The Glasgow University FinTech Society – the story so far
What is Glasgow University FinTech Society?
The society was created in summer 2017. It’s goal is to increase knowledge and raise the profile of fintech among university students.
They have adopted a fresh approach to fintech, opening membership to students of any degree as long as they are interested in technology innovations. This is important as successful start-ups and SMEs will need more than tech and financial skills. As with all businesses, marketing, data, user experience, human sciences and much more will be necessary to develop sustainable and fruitful businesses.
A fast-growing society
The group has developed very quickly, acquiring 70 members in 3 months. They are a mix of first-year to PhD students. Through this group they will get opportunities to develop their knowledgge about everything fintech thanks to the organisation of events on various topics such as blockchain, cryptocurrencies,
P2P lending, and much more.
Jan Jindra, President of the society told us:
“What makes our society unique is that our society members form teams in advance to the event to
research the specific FinTech-related topic on their own first, write a group report and eventually
deliver the presentation at the event to other students. This supports the idea of “learning by doing”
and it becomes a very useful experience for everyone involved”.
3 events have been held so far:
-What does fintech mean?
-Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies (Students were able to create their
own crypto tokens and learn from speaker Dug
Campbell, Blockchain consultant and writer.)
-Peer-to- Peer lending and Stock Trading Apps.
More vents are being planned especially around the topics of AI and Ethics which is a growing topic within the tech community.
They’ll also cover regulations in FinTech.
One of the most exciting initiative is their Applied FinTech Project. Members will work with existing FS brands on FinTech matters.
They are looking to contact businesses interested in partnering with the society to look at challenges and opportunities. If it wasn’t interesting enough, they decided to provide this at no cost at all.
3 Scottish universities collaborate on fintech
In a first for Scotland and the United Kingdom, Tatja Karkkainen, is to undertake a PhD in Fintech. Her research is lead supervised by Glasgow University’s Adam Smith Business School and co-mentored by Strathclyde and Stirling Universities.
Ms Karkkainen will research distributed ledger technologies as well as smart contract solutions for the efficiency of financial markets. This will source from the fields of pure finance as well as IT. She regards the university cluster an ideal base for Fintech research for its accessible skills and resources.
The three universities provide a formidable fintech combination, providing a multi disciplinary environment for Ms Karkkainen’s Research. Glasgow University was named Scottish University of the Year in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018. The Department of Accounting and Finance at Strathclyde Business School was ranked first in Accounting and Finance in the United Kingdom and Stirling University Computing Department is part of the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance.