Scottish fintech Autorek selected by Bank of England for their automated reconciliation and data management solution.
Following a competitive tender the Bank has chosen Scottish fintech AutoRek for the automation of their reconciliation processes. The main objective is to increase efficiencies.
Thanks to Autorek, the Bank of England will have access to a centralised platform for their daily and monthly reconciliation tasks.
The key business benefits of Autorek include:
Ӣ Enhanced control
Ӣ Accurate matching at transaction level mitigating risks Ӣ Better insights into processes
Ӣ Best in class automation tools
Ӣ User configured dashboards
“It is a testament to the whole AutoRek team that we have been able to successfully engage with an institution such as the Bank of England. As we enter our 25th year of operations we have and continue to work with a broad range of leading Insurance, Investment Management and Banking organisations. I look forward to AutoRek delivering value and efficiencies for the Bank as we move into the implementation phase.”
Gordon McHarg, Managing Director
Students from Glasgow University FinTech Society tackle consumer vulnerability through Design Thinking
The economic landscape within which financial services operate is changing at a dramatic pace. The population is getting older, more complex financial products are available, home ownership has decreased, internet is now widespread but still some people never use it.
As a result, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently highlighted how over the next few decades the number of consumers in vulnerable circumstances will rise dramatically. Therefore, the archetype of the typical consumer’ ”“ the one that makes rational decisions on the basis of a comparison between costs and benefits ”“ on which consumer protection policies and financial products are based should be abandoned in favour of a more inclusive and realistic paradigm which takes into account non-standard needs.
This picture of the future prompted a discussion, here at Glasgow University FinTech Society, and we came to realise, thanks to the pivotal contribution and guidance from Nicola Anderson (”‹Strategic Development Director at FinTech Scotland”‹), the need for running an event that made students aware of consumer vulnerabilities and the opportunities that technology offers to design financial services in a more inclusive and accessible manner.
We thought that the most effective way of doing so was to organise a workshop which could allow students to learn by experience what vulnerability is, how it affects consumers and financial services, and what the latter can do to tackle this.
We came up with a two-day-long workshop centred around the use of the Design Thinking method. Various teams of students will have to find a solution for a consumer vulnerability issue with the aim of driving social impact by analysing future vulnerabilities and designing products and services for the future, which will make a difference to real people today. All teams will have to pitch their ideas/solutions in front of a panel of judges at the end of the two-day session.
After hearing our President, Elisabetta Trasatti, and Vice-President, Andreea Musat, present this idea at the December FinTech Consumer Panel (launched by FinTech Scotland in September 2019) some of its members enthusiastically welcomed our endeavour and offered their support. Coming from a vast range of sectors, among which regulatory bodies and charities, they helped shape the challenge during the past few weeks and will be part of the judging panel at the event.
It has also been of great importance the cooperation with Adam Smith Economics Society, one of the oldest student societies at University of Glasgow. Thanks to the collaboration of President Leon Zussner and his team, we have been able to reach a wider audience and we managed to organise such an important event.
Our “Make Financial Services Work” event is scheduled for February 20”‹ and 21”‹ and it will be held at Tontine, the business incubator of Glasgow City Council, located in Glasgow’s Merchant City.
ShareIn on a roll with the announcement of new client win
Edinburgh-based fintech and FinTech Scotland member ShareIn recently announced the win of a major global client, Shojin Property Partners, who have re-launched their property investment website using ShareIn’s modular approach to online investing.
Autumn 2019 saw the launch of ShareIn’s CASS-compliant payment solution, ShareInPay. Combining this with ShareIn’s direct investment technology solution and Innovative Finance (IF) ISA service allowed Shojin to consolidate their previous multiple software providers into a single, unifying supplier in ShareIn.
Shojin Property Partners’ Igor Gorbatsevich, Head of Digital, says: “Due to a combination of circumstances, notably rapid increases in the number of global investors, regulatory change and desire to further streamline our operations, it was the logical step to transition across to ShareIn. Their technology has provided us with a much more integrated infrastructure and enables us to deliver an enhanced investment experience, with more frequent feature updates to our online investment platform.”
ShareIn’s expanded offering comes along with the growth of its team, with plans to increase its headcount to 40 members in 2020.
