Scotland invests £3.18m to fast‑track fintech growth, jobs and collaborative innovation

Funding backs a Scottish programme turning strengths into real‑world impact

The Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), the UK’s centre of excellence for innovation in technology to efficiently meet financial regulation requirements, has secured £3.18 million from Scottish Enterprise to deliver three years of the award-winning programme. The funding will deepen collaboration amongst academia, industry and regulators, and further accelerate the adoption of responsible technology-driven innovation in financial services, supporting the sector’s competitiveness and that of the economy.

Led by FinTech Scotland in partnership with the University of Strathclyde, FRIL will accelerate the adoption of new solutions enabling fairer financial futures and supporting technology innovators to scale their businesses.

The types of industry regulatory challenges that FRIL will address include:

• ensuring AI is adopted by providers in a way that is responsible and explainable to ensure fair financial outcomes for businesses and consumers;
• finding solutions that strengthen the effectiveness, integrity and efficiency of financial crime controls.

Agile prioritisation during the programme will address industry needs and emerging regulations around the use of AI, open data and digital assets. By uniting industry, academia, technology innovators, government and regulators, FRIL will turn shared insight into products, partnerships, investment and real‑world adoption.

To date, FRIL has successfully supported 120 fintech SMEs to accelerate solutions, enabled £28 million in committed private investment and delivered a projected 6:1 economic return on investment for every £1 of public funding.

Jane Martin, Managing Director Innovation and Investment, Scottish Enterprise, said: “FRIL is a shining example of how collaboration between industry, academia and regulators can make a real impact, utilising the development of advanced technologies to create high‑value jobs and attract private investment.

This funding underscores our commitment to fintech innovation and our support for innovative businesses, helping them to scale with confidence and build the global competitiveness of Scotland’s financial services sector.”

Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive, FinTech Scotland, added: “The opportunity from the current and forecast future growth of fintech is huge. We are proud of FRIL’s impact to date. FRIL’s success evidences the strategic value of innovation to the economy and the strength of our fintech cluster in simultaneously delivering growth and better outcomes for consumers. Scottish Enterprise’s investment will use FinTech Scotland’s proven Innovation Labs model to accelerate innovation in large companies and speed growth in fintechs.”

Professor Eleanor Shaw, University of Strathclyde, stated:“We are delighted to be a partner again in delivery of FRIL phase 3. Continuing our triple helix partnership approach ensures we can deliver on our mission to drive positive impact through useful research, learning, and innovation. This approach has so far demonstrated its success in delivering for Glasgow City Region, and we are excited about supporting this to become a national programme.”

Derek Shanks, Technology Platform Lead, Lloyds Banking Group, commented: “We’ve supported three FRIL innovation calls as a challenge partner and have seen first-hand the value of this model. It brings together the right mix of expertise, technology and challenge to turn ideas into real solutions. We welcome Scottish Enterprise’s investment and look forward to building on this partnership over the next three years.”

Calum Murray, CEO and Founder, Amiqus, noted:“The potential impact delivered by FRIL over the next three years to the broader Ecosystem is enormous. Thanks to a previous FRIL financial crime innovation call, we were able to build, pilot and take to production new capability to directly support Virgin Money with their new business onboarding journeys.

This three-year commitment effectively sets the stage for collaborative and rapid progress across both financial services developing new capabilities with the support of a wide range of fintechs going forward. It’s a win win on all accounts.”