The real constraint in advice firms is capacity
Insights from Tom Matthieson, Founder & Director, Glimzer
Capacity, not regulation
When people talk about the challenges facing financial advice firms, regulation is usually the first thing mentioned.
But in conversations with advisers, operations teams and firm leaders, a different constraint comes up far more consistently: capacity.
Not a lack of demand. Not a lack of intent to do the right thing for clients. Simply a lack of time and headroom in the day‑to‑day running of the business.
Advisers want to spend time with clients. Firms want to serve more people, improve consistency and grow sustainably. What gets in the way is the volume of administrative work required to keep everything moving. Manual updates. Duplicated data entry. Chasing information across systems. Maintaining spreadsheets alongside core platforms just to get a clear picture of what’s going on.
None of this work improves client outcomes. But it quietly consumes hours every week.
What’s striking is how normal this has become. Many firms accept admin drag as the cost of doing business, even though it directly limits how many clients they can realistically support. As teams grow, the problem often gets worse. More people means more handoffs, more checks and more effort spent reconciling information rather than using it.
Tools built for records, not delivery
A big part of this comes down to the tools firms rely on. Much of the infrastructure used in advice today was designed primarily to store records, not to support how advice is actually delivered in practice. Over time, firms adapt around these systems, building workarounds and manual processes to keep things running. The result is friction that feels unavoidable, but isn’t.
Small fixes that unlock capacity
At Glimzer, we’ve been spending time listening closely to how advice firms actually work day to day. What becomes clear very quickly is that small improvements in how information flows through a business can unlock meaningful capacity. Capturing data once instead of multiple times. Making workflows clearer. Giving teams visibility without having to build reports by hand.
This isn’t about changing the role of the adviser or introducing more complexity. It’s about removing unnecessary work so firms can use the capability they already have more effectively.
Collaboration matters
Being part of the FinTech Scotland community matters to us because these problems aren’t solved in isolation. They sit at the intersection of advice delivery, operations and technology, and they benefit from a shared perspective and honest discussion.
Our aim at Glimzer
We’re building in this space with a simple aim: to reduce friction, give advice firms back time and help them serve more clients without stretching their teams thinner. We’re keen to learn from others who are thinking about the same challenges, and to contribute to a broader conversation about how better infrastructure can support the future of advice.
Galveston Group
Glimzer
Protostars
Finance and Health Lab National Conference to convene cross-sector leaders at The Edinburgh Futures Institute
FinTech Scotland today announced the Finance and Health Lab National Conference, on 19 March 2026, an invite-only national event bringing together leaders from financial services, health, academia, government and the innovation ecosystem to explore how Scotland can lead the next wave of progress at the intersection of health and financial wellbeing.
Hosted at the University of Edinburgh’s Futures Institute, the conference will showcase practical insights, emerging innovation, and opportunities for collaboration focused on challenges that matter in later life and beyond — including inclusive service design, strengthening financial resilience, and building trusted approaches to data.
The Finance and Health Lab is designed to accelerate collaboration across sectors, connecting partners to test ideas, generate evidence, and support innovations to move from insight to impact. The conference will share what’s been learned so far and set out the next steps for continued ecosystem action.
What to expect on the day
The one-day programme (10:00–16:00, arrival from 09:30) includes:
- A keynote and guided discussion on the future of financial health in an ageing society
- A research insight showcase on health–wealth dynamics in later life
- An industry panel on designing future-ready, inclusive financial services
- A startup showcase and demonstrator session featuring ventures from the innovation call
- A data proposition session exploring trusted, ethical pathways for financial-health data use
- A closing conversation on scaling innovation through collaboration and national impact
Registration is invite-only, with a register interest option available via the event page.
Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive, FinTech Scotland, said: “Scotland has a unique opportunity to lead in innovation that connects financial resilience with healthier outcomes. The Finance and Health Lab National Conference brings partners together to share evidence, spotlight innovation, and build practical routes to collaboration and scale.”
Dr Andrea Taylor, Chief Executive Officer of Edinburgh Innovations, said: “This is an opportunity to align research, practice and policy and focus collective effort on innovations that can make a measurable difference for people as they age.”
Register interest
This event is by invitation only. Register your interest on the Finance and Health Lab National Conference page to receive further details.