Double Boost for Scotland’s Global Fintech Ambitions
FinTech Scotland welcomes two significant developments which will support its ambition to become a globally recognised fintech centre.
First, as announced by Scottish Government today, Scotland’s fintech cluster has been formally recognised for its excellence by the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA) which benchmarks economic clusters across the Europe.
The ESCA undertook a benchmarking analysis, based on 36 economic indicators, of the work led by FinTech Scotland resulting in the award of the cluster excellence accreditation.
Scotland becomes the first fintech cluster in the UK to be recognised for the cluster excellence award and one of only three fintech clusters in Europe to achieve this accreditation.
Second, the cluster award has been achieved as the two-year old FinTech Scotland confirms an increase in the number of strategic partners supporting the next stage of its strategy.
The strategic partners include: financial institutions, global technology and professional services firms, two of leading international universities developing fintech skills; the University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde, as well as Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Government.
In addition, the Financial Conduct Authority continues support with the full-time secondment of a senior regulator to the FinTech Scotland team.
The broad range of FinTech Scotland strategic partners, illustrated below, will participate in a range of innovation and collaboration initiatives to drive further the development of the fintech cluster.
Commenting, Stephen Ingledew, Chief Executive of FinTech Scotland said: “We are very proud of this centre of excellence cluster recognition which will further contribute to being recognised as a global fintech centre.
Achieving cluster accreditation recognises the progressive innovation, collaboration and inclusion initiatives across Scotland over the past two years and will shape the economic and social priorities for 2020 and beyond.
To progress this, we’re delighted to partner with a broad range of forward thinking and innovative strategic enterprises in developing the fintech cluster, all who have recognised the economic, social and international value of our collaborative and inclusive model”
Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy, Kate Forbes said: “The global financial services sector is being transformed by technology which is providing a range of benefits such as speeding up transactions, making payments more secure and helping avoid problem debt.
“Scotland is already at the forefront of these developments and the fintech cluster is ensuring the benefits are spread across the country. This accreditation will further increase our international profile and is another step towards the goal of being ranked among the world’s top five fintech cluster nations.”
Linda Hanna, Managing Director, Scottish Economic Development at Scottish Enterprise, said: “A huge amount of credit is due to FinTech Scotland for its leadership in securing this accreditation in such a short space of time.
“It sees FinTech Scotland join the country’s existing family of accredited cluster management organisations alongside ScotlandIS and Technology Scotland, underlining Scotland’s international standing as a nation of innovators.
“We look forward to working with Stephen and his team, plus their new and existing strategic partners, as they continue to nurture and encourage the growth of Scotland’s fintech ecosystem.”
Chief Executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise, Graeme Jones commented “To be identified as the first fintech cluster in the UK is further recognition of Scotland’s position as a thriving, forward-thinking, international centre and is a landmark moment for Scotland. This will present new opportunities to deliver even more economic and social benefits to Scotland and the UK”
Jane Morrison-Ross, Chief Executive of ScotlandIS said,’ We are delighted that FinTech Scotland have achieved this award. This is a huge boost to the developing cluster economy in Scotland. We are very excited by the potential of the Scottish clusters and the opportunity to further collaborate with FinTech Scotland. ‘
Want an opportunity to think out of the box and get BIG rewards?!
Great, now I have your attention! Money Advice Scotland ”“ Scotland’s money charity is seeking to appoint 6 new independent Trustees to sit on a newly constructed Board of Trustees. The new Trustees will be joined by existing Trustees from the debt advice sector.
We have a five-year strategy and Digital services is front and centre of the strategy. We have formed strong partnerships with FinTech Scotland and we are now reaching out to the Fintech community for further help.
If you are someone who is keen to help a national charity, for no financial reward, but get enormous satisfaction from doing so, then please step forward! We are looking for someone who has direct experience of either developing or implementing financial technological solutions, and who has previous Board experience. The skills and expertise we are seeking is of the ability to think strategically, be willing to challenge the Executive.
We are seeking 6 dynamic individuals (one from the fintech community) who share our passion in being “the driving force towards wellbeing for the people of Scotland”. See our strategy document and impact report.
