FinTech Innovation continues to grow, putting more spring in our step!

We all hope we're starting to emerge from lockdown and see green shoots helping us get closer to what we refer to as 'back to normal'. Those green shoots are hopefully giving us some cause for optimism coupled with the change in seasons and the firm feeling that spring is in the air.

That turns our attention to the opportunity for growth and potential change, new horizons and hope for the future. Growth is firmly on our mind at FinTech Scotland and in the last few months we have welcomed 22 new FinTech SME's into the FinTech Scotland's community. The new additions include start ups, established tech businesses applying their capabilities to fintech, as well as international businesses building a home in Scotland.

The FinTech Scotland Cluster continues to build and create the environment to help business develop, grow and scale, all enabled by the continued collaboration across industry, public and academic sectors. We will be working in continued collaboration as we consider the support needed to help FinTech SME's to scale.

Supporting UK FinTech's scale was one of the recommendations from the Kalifa Review that was endorsed by the UK Chancellor during UK FinTech week in April. The Chancellor outlined that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will take forward the concept of a 'scale box'. FinTech Scotland will support the work to develop this idea further, working collaboratively to share experiences and needs for those businesses aiming to scale.

In addition Scotland is advancing it's plans for a series of Tech Scalers following the Mark Logan review. Another conscious effort to provide support to scale tech businesses that aligns with our focus for FinTech SME's in Scotland.

Both fit well with our ambition for Scotland to be a global fintech hub that enables business  development and growth, and has put an even more determined spring in our step.