In conversation with Financial Services: Why innovation really matters
The term ‘innovation’ might bring to mind a race for better technology, systems and smarter data, but beneath it all lies a fundamental question: how do we create a fairer financial future for all?
For most people, financial advice isn’t about products, platforms, or policy. It’s about life: buying a first home, protecting a family, surviving a setback, or planning for a future that feels uncertain.
Yet for millions, financial advice remains out of reach.
As one of the most significant regulatory shifts in recent years begins to reshape how people access financial support, the financial services sector is radically reshaping how advice and guidance is delivered.
This is just the kind of challenge that our pioneering Innovation Calls take on, led by our team in the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL). Our latest call focused on the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Advice Guidance Boundary Review, a technical name for a very human issue: how to make financial help clearer, fairer and available to far more people.
Bringing together fintech founders, academics, financial services leaders, and regulators, FRIL’s Innovation Call creates a space where policy, practice, and possibility meet.
Here, we speak with two financial services leaders involved in the call to find out more about why innovation is so important to their firms, as well as the future of the sector:
- Maria Herrero Bullich – Chief Customer and Digital Officer, Insurance, Pensions & Investments at Lloyds Banking Group.
- Kate Murray – Strategic Projects Lead, Scottish Widows & Lloyds Banking Group.
Addressing the Big Picture
“For me, the utopia is that everyone who wants to do the right thing for their future has real choice. Whether they’re looking for simple guidance, clearer recommendations, or full financial advice. What matters is that people have different options, depending on their needs, and the freedom to decide which path is right for them,” explains Maria.
“It’s important to us to close the advice gap by building tools that help people think about their futures, especially those who can’t afford traditional advice, so they still have access to clear, targeted support when making important financial decisions.”
And this work matters, because the numbers are concerning. Millions of people across the UK still receive no financial advice at all, and while support exists, it is often out of reach for those who need it most.
The Advice Guidance Boundary Review represents a critical moment for the sector, an opportunity to ensure that more people can finally access support when making some of the most important decisions about their money.
Kate explains: “Our purpose is to help more people secure their financial futures, in a way that aligns with our wider goal of helping Britain prosper. There’s a real advice gap in the industry, and whether someone is our customer or not, we want to help fill that void so more people can move towards a more prosperous financial future.“
“At one end of the spectrum, people can’t afford advice –so they self-serve through available guidance, but don’t know what to do with it. At the other end, people can access full, holistic advice. In the middle, many don’t know how to save, invest or prepare for retirement. That’s where we see innovation and new solutions helping people understand their next step, whether that’s saving and investing more, planning for retirement, or putting more into their pension.”
Meeting Consumer Needs
And when we look more closely at this issue, it becomes clear that a one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t meet the diverse needs of consumers. Across the industry, firms are increasingly focused on developing more tailored ways to support those who are currently slipping through the advice and guidance net.
Maria explains: “There are parts of society that face very different challenges, from the gender gap in pensions to younger generations trying to save for the future. We’re focused on how to bring people who often have less financial confidence into the conversation and help them think about their futures.“
“Different groups need to be engaged in different ways. Younger people can be hard to reach, so we use techniques like gamification to encourage them to start those conversations. Others, such as people who feel less confident about investing, or women who may have taken career breaks and are worried about having enough for a comfortable retirement, face different barriers.”
These are very real issues, affecting everyday lives. Kate stresses the impact of what happens if the gap isn’t closed:
“Through work like our annual Women in Retirement report, we can see a massive gap in people’s financial futures. Significant proportions of society, who are working today, are on track to reach retirement without enough money, and that means going from work to a retirement in poverty.“
“That’s a serious problem, not just for individuals, but for the UK as a whole. It’s a systemic, government-level issue that needs to be addressed now, to prevent that happening for people as much as possible.”
Future Solutions Now
Finding solutions to these challenges requires a collaborative approach – different perspectives, experience and skillsets. That’s why this FRIL Innovation Call matters so much.
“It’s been so interesting to meet the fintechs and to connect with strategic partners, to better understand what they can bring to help us move at pace and innovate – so we can, at scale, support more customers to secure their financial futures,” says Kate.
