Tackling the eSignature challenge in financial services
For established financial firms and fintechs, getting documents signed is a routine part of doing business. However, in regulated sectors, this far from a simple click and can be time demanding. The challenge is ensuring that each signature is genuine, the signer’s identity is verified, and the process stands up to legal and compliance scrutiny.
The problem: when speed meets risk
Digital transformation has made signing a document as easy as pressing a button, but not all eSignatures are created equal.
- Click-to-sign methods offer convenience but can leave gaps in proving who actually signed.
- In high-value transactions such as lending agreements or investment contracts, these gaps create legal and regulatory risk.
- For scaling fintechs, enterprise-grade solutions that meet evidentiary standards can be expensive, with licensing fees adding hidden operational costs.
This leaves many firms in a bind: how to balance speed, client experience, and compliance without breaking the budget.
The solution: a verified approach
Syngrafii emerged from a unique collaboration between CEO Matthew Gibson and Canadian author Margaret Atwood, initially to create remote wet-ink signatures for book signings. That invention evolved into a secure document execution platform designed for high-trust environments.
The system combines:
- Biometric ink signature capture – recording pressure, speed, and stroke data.
- Live video signing sessions – visually confirming the signer’s identity in real time.
- Tamper-proof audit trails – preserving every step of the transaction in a MasterFile™ for evidentiary use.
The result is a signing process that mirrors the assurance of in-person signing, but with the reach and efficiency of digital.
For growing fintechs, Syngrafii’s Pay-As-You-Sign™ model removes the barrier of large annual license fees. Firms pay only for the transactions they complete, making enterprise-grade compliance achievable without committing to long-term, high-cost contracts.
Use cases range from:
- Client onboarding with ID verification.
- Loan and mortgage approvals requiring verified signatures.
- Wealth management agreements where client trust is paramount.
View Syngrafii’s profile on FinTech Scotland’s website.
Bridging the AI Divide, Highlights from BridgeAI’s Second Year
Artificial Intelligence is transforming industries, and the UK is determined to lead from the front. Innovate UK’s BridgeAI programme is a powerful engine bringing AI to sectors traditionally slower to adopt it.
In its second year, BridgeAI put AI into action. Over 3,400 organisations and 9,000 individuals have engaged with the programme, with over 450 projects funded and more than £120 million combined in grant and co-investment capital.
BridgeAI delivered tangible impact:
- Practical AI Support: AI toolkits and strategic frameworks, accelerators, training and innovation vouchers.
- Real-World Results: Case studies showed AI enhancing farming, pipeline inspections, performance tour logistics, and public transport capacity.
- Skills and Standards: Training, new competency frameworks, and access to AI ethics and governance tools.
BridgeAI connects small businesses, researchers, and start-ups with the resources, funding and knowledge they need to innovate responsibly and confidently.
Advancing ESG
Everyone’s talking about ESG, but how do we move from ambition to meaningful impact?
This new report from the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) unpacks that challenge and points to a clear answer: regulatory innovation.
While ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) principles have risen to the top of board agendas, the path to embedding them meaningfully into financial services is still full of complexity with ambiguous frameworks, inconsistent data, and evolving disclosure standards. But amid that complexity lies an opportunity for change.
This paper flips the conversation. Instead of focusing on ESG as a reporting burden, it highlights how purpose-driven innovation, especially from fintechs, can reframe ESG as a strategic advantage.
Highlights include:
- How fintechs are creating tools that democratise ESG insights, enabling smaller firms to lead, not lag.
- The power of transparency tech, enabling consumers and investors to make informed choices in real time.
- Regulatory leadership as a catalyst—not a constraint—for embedding long-term sustainability in financial decision-making.
Through FRIL’s ESG Innovation Call, the report captures the pulse of the ecosystem: entrepreneurs, regulators, academics, and institutions coming together to explore how data, collaboration, and innovation can unlock the next wave of ESG progress.
Addressing Financial Crime
Financial crime is no longer just a back-office issue, it’s a frontline threat to trust, security, and resilience across the financial system. With scams growing more sophisticated and regulation constantly evolving, simply reacting isn’t enough. The sector needs to outthink and outpace criminal innovation.
Produced through the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) led by FinTech Scotland, the University of Strathclyde, and the University of Glasgow, this report looks into how the UK financial services industry is embracing innovation to meet the challenge head-on.
Rather than listing problems, the focus is on real-world progress:
- Fintechs using AI and privacy-first data sharing to spot fraud faster.
- Financial institutions embedding intentional “friction” into digital journeys to protect vulnerable consumers.
- Regulators promoting sandbox collaboration and cross-sector signal sharing to shift from reactive controls to intelligent, joined-up defences.
What makes this report stand out is the ecosystem it brings together:
15 fintech innovators, banks, telcos, regulators, and academic partners all contributing to one goal: disrupt financial crime before it happens.
