The HBF’s new process aims to eliminate the need for customers to show their ID separately to different parties throughout the purchase journey, reducing frustrations, costs, delays, and errors in the process. Customers will only have to prove their ID once during the home buying process.

The HBF consulted with 84 HBF members who responded to the survey, and one-to-one in-depth interviews were conducted with a range of different sized builders across the membership groups. The consultation helped the HBF develop an industry-centered set of rules that reflect good practices amongst home builders and ensure alignment to planned Government legislation.

The consultation’s output has led to the development of two new standards that go over and above the standards set out by DSIT to facilitate the selling of a home. The new standards are compliant with the DIATF and the HM Land Registry ‘safe harbour’.

Steve Turner, Executive Director of the HBF, said, “The new procedures are a huge step forward that will benefit both businesses and our customers and reduce delays, costs, and the opportunity for errors.” Stuart Young of Etive said, “A standard for IDV and AML will drive the industry towards higher standards, reducing the likelihood of money laundering and ID/property fraud, which can only benefit the sector, buyers, and the UK economy.”

The HBF is holding an online industry briefing session on Wednesday the 22nd March at 3 pm to provide further information on the new process. Those interested in attending can email Stuart at s.young@etive.org to receive details.

Photo by Dom J: https://www.pexels.com/photo/uk-driving-license-45113/

New scheme to improve identity checks when buying and selling property

Etive Technologies (Etive) is working with the Home Builders Federation (HBF) to support homebuilders in complying with government regulation and make identity and anti-money laundering checks easier, faster, and more secure.

Throughout the home buying and selling process consumers must provide the same information to prove their identity and confirm details about themselves numerous times. This leads to a frustrating user experience and duplicated effort and costs across the industry, with organisations paying to carry out the same checks on the same consumers.

Etive has been working with the Home Builders Federation to develop a verification scheme to address the current challenges associated with the verification process, and support compliance with the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework developed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The MyIdentity® scheme enables consumers to carry out digital identity and anti-money laundering checks and share them with organisations as and when they need to. This means checks can be carried out at the beginning of the buying/selling process, reducing customer friction and duplication of effort.

As part of this work, Etive is developing additional identity verification standards that go beyond the framework’s rules, in a bid to better meet consumer and industry needs. It has been working with a cohort of representatives from Barratt Developments PLC, Bellway PLC, Berkeley Group, Miller Homes Ltd, Persimmon PLC, Telford Homes Ltd and the Vistry Group PLC to explore these additional standards and is now seeking views from the wider industry.

A Department for Levelling UP, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) spokesperson says: “As per our commitment in the Levelling Up White Paper, essential checks to verify identity should be as streamlined as possible so home buyers and sellers do not have to go through the process repeatedly, with all the delays and extra costs this can incur.

“We are pleased to see the sector is building on the identity trust framework to make the verification process more straightforward and less frustrating for consumers.’”

A HBF spokesperson says: “Homebuilders are committed to continually improving the experience of customers and this scheme is a further demonstration of this.

“As well as simplifying the identity verification process, the scheme supports homebuilders to comply with government requirements and reduce duplication of effort so our members can focus on building much needed homes.”

The MyIdentity.org.uk® scheme needs to ensure that that it can represent the views of all new home builders. If you would like to contribute and help influence the scheme requirements fill out the online survey by the 30th January 2023.

Fintech driving Scotland’s inward investment success

By Kevin Reynolds, Inward Investment Specialist at Scottish Development International

It has been an excellent past month or so for inward investment in Scotland.

As Scottish Government Business Minister Ivan McKee announced at the World Forum for FDI in Edinburgh in May, Scottish Development International (SDI) statistics revealed that more than 7,500 planned real living wage jobs had been generated by inward investment in FY21/22.

The figures showed that 113 investment projects were supported by SDI, Scottish Enterprise and its partner agencies Highlands and Islands Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland in the past financial year, 39 of which were investors locating in Scotland for the first time.

These excellent results were reinforced by the publication of EY’s latest Annual Attractiveness Survey, which confirmed that Scotland was again the most attractive location for inward investment in the UK outside of London.

EY’s figures showed that Scotland secured 14% more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects in 2021 compared with 2020.  This helped ensure that Scotland’s investment destination attractiveness was now at record levels.

And earlier this week, a new Department for International Trade report showed a substantial increase in both the number of projects and jobs created in Scotland due to inward investment in FY21/22, compared to the previous financial year.

So, these reports showed Scotland’s continued ability to attract inward investment is clear, with the country’s software, IT and digital sectors central to this success.

SDI’s results showed that one of the most predominant sectors for inward investment was Software and IT, while EY’s figures revealed that Digital projects in Scotland rose by 73.6% in 2021 compared to 2020.

In the past financial year, SDI supported many fintech firms choose Scotland for global growth.  For example, Hong Kong cyber security company PolyDigi Tech continued to expand its presence in Edinburgh.   PolyDigi Tech has been involved in several programmes designed to support innovative start-ups, including EIE (Engage Invest Exploit), and was chosen as one of the Rising Stars 4.0 Scotland regional winners, an early-stage tech scaleup competition organised by Tech Nation.

And the good news keeps coming.  In May, Embark announced plans to hire more than 50 people in Dundee over the next few months as it continues to develop its presence in the city.

Meanwhile, digital finance company ClearScore recently announced that it intends to create an Open Banking Centre of Excellence in Edinburgh, creating up to 100 jobs over the next few years.  SDI has been pleased to engage with both companies regarding their plans for growth in Scotland.

Looking ahead, our dedicated specialists based here and in more than 30 locations around the world – alongside our prestigious international networks such as GlobalScot – will continue to promote Scotland as a perfect place for companies to locate.

Using the Scottish Government’s Inward Investment Plan as our North Star, we will focus our activities on delivering projects in opportunity areas where Scotland is a genuine world leader.  One of these sectors is undoubtedly Digital Financial Services.

Scottish Enterprise has developed a national programme on the digital economy, demonstrating our own commitment to digital scale-up.  Scottish Enterprise also provides investment to the wider tech sector.  For example, Scottish Enterprise last year invested more than £30m into companies in the sector via our co-investment funds, investing alongside local, national and international investors from seed through to series A and beyond.

But we know this will be a partnership effort.  Our Team Scotland’ approach, which sees public bodies, academia and industry working together to promote the very best Scotland has to offer, makes us stand out from the crowd.  Businesses have told us that this joined-up approach is a key reason why they choose Scotland.

For example, both Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government have endorsed FinTech Scotland’s recently published ten-year Research & Innovation roadmap, which outlines a bold and ambitious commitment to fintech innovation in Scotland, playing on our key strengths in regulation, payments, climate finance, etc.

By bringing together start-ups, entrepreneurs, businesses and universities, we can create, co-develop and share knowledge, leading to more innovation that will help unlock Scotland’s economic potential.

Scotland’s financial services sector is rightly regarded as one of the leading finance centres in Europe.  Our universities are world-renowned and the innovative technology scene in our towns and cities is second to none. When you combine these factors with our skilled workforce, Scotland is an irresistible proposition for fintech growth and development.

Scottish Enterprise is fully focused on transforming Scotland’s economy, as well as our journey towards a net zero future.  Crucial to achieving this will be innovative sectors such as fintech.  We look forward to continuing to work with partners across the public and private sectors, including FinTech Scotland, to ensure all our communities and regions benefit from the economic opportunities arising from fintech.