“It’s been so interesting to meet the fintechs and to connect with strategic partners, to better understand what they can bring to help us move at pace and innovate – so we can, at scale, support more customers to secure their financial futures,” says Kate
“This is a huge opportunity for us. Scottish Widows has been involved in earlier calls, and this feels like a real chance to do things differently. At Lloyds Banking Group, we’re constantly trying to change how we innovate and move faster. Bringing in outside thinking, new technology, and completely different perspectives helps us bridge that and go quicker.”
And that’s why innovation in financial services is about far more than technology, systems, and data. As Maria puts it:
“We focus on creating experiences that aren’t built around products, but around people. It’s about understanding what they need, where the gaps are, and how to help them close them.”
The Advice Guidance Boundary Review. Just what does it all mean?
Advice: A regulated service where a financial adviser looks at your full financial situation and gives you a personalised recommendation.
Guidance: Support that points you in the right direction based on limited information you share, without telling you exactly what to do.
Boundary: The line that separates advice from guidance, defining how much information is needed and what a firm can or can’t recommend.
Review: The regulator’s process of consulting industry and consumers, and government to create clear new rules that will shape how these services work in future.
What next?
Enjoyed this piece? Hear from the perspective of the fintechs involved in the call. If you’re interested in the work of FRIL more generally and would like to contact a member of the team email: FRIL@fintechscotland.com.
About FRIL
Multimodal AI for Scaling Targeted Support: Navigating the FCA Advice–Guidance Boundary
Summary
The Financial Conduct Authority’s Advice Guidance Boundary Review (AGBR) seeks to address a persistent advice gap in UK financial services by enabling new forms of scalable, decision-relevant consumer support that sit between generic guidance and personalised financial advice. This challenge is particularly acute in pensions, where consumers face complex, long-term decisions but exhibit low engagement with traditional advice services. This white paper examines the potential of multimodal generative artificial intelligence to deliver targeted support in pensions while remaining within the advice–guidance boundary. Drawing on recent advances in Vision Language Models and multimodal conversational architectures, the paper develops a solution framework for speech-enabled, audio-visual digital advisors that are compliant by design. A Digital Pensions Advisor prototype is presented to demonstrate how such systems can interpret real consumer narratives, recognise and respond appropriately to vulnerability, and maintain boundary discipline when confronted with requests for personalised advice. The paper concludes by outlining a roadmap for strengthening auditability, explainability, and supervisory readiness, and by identifying future research directions, including the role of formal and informal information sources in shaping consumer understanding. Collectively, the findings suggest that multimodal AI can play a meaningful role in scaling targeted support in pensions while preserving regulatory safeguards and consumer trust.
Hao Zhang Digital Avatar demo
About FRIL
Finance and Health Lab launches Innovation Open Call for later life financial wellbeing solutions
FinTech Scotland today announced the launch of the Finance and Health Lab Innovation Open Call, inviting fintechs, startups, and innovators to develop and test ideas that address defined challenges affecting financial resilience, financial confidence, and quality of life as people age.
The Finance and Health Lab is a national programme led by FinTech Scotland, bringing together financial services organisations, fintech innovators, academics and public sector partners to explore how financial wellbeing and health interact and intersect in later life. The open call is designed to move beyond general discussion, creating space for evidence-led innovation, collaboration and practical experimentation that can inform future services, models and policy.
As the population grows older, changes in health, income, care needs and financial complexity increasingly shape people’s wellbeing. Through this open call, applicants are invited to propose solutions aligned to priority challenge areas focused on improving outcomes in later life.
Industry partners
Innovators selected through the open call will have the opportunity to engage with participating industry partners:
Priority challenge areas
The Innovation Stimulation programme is structured around a set of priority use cases reflecting pressing later life financial health challenges. Applicants should align their ideas to one or more of the following:
1. Predictive Financial Vulnerability Insights for Later Life
Using health, behavioural and financial data to generate early warning insights that help identify when individuals may be entering periods of financial vulnerability due to health changes.
2. Healthy Ageing Scenario Simulation for Financial Planning
Creating dynamic, personalised scenario planning tools that model the financial impact of later life health events — including longevity, income change and care transitions.
3. Data Quality and Ethical Data Sharing for Health and Wealth Insights
Strengthening permissioned, ethically governed data flows between health, financial and public sector systems to support better later life services — improving trust, transparency and data quality.