Shaping better consumer outcomes
This report explores how the financial services sector can harness innovation to deliver better outcomes for consumers in line with the FCA’s Consumer Duty.
Produced through the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), a collaboration between FinTech Scotland, the University of Strathclyde, and the University of Glasgow, the report outlines a practical and forward-looking roadmap for industry-wide transformation.
The introduction of the Consumer Duty marks a shift from traditional compliance to a proactive, outcomes-based regulatory approach. This paper highlights how fintech innovation, data insights, and collaborative ecosystems can help financial institutions meet evolving regulatory expectations and rising consumer demands.
Key themes include:
- A changing regulatory and consumer landscape, with rising expectations for transparent, inclusive, and adaptive financial services.
- Challenges for financial institutions, such as legacy systems, siloed data, and fragmented compliance efforts.
- Opportunities for innovation, where fintechs play a crucial role in driving consumer understanding, supporting vulnerable customers, and automating compliance.
- A call for ecosystem-wide collaboration, moving beyond isolated efforts to create shared standards, interoperable systems, and seamless consumer experiences.
The report features insights from the FRIL Consumer Duty Innovation Call, showcasing fintech partnerships that are already delivering tangible improvements in customer support, communication clarity, and regulatory monitoring. It concludes with a multi-year roadmap outlining the necessary steps for embedding Consumer Duty principles across the financial ecosystem.
Why Scottish fintech GiftRound made UX a priority?
For GiftRound, creating a frictionless, intuitive and customer-centred experience is core to their mission: making it easy for people to contribute to group gifts online.
As the platform gained traction and the customer base grew, founder Craig Forsythe saw the opportunity to strengthen the user journey and make every interaction more seamless.
“User experience isn’t just about how things look,” Craig explains. “It’s about making people feel confident using the platform, whether they’re setting up a collection or chipping in for a friend’s birthday.”
The GiftRound team began looking more closely at how people moved through the product, from the first visit to completing a group contribution. Small moments of friction, unclear messaging, or awkward flows were quietly affecting engagement and satisfaction.
To explore improvements, GiftRound partnered with design studio Interaktiv for a free user experience design workshop.
In just an hour, they had:
- Identified specific ways in which the brand could be elevated to reflect the strength of the product, then set out practical steps for how that could be done.
- Pinpointed parts of the user journey that weren’t working as hard as they could, and made recommendations on how to go about fixing them.
What began as a one-hour design conversation led to a deeper review of the platform, a new brand, thoughtful changes across the customer journey, and a new website.
“The UX changes we made have had a huge impact for our team and for our customers,” Craig says. “It’s made the whole GiftRound experience feel easier, faster, and more enjoyable.”
Turning the Tide: How SensFish Is Powering Better Maritime Investment and ESG Decisions
Financial institutions are sharpening their focus on climate risk, ESG disclosures, and sustainable investment. At the same time supply chains, shipping emissions and biodiversity-linked investment products, are increasingly on the balance sheet but reliable, decision-ready data has been hard to come by.
The Challenge: Ocean Impact, Low Visibility
Financial stakeholders are under pressure to assess the environmental impact and transition readiness of companies operating in ocean-related sectors. Yet data on maritime carbon emissions, biodiversity, and regulatory compliance remains fragmented, inconsistent, or inaccessible, making it difficult to price risk accurately, validate sustainability claims, or identify new opportunities.
The Solution: Ocean Intelligence for Finance
SensFish delivers a scenario-led analytics platform that turns open, maritime-specific data into actionable intelligence. The solution integrates historical, real-time, and predictive datasets such as satellite tracking, vessel surveillance, and ecosystem modelling. By doing so, SensFish enables users to:
- Quantify and forecast carbon impact across maritime supply chains (including sequestration potential and emissions),
- Verify compliance with sustainability standards (e.g. reducing IUU fishing via vessel monitoring),
- Support biodiversity-linked investments through monitoring of wild fish stocks and aquaculture patterns,
- De-risk projects by modelling scenarios for ESG outcomes, operational constraints, and regulatory exposure.
All this is delivered in a user-friendly platform that simplifies complex data and aligns with global Net Zero and ocean disclosure frameworks, turning compliance into strategy and reporting into opportunity.
SensFish’s traction is growing. In the past year, the company has:
- Been selected for the European Space Agency Business Incubation Programme,
- Partnered with UNCTAD and presented at the Monaco Ocean Finance Forum, part of the UN Ocean Conference,
- Joined the Innovate UK InvestAbility programme and Converge Net Zero cohort,
- Secured support from Glasgow City Council and received international investor interest,
- Onboarded a publicly listed UK client with global operations.
These milestones reflect a rising demand for deeper ocean intelligence among forward-looking financial institutions and corporates alike.
Discover more about SensFish
Discover Agentic Workflows, the fintech revolutionising productivity with AI
6 months’ worth of work, completed in under 5 minutes, for less than 1 pence.
It’s a bold claim from Glasgow-based startup Agentic Workflows, and it’s turning heads in the AI space. By taking a highly innovative approach to Generative AI, they’ve built a platform that replaces cumbersome business processes with AI-powered “Agentic Workflows,” dramatically cutting costs, streamlining operations, and enhancing agility.
Rob Spencer, Founder and CTO, has been at the forefront of cutting-edge technology for most of his adult life. He started his career maintaining and calibrating weapon systems on the front line, later moving into IT, initially teaching Computer Science and practical IT at the Royal School of Signals. Following that, he transitioned into Financial Services in the City of London, where he led complex technical rollouts and transformational change initiatives.
It is that transformational change experience which provides the bedrock for Agentic Workflows. Imagine your company completing six months of work in under five minutes, at a fraction of the cost—how would that revolutionise your organisation’s productivity, customer service, and competitive edge?
Now, as a proud new member of the Fintech Scotland community, Agentic Workflows is eager to engage with fellow innovators, scale-ups, and established enterprises alike. Fintech firms often grapple with regulatory compliance, KYC processes, fraud detection, and operational inefficiencies, areas where AI-driven workflows could deliver immense value. By automating repetitive tasks and leveraging advanced data analytics, businesses can enhance their operational resilience, reduce costs, and streamline onboarding or transactional processes.
Moreover, generative AI has the potential to transform how customer interactions are handled, delivering hyper-personalised financial solutions and insights. Agentic Workflows’ platform aims to bridge the gap between technology potential and real-world application, helping firms quickly deploy AI solutions without the typical complexities and overheads of large-scale software projects. As the fintech ecosystem continues to evolve, partnering with an agile AI platform can be a powerful way to stay ahead in a competitive market.
With the technology developed and the platform built, Agentic Workflows is now looking to understand the challenges you face. If you’re exploring ways to harness the transformative power of AI within your organisation, or if you simply want to discover the art of the possible, please get in touch via the Agentic Workflows website. We look forward to collaborating with you and helping shape the future of financial services in Scotland and beyond.
Discover Nethermind as they join the FinTech Scotland Community
Nethermind, a fintech that specialises in blockchain research and engineering company, just joined the FinTech Scotland community.
This contributes to Nethermind’s ongoing expansion and aligns with its strategic efforts to drive innovation within the financial technology landscape of Scotland.
As part of its expansion, Nethermind has established its Hardware Research and Development arm in Edinburgh led by Nathan Jay, Head of Hardware Engineering, leading product development of new technologies applicable to digital identity, blockchain and fintech.
By being part of Fintech Scotland, Nethermind will position itself at the heart of Scotland’s technological development in financial services, leveraging the country’s rich academic resources and its thriving hubs of engineering excellence such as the National Robotarium and The Data Lab.
“Joining FinTech Scotland represents a significant step in our growth strategy,” said Antonio Sabado, Chief Growth Officer, Nethermind. “We are excited to work alongside other industry leaders and contribute to Scotland’s vibrant fintech community. Our expertise in blockchain infrastructure and commitment to innovation perfectly aligns with FinTech Scotland’s vision for the future of financial technology.”
Through this partnership, Nethermind is looking forward to actively participate in FinTech Scotland’s community, with the long-term vision of contributing to Scotland’s innovative fintech sector and advancing financial services innovation.
Scottish fintech GiftRound’s Wins the Great British Entrepreneur Awards
GiftRound was named the Innovation Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2024 Great British Entrepreneur Awards (GBEA) thanks to its remarkable contributions to the group gifting market, making the processes more inclusive and efficient.
A Win for GiftRound and Scottish Entrepreneurship
Held at the Grosvenor House in London, the awards ceremony brought together top innovators and changemakers from across the UK. GiftRound’s recognition was a proud moment for the company but also for Scotland’s vibrant FinTech community.
Founder and CEO Craig Forsythe shared his thoughts:
“It was great to attend the Great British Entrepreneur Awards in London and be in a room full of amazing entrepreneurs representing such a broad spectrum of industries. To have GiftRound recognised as a winner is an amazing achievement and recognition of our journey and the amazing efforts of our dynamic team who are passionate about making group collections easier.”
This prize reflects GiftRound’s innovative approach to solving everyday challenges in group gifting—creating a seamless, secure, and inclusive platform for managing group collections. GiftRound puts customers at the centre of the experience, setting a new benchmark in the sector.
Recognising the Impact of Entrepreneurs
The GBEA, often described as “The Grammys for Entrepreneurship,” is in its 12th year of honouring individuals and businesses that drive innovatio.
Francesca James, founder of the awards, emphasised the significance of this recognition:
“This year’s winners collectively generate over £3 billion in turnover and employ over 20,000 people. These extraordinary individuals are not only transforming industries but also uplifting communities and inspiring the next generation of business leaders.”
What’s Next for GiftRound?
The GiftRound team remains focussed on expanding their impact, enhancing user experiences, and driving innovation in the group gifting space. They’ll continue to empower communities and bring people together through technology.