Plan for a new Financial Services Skills and Inclusion Hub unveiled
SFE led the production of an industry-led Financial Services Skills Action Plan, alongside Skills Development Scotland, educators, third sector organisations, and the Scottish Government.
The plan was presented to Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, Kate Forbes MSP, and endorsed by the First Minister. It includes proposals to create Scotland’s first Financial Services Skills and Inclusion Hub, a virtual environment created, developed, and delivered by the industry through key partnerships, supporting the aim of filling 50,000 roles in the next three years.
The hub aligns with the Scottish Government’s recently launched National Strategy for Economic Transformation and will contribute significantly to accelerated economic recovery, the development of Scotland’s skilled workforce and promoting inclusive growth.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said:
“This is an important step forward in building Scotland’s status as a leading global financial centre in which people from all backgrounds want to work. We want to attract skilled people to come and work within our financial services industry as well as create a sustainable and accessible platform for them.
“We want people – whatever their age or circumstances – to see finance as an achievable industry to break into and not one that is only for a select few. That is why it is important we collaborate to ensure we’re doing everything we can to promote financial services across Scotland’s schools. By bringing together employers with educators we can identify talent as early as possible and open pathways which will benefit the sector and help us build a more inclusive labour market.
“This industry-led Skills Action Plan will support the development of Scotland’s skilled workforce, with the aim of filling 50,000 new roles in the next three years, and I welcome this alignment with the ambition we set out in our new National Strategy for Economic Transformation.”
SFE Chief Executive, Sandy Begbie CBE, said:
“We were delighted that the First Minister welcomed our Skills Action Plan as we launch our new visual identity and website. Our message this week is that finance is one of Scotland’s biggest assets. We have a truly unique, globally recognised financial services ecosystem here that is at the cutting-edge in terms of technology and innovation and offers real value and expertise to international investors. Supporting and enabling new pipelines of diverse talent is essential as we seek to build on these strong foundations and create more well paid, highly productive jobs and investment to benefit the whole of Scotland.”
Caitlin Cooke, Seconded Head of Skills and Talent, SFE, and Senior Manager, EY, said:
“This time last year we launched Scotland’s Financial Services Strategy which underlined our commitment to having a positive impact on society through leading the journey to net zero, supporting the economic recovery, responding to changing customer needs, and developing skills and inclusion. We are now putting concrete plans into place to make sure the aims of the strategy are delivered, working collaboratively with government, industry, educators and the third-sector to ensure the best possible outcomes for the sector while creating inclusive growth and fair, long-term prosperity for all.”
Encompass appoints Steve Hadaway as Chief Revenue Officer
Encompass, the leading KYC automation platform, just announced it had appointed Steve Hadaway as its Chief Revenue Officer.
Hadaway joins Encompass after over 15 years in senior management positions at FICO. More recently, he was Vice President & Managing Director, EMEA, and drove the regional strategy, leading a team of 200 employees and serving more than 50 markets worldwide.
Steve Hadaway is taking on a very important role for the firm as he will head up its revenue-focused functions, including Direct Sales, Strategic Alliances and Marketing.
The news follows twelve months of significant growth in revenue and new accounts, including global banks, as well as the addition of specialist industry experts to the business across the UK, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the US.
Encompass also recently announced a capital raise of £25m. This will be used to accelerate its international expansion plans, which have included office openings in New York and Amsterdam.
Wayne Johnson, CEO and co-founder, Encompass, said:
“We are delighted to welcome Steve to Encompass. His vast experience of working with major financial institutions and steering impressive business growth will be invaluable as we continue to expand at a rapid rate.
“This will be a crucial year for us as we work to enhance our impact across all regions, developing our product and business to bring on new customers and better meet the needs of those existing to us, and we are pleased to have someone of Steve’s calibre join in this capacity at what is an incredibly exciting stage.”
Steve Hadaway added:
“It is such a thrill to be joining Encompass at this exciting stage of their evolution. They have built an extraordinary platform to help banks fight financial crime, ensure compliance and deliver enhanced customer experience through automated and digitised customer journeys.
“The numerous client successes to date have been impressive and I see a great deal of potential still for the business, and for our clients. It is also rewarding to be joining a company where growth is built on a positive culture of customer-led innovation, employee collaboration and empowerment. I am so excited to get started.”
Sainsbury’s Bank partners with FinTech Scotland to deliver better customer outcomes through collaboration
Today, FinTech Scotland announced Sainsbury’’s Bank is joining its group of strategic partners.
The strategic collaboration with Fintech Scotland will enable the supermarket bank to collaborate with innovative leaders in technology, helping to shape future customer propositions. This builds on the strategic digital emphasis of Sainbury’s Bank in recent years, including the transformation of operational systems and platform to best serve its customers.