4. Cross-System Care and Financial Navigation for Ageing Populations
Helping people navigate fragmented ecosystems spanning health services, social care, pensions, insurance and benefits as needs evolve — reducing complexity and stress.
5. Empowering Later Life Financial Decision Confidence
Strengthening confidence and decision-making, reducing anxiety and supporting long-term wellbeing through complex or high-stakes decisions.
6. Age-Friendly FinTech and Inclusive Digital Service Design
Making digital financial services more accessible, trustworthy and supportive for older adults and those with health-related barriers.
Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive, FinTech Scotland, said:
“The Finance and Health Lab open call is about practical progress — bringing innovators and partners together to explore solutions that can strengthen financial resilience and support better outcomes as people age. We’re looking for bold ideas grounded in real needs, with the potential to be tested and learned from quickly.”
How to Apply
Applications open 4 February and close 12 February.
Learn more and apply on the Finance & Health Lab Open Call page.
2026 and Beyond: FinTech Scotland’s Next Chapter
A Message from Aleks Tomczyk
In 2025, global fintech investment rose by 21% to $53bn, signalling a welcome return to growth across most markets. The US remained the global leader at $25.1bn, while the UK reclaimed second place with $3.6bn. These figures are more than just encouraging – they point to renewed confidence across the fintech ecosystem and set a strong foundation for 2026.
Against this backdrop, I feel a genuine sense excitement and responsibility as Chief Executive of FinTech Scotland. We’re at a pivotal moment for the cluster: it’s vibrant, the ambition is real, and the opportunities ahead of us are immense.
My immediate focus is clear, centred on three priorities.
Firstly, we will strengthen and scale our innovation programmes to deliver real value across the ecosystem including measurable social impact.
That means deepening the work already underway and improving on it:
- Through our award-winning Financial Regulation Innovation Lab, we will continue to strengthen the collaboration between innovators and regulators, ensuring Scotland remains at the forefront of fintech that supports regulation and reducing operating costs whilst improving consumer outcomes.
- With the Centre of Excellence in Digital Trust, led by Edinburgh Napier University, delivered in partnership with Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities, we will position Scotland as a global innovator at the intersection of digital trust, identity, crypto and data in financial services.
- We will scale the Finance and Health Lab, driving better financial wellbeing, resilience and long-term financial health for people across Scotland.
Secondly, we will build sharper, more targeted support for fintech entrepreneurs – from idea through to international scale-up.
This means clearer enabling pathways, stronger networks, better access to funding, and programmes (including our Innovation Labs) grounded in real company needs. Alongside this, we will amplify Scotland’s presence in priority global markets, making our firms more visible, better connected, and bringing more of Scotland’s fintech innovation onto the world stage.
Thirdly, we will drive greater collaboration across the ecosystem.
By enabling connections inside and outside Scotland amongst our strategic partners, fintechs, academic institutions and in related professional services we will help financial services and fintech companies large and small to prosper. This will be made possible by strong foundations – an excellent talent pool, world class research base and great, forward thinking, existing financial services companies – we will help to strengthen them, further.
These three things will result in growth, create high-value jobs, attract inward investment, encourage new startups and strengthen resilience in the cluster. Fintech will play an enhanced critical role in Scotland’s economic future.
I have a background in technology innovation and business building. I have run major change projects in financial services. I have built two fintechs from the ground up.
One of the things that has always excited me most is the role of people, networks and ecosystems in innovation. Technology doesn’t create change – people do. Innovation succeeds best when stakeholders collaborate to solve real problems, when trust is built, and when ambition and success are shared.
I am confident that by building further on our fintech community, and by staying focused, collaborative and ambitious, we can deliver tangible impact for our companies large and small, our people, and our country – plus companies and people elsewhere.
In the years ahead, I look forward to meeting many of you – employees, founders, investors, academics, regulators and partners – because relationships are the bedrock of success. I welcome your ideas, your energy and your feedback, and I encourage you to reach out to us here any time.
Here’s to the journey ahead.
Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) launches Skills Academy to Develop Future FinTech and Financial Regulation Talent
Financial services is undergoing one of the most significant periods of change in decades. Technology is advancing at pace, new regulations are emerging, and organisations of every size are wrestling with how to build the skills needed to keep up.
In response to this, the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) – created as a catalyst to help the sector respond to these challenges – has launched the FRIL Skills Academy, a pioneering skills and education platform designed to address skills gaps and support career development across the financial and professional services sector and fintech ecosystem.
Supported and delivered by FRIL’s academic partners, the University of Strathclyde and University of Glasgow, the Skills Academy will go live on 30 January 2026, offering a transformative learning environment for professionals and industry partners.
The FRIL Skills Academy responds directly to the rapidly accelerating pace of technological change, especially in areas such as AI, data quality, and regulatory compliance, where talent shortages continue to hinder innovation and increase recruitment costs. Research conducted by FRIL identified skills gaps across the sector which supports the need for strategic investment in workforce development to maintain the UK’s global competitiveness.
Professor Stephen McArthur, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde, said:
“The FRIL Skills Academy strengthens Strathclyde’s role in delivering executive education and its launch is extremely encouraging and a significant step forward.
“Informed by Scotland’s expertise in financial services and shaped by industry demands, the Academy will provide challenge-led skills and leadership development aligned to productivity, innovation and growth. This is an ambitious project that is unique in the higher education sector in the UK, and I have no doubt that it will support the wider economic ambitions of the city, Scotland and beyond.”
Professor Graeme Roy, Head of University of Glasgow Adam Smith Business School said:
“The FRIL Skills Academy demonstrates our commitment to working closely with industry, co-creating engaging and practical learning, and fulfilling our ambition as a civic institution to contribute positively to economic resilience, innovation and societal good.
“Universities have a vital role to play in supporting lifelong learning – providing opportunities for upskilling and reskilling that enable people and organisations to thrive in a rapidly changing world. I would like to thank colleagues at our University and our partner institutions, as well as our industry collaborators, whose commitment, expertise and shared vision have made this possible.
“It is enormously gratifying to see this initiative evolve from an ambitious idea into a fully realised Skills Academy with the potential to make a lasting impact across the financial and professional services sector.”
Professor Eleanor Shaw, Associate Principal (External Engagement & Partnerships) of the University of Strathclyde, said:
“I am delighted that the FRIL Academy is now launching. This is an important milestone for FRIL, marking one important outcome of the project which is to launch a Skills Academy informed by the needs of Scotland’s vibrant FinTech community and Glasgow’s internationally recognised financial services district. Strathclyde is committed to providing useful learning and the Skills Academy promises to deliver just that. This is an important development in our commitment to executive education focused on what matters to our entrepreneurial and industrial partners: fresh skills, leadership development, and a commitment to making Scotland and the UK a more productive, innovative and flourishing environment in which founders want to start, grow and scale their businesses and towards which talent is attracted. This is an exciting development, and the Skills Academy is likely to grow to become an important learning asset for not only Glasgow but across Scotland.”
Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive of FinTech Scotland, said:
“As Scotland continues to lead in fintech and digital innovation, the FRIL Skills Academy sets a new benchmark for how academia and industry partner at pace. As the first initiative of its kind in UK higher education, it will provide professionals with practical, employer driven skills across AI, data and regulation, strengthening our talent pipeline and competitiveness.”
A Demand‑Led Approach
The FRIL Skills Academy is the first of its kind in UK Higher Education, will be delivered through a virtual platform that provides 24/7 global access and supports both blended and traditional learning formats.
The FRIL Skills Academy offers an extensive portfolio of microcredentials, short courses, and executive education opportunities, tailored to different stages of a learner’s career journey.
Industry partners will gain access to courses which develop a pipeline of skilled professionals trained on real regulatory and technological challenges as well as opportunities to co‑create content, deliver guest lectures, and engage in knowledge‑exchange events.
Learners will benefit from employer‑driven microcredentials and practical learning experiences; career pathways spanning early career to senior executive; and a supportive environment that fosters lifelong learning and professional advancement.
Click the following link to access the FRIL Skills Academy: FRIL Skills Academy
Contact
Christine Sinclair
Programme Director
christine.sinclair@strath.ac.uk
Xiang Li
FRIL Skills Development Lead, Senior Lecturer in Management and Professional Development