The new Sainsbury’s Bank operating model has been developed to advance nimble and agile ways of working, creating the right environment for its technology team to innovate and integrate new fintech solutions.
The strategic partnership with FinTech Scotland will serve as a catalyst to accelerate change, deliver better outcomes for customers, and learn from the thriving Scottish fintech cluster.
Sainsbury’s Bank will also get involved in the work to progress the actions from the FinTech Research & Innovation Roadmap published by FinTech Scotland in March 2022. More specifically they will participate in projects around the theme of Everyday Personal Banking and SME Banking.
Commenting on this partnership, Nicola Anderson, CEO at FinTech Scotland said:
“Sainsbury’s Bank is an important and valuable contributor for the Scottish FinTech Cluster, and I am delighted it has joined the Fintech Scotland strategic partners. We’re looking forward to working with the team, learning from their experiences in building a digital bank and innovative mindsets, while supporting their future banking ambitions through fintech partnerships and actionable research.”
Simon Jacobs, Chief Operating Officer, Sainsbury’s Bank said:
“As we continue to look at how technology helps to take our business forward, and to deliver great propositions and products, for loyal Sainsbury’s and Argos customers, we’re delighted to be joining the FinTech Scotland cluster to play our part in ensuring Scotland seizes the fintech opportunity in terms of economic growth and job creation.”
Call out for FinTech companies to host four week summer internship
Does your company believe in supporting young people into FinTech? Are you looking to grow your future talent pipeline? Could you do with an extra pair of hands to support a project?
This summer CodeClan is launching the CodeClan Youth Academy (CCYA), a four week coding bootcamp followed by a four week internship in industry.
Sponsored by Baillie Gifford, this eight week programme takes place across July and August and aims to provide 10 young people aged 16 – 24 with programming skills used in industry.
During the bootcamp students will learn Front End Development skills and by the end will be able to make improvements and updates to websites and perform initial troubleshooting of front end bugs and issues.
Curriculum
CodeClan is looking for companies who are passionate about supporting the next generation of coders by hosting a paid internship in August, where students can use the skills they have learned in a real workplace setting.
The benefits of hosting an internship include:
- Introducing young people to the world of technology.
- Diversify your existing talent pool.
- Develop your future talent pipeline.
- Development opportunity for current staff.
We are flexible on how the internship is delivered, all we ask is:
- The internship starts on 1st August for a minimum of 100 hours (or 25 hours a week for four weeks).
- The intern is paid the living wage.
- The employer keeps in touch with CodeClan during the internship.
If you are a technology company who is passionate about supporting more young people into the sector and want to host a CCYA intern this August. Please get in touch with Aileen O’Hagan on aileen.ohagan@codeclan.com.
New business models in open finance to be analysed and judged.
Open Future World has launched a prestigious startup pitch competition to reveal some of the most interesting emerging business models in open banking and finance.
Six finalists will receive a complimentary ticket to the Open Banking World Congress in Marbella, Spain, on 24-25 May, where they will present their proposition to an all-star judging panel of industry experts, VCs and investors.
In addition, they will be interviewed on a live-streamed chat show to over 3000 viewers delegates from around the world attended. The winner will be announced at the evening party on the convention’s first day and will get to pitch on the keynote stage on day two of the conference.
“The last two years have been a hotbed for innovation in open finance. I come across so many impressive startups every week. Every one of them is harnessing open finance to transform the customer experience and make real improvements to our everyday lives.
The Open Banking World Congress will assemble leaders at the forefront of open finance from around the world into a dedicated setting over two days of keynotes, networking, discussions and collaborations. By bringing together new startups and seasoned open banking professionals, we hope to help enhance the potential of open finance and give promising startups the best chance of success.” says Marie Walker, Co-Founder of Open Future World.
To qualify for entry, startups must be in the open finance domain, be less than 3 years old and have received less than 3 million in investment.
Entries are open until 15th April with the 6 finalists to be announced on 22nd April.
To enter the free competition:
https://www.openbankingworldcongress.com/pages/startup-pitch-competition For all enquiries, please contact: georgina@openfuture.world
Open Future World
The leading source of information on progress in open banking and beyond. The Open Banking World Congress takes place in Marbella, Spain between 24-25 May.
https://www.openbankingworldcongress.com/
Quotezone FinTech Scholars Crowned
Financial comparison platform Quotezone.co.uk has announced the winners of this year’s Fintech Scholarship, an initiative designed to cultivate more diversity in the sector by encouraging students from outside the world of fintech to explore what it might offer.
Only one winner was chosen from Scotland – Kelsey Hunt, a second-year student at St Andrews University, who wrote Fintech and Small Business: a Dynamic Duo – explaining how fintech plays a vital role in small businesses. In addition, one winner was chosen from England – Ella Henry, a MPhil student at the University of Cambridge studying Biological Sciences, who wrote a piece entitled – Fintech in a finite world: The price of protecting our planet focusing on climate change and the role fintech can play in creating a sustainable future. Ella and Kelsey have both won a bursary of £1,000 to help with educational fees, such as textbooks and course materials.
With 15 universities teaching bespoke fintech courses, over 175 fintech startup success stories, and a wealth of investment opportunities from public, private, and academic investors, Scotland has been hailed as a global leading fintech hub. Stephen Ingledew from FinTech Scotland comments: “Encouraging participation from the diversity of young people across our communities will further spur fintech innovation in all aspects of our personal and business lives, thereby ensuring an inclusive approach to the economic opportunities ahead.”
British fintech firms continue to attract lucrative international investment, having just hit the multibillion-pound peak of investor interest in July 2021. In 13 UK cities, there are now at least ten fintech companies, estimated to employ nearly 53,000 people.
Marja Lahelma-Barnsley, Programme Leader for MSc Financial Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University, comments: “FinTech is reshaping the ways that financial needs are met. Man Met’s FinTech qualifications are built with a recognition that innovation needs new ideas even more than it needs new tech.
Greg Wilson, the fintech entrepreneur behind Quotezone.co.uk, comments: “Congratulations to our Fintech Scholarship winners, Kelsey Hunt and Ella Henry ”“ these insightful blogs were just two of many interesting entries in their year’s scholarship.
“It’s encouraging to see so many students proactively researching and discovering fintech ”“ from all educational backgrounds. Diversity is key to building an innovative team for the future. I studied Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering and started my career as a Stress Engineer at Bombardier Aerospace before I created Seopa, now our brands CompareNI.com and Quotezone.co.uk are household names in financial comparison technology.”
Seopa has been recognised with six Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards, and has been awarded a Deloitte Best Managed Company Award each year for the past five years ”“ now a Gold Standard Best Managed Company since 2020. As a leading fintech employer, Seopa has been investing in recruitment throughout lockdown, with new fintech roles currently available.
Fintech Encompass Corporation raises £25m
Scotland-based Encompass Corporation, the provider of intelligently automated KYC solutions, just announced a capital raise of £25M.
The investment comes from a group of investors led by Perennial Partners who were joined by Serendipity Capital, Seven Seat Capital, and Microequities Asset Management as well as existing shareholders including Alan McIntyre, former Global Head of Banking Services at Accenture, and Tim Frost, ex-Chairman of IHS Markit, as well as experienced technology investor Ray Scott.
This new funding round will help accelerate Encompass’ global growth as well as facilitating ongoing product innovation and development in at their Glasgow office as well as other locations. Glasgow. This follows a significant growth in revenue recorded in the last year.
Roger Carson, co-founder at Encompass commented:
“Today’s funding will help fuel Encompass’ rapid global expansion, especially as we make inroads in North America, with operations driven from New York, and continue to expand our presence in Europe.
“Expanding to new markets will add greater value to our business in a way that better serves existing customers and attracts additional global banks as new customers. We are excited to have new and existing investors support Encompass’ acceleration, expansion and vision to continue to be recognised globally as the leading provider of automation to the corporate KYC due diligence market.”
Sean Harpur, co-founder at Serendipity Capital
“Encompass’ successful funding represents the increasing value of solutions that digitise and automate regulatory screening and due diligence for the corporate KYC market.”
“Designed to help banks simultaneously create a better customer experience and mitigate compliance risk at scale, we believe Encompass is exceptionally well-positioned to deliver in these areas for global banks, becoming the recognised global standard across RegTech, AML and KYC.”
Today’s news follows a round of funding in 2020, as well as Encompass’ expansion into North America in late 2021.
Forex Expo 2022
The flagship event of this spring Forex Expo 2022 is supported by the best companies of the industry. MetaQuotes, the leading developer of trading platforms for brokerages, banks and exchanges has become a Grand Sponsor whilst NAGA, a social investment platform with over 950 tradable assets booked a Gold Sponsor spot. Interestingly, Forex Expo draws the leading forces to meet under one roof on March 31, 2022 in Limassol’s Parklane Hotel. Here, the larger part of the European B2B community of the FX industry will be joined by companies from other parts of the world to meet top experts, network, learn and grow.
Forex Expo is a true hub for a purposeful matter – industry network and development where every member can both uplevel his own skills, improve his business flow and help the industry to make a new step towards the future. Networking spaces, expo zone, conference hall and workshop rooms create an opportunity for visitors to both learn and connect.
Traditionally topics for keynote speeches and workshop presentations include regulatory details, new trends and developments, law, regulations and licensing, new trends in IT and software for brokers whilst the panel discussions will cover topic of Cyprus as a friendly environment for financial markets, question of the future of payments ecosystem, matter of crypto integration in the Forex and financial markets and even affiliates, IBs, HR and marketing in the FX industry.
The conference part will include speeches from two leading experts of MetaQuotes: Head of Global Business, Christoforos Theodoulou and Head of Operations, Tony Spyrou. They will discuss regulatory issues, new trends and developments, legislation and licensing, customer profit preservation, as well as promising areas in IT and broker software. Furthermore, Christoforos and Tony will talk about other developments, including the upcoming integration with Payment Service Providers and web services and a lot more.
Gold Sponsor NAGA has also prepared some exciting content as its Founder and CEO Benjamin Bilski has prepared a workshop presentation to share how NAGA has raised more than $100M in funding from star investors, transacted more than $250 billion in volume and saw a successful launch of its mobile payments and investing app and is also ready to join the conference chat about social media influence and how to finally take it over.
Seamless networking environment formed by the exhibition floor filled with booths from leading companies and dedicated networking spaces for meetings accessible by Business and VIP ticket holders is complemented by an infamous night party with unforgettable shows and an informal atmosphere of fun and success.
Not to mention that the Forex Expo organizing committee follows all the necessary preventive COVID measures to make the experience for attendees as safe as possible. Visitors are invited to safely attend the best workshops and panel discussions, network and discover the industry from a different perspective.
You can explore the opportunities to participate in this amazing upcoming event at https://forexexpo.com/ Tickets are already available on the website with an early bird discount until the end of February and include standard, business and VIP packages.
Clearwater to Drive Growth for Athora Holding Ltd.
Scottish fintech Clearwater Analytics just announced that Athora Holding Ltd., a leading insurance and reinsurance group, had selected them to support their growth strategy, streamline the operating model and provide a consolidated view of accounting, regulatory, and operational reporting across all entities.
Shamira Mohammed, Group Chief Accounting Officer, Athora said:
“Athora is a fast growing, acquisitive insurer and reinsurer. We wanted a solution that could help us on-board acquisitions and portfolios quickly, manage increasing regulatory requirements, and enable a quick view of our investment portfolio across multiple markets. Clearwater’s SaaS solution met our needs perfectly. Clearwater brings industry best practices through their single instance platform and an impressive operations team that understand the needs of the insurance market. Clearwater has the technology, processes, and innovative thinking to support our vision for the future.”
Gayatri Raman, President, Europe and Asia, Clearwater Analytics said:
“We are seeing significant consolidation across the insurance and investment management industries. With that comes the need to be able to quickly aggregate data from multiple sources and then turn that data into information that can be used to drive decision making. Clearwater brings best-in-class technology and managed services to Athora so they can fully focus their efforts on growth. We are delighted to partner with Athora.”
Lloyds Banking Group and FinTech Scotland Announce New Innovation Programme
Lloyds Banking Group has announced 3 new strategic innovation challenges as it opens its cohort 2 of its Launch Innovation Programme. Working in collaboration with FinTech Scotland the group is inviting fintech’s from all around the world to take part.
This follows the success of the first Programme that saw 12 fintech firms selected, from Scotland and Europe. This year the group is hoping for many more continuing to show the continued commitment of Lloyds Banking Group to partner with fintech businesses.
The bank is seeking fintech partners to help them achieve their sustainability goals, improve customers’ financial lives and support their colleagues in a post-Covid pandemic world.
Successful fintech applicants will have 10 weeks to refine and test their innovative solutions, working in collaboration with colleagues across the bank. This will include direct access to challenge sponsors and mentors in the bank, as well as business development support, clinics and external business masterclasses.
The Launch Innovation Programme is an initiative that aims to create collaboration opportunities between the banking group and fintech SMEs to enable faster innovation and deliver for customers.
Interested firms can learn more and apply by visiting fintech.union-dev2.net/launch before the 1st of April. Lloyds Banking Group are committed to enabling greater diversity and will actively target, welcome and support applications from women and businesses founded by people of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic heritage
Commenting on the launch, Nicola Anderson, CEO at FinTech Scotland said:
“Lloyds Banking Group Launch Innovation Programme is a perfect example of how collaboration can deliver innovation and better outcomes for all. Amongst other things I was delighted to see three innovation themes this year which demonstrate how fintech can help with financial matters, well-being and sustainability. I’m looking forward to reading the applications.”
David McLeay, Innovation Product Owner for Insurance & Wealth Transformation at Lloyds Banking Group added:
“We are super excited to open our Launch 2022 programme as it’s a key part of our strategy to improve collaboration with fintechs and harness the power of Innovation. The 12 companies from the initial 2021 cohort delivered amazing ideas and experiments for our colleagues and customers. This year we are looking to build on that with additional investment and scale to identify up to 24 partner companies across a broader range of business challenges.”