Whilst the posts are not remunerated individuals will play a significant role in the future of Money Advice Scotland’s development, and its sustainability. We are a relatively small organisation (employing 18 people), which punches well above its weight, and always delivers on its promise.So, if you are interested, please complete a CV, and provide a personal statement as to why you wish to be considered for the position, and how you match the role requirements. This should be no more than 2 sides of A4. It should be sent marked private and confidential ”“ Trustee application, to y.macdermid@moneyadvicescotland.org.uk. See recruitment pack. For an informal discussion please call 0141 572 0238 and ask for Yvonne MacDermid.
Advice Direct Scotland call for data and tech experts
Advice Direct Scotland is starting the New Year with a continued sense of purpose and ambition and the team are keen to engage with data experts and technology experts to help. This is a call for input and help that we’re pleased to support.
We don’t know what we don’t know, but we do know technology could help!
Advice Direct Scotland is a citizen centric organisation that serves Scotland’s population by offering practical help and advice across a huge range of issues.
We have over 700,000 contacts with citizens and consumers across the UK every year and the majority of these are with people in Scotland.
We are interested in using technology both to interpret the data we have, and to gain an understanding of the data we hold that is currently not used to measure impact and outcomes.
Our data resides in our Salesforce orgs. This data contains information from traditional telephone calls, web chat, social media, email, and online engagements. Data Lab is currently assisting us in interpreting the data, and to highlight areas where we may want to focus resources.
Areas of specific interest include:
- Creating an app linking debt/money with wellness. For example sharing improvements in income and expenditure on a regular basis to motivate individuals, but also linking people with local opportunities to improve, perhaps, their fitness, or access to activities for their children. This could also include local offers to save money, and top tips for improving financial management. We believe such an app could improve mental well-being and allow individuals and families to effectively plan their finances over time.
- Use technology to highlight those customers in particular financial stress before issues become unmanageable or adversely affect family life.
- Look at our engagement with personal data stores and see if they can either be improved or replaced.
- Further automate our debt/money journeys to encourage engagement and reduce our costs.
- Look at all of our data (including our general service, our consumer service, our debt service, and our energy services) and create a map highlighting where our services are in demand and where our impact is limited. This will allow us to focus resources on engaging with those audiences who have to date not sought advice and information from us.
We don’t know what we don’t know. We’re always looking to increase our effectiveness and are keen to connect with technology companies and universities that can assist us in our role of connecting advice and information with the people who need it, and then utilising this data to drive policy and effect of outcomes both for the customer and for other stakeholders such as the Scottish government.
If you’re interested and happy to work with us to try and progress positive change for citizens we’d really like to hear from you. Please use Fintech Scotland contact us page if you’re interested.
The number of fintech enterprises continues to grow as FinTech Scotland reaches its second birthday
FinTech Scotland has confirmed that the number of innovative fintech SMEs based in Scotland has grown by over 60% from 72 to 119 over the last twelve months.
The announcement comes on the second anniversary since the formation of FinTech Scotland, a joint initiative by a number of financial services firms, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise.
The growth in the new fintech enterprises focused on reinventing financial services has been driven by new start-ups such as Visible Capital, SecureTheFile, Open Banking Research, Contract2Pay, Digital Future Capital, Guiide amongst many others over the year.
In addition, the growth in numbers has been fuelled by fintech firms moving to Scotland from other parts of the world such Gobbill (Australia), Polydigi (Hong Kong), EedenBull (Norway), QWallets (USA) who are now part of the Scottish fintech community along with other global fintech firms, bringing their expertise and energy with them. Furthermore, there have been a number of innovative fintech enterprises from the UK who have now set up operations in Scotland such as Xpand, Mudano, Infinity Works, BePayd and become part of the vibrant fintech community.
Since its inception in early 2018, FinTech Scotland has facilitated the growing fintech innovation by fostering the connection between entrepreneurs, large financial services firms, the universities, Government and public sector as well as a range of strategic partners and stakeholders.
Examples of FinTech Scotland’s strategic enabling leadership role over the last twelve months have included:
- The formation of the FinTech Scotland Consumer and Citizen Panel, a first for UK and Europe, launched to encourage the development of new solutions to tackle societal and inclusion challenges
- International trade missions of fintech firms to meet the Scottish community including from Canada, Hong Kong, France, Switzerland, Singapore and USA to name a few
- Scotland’s Fintech Festival over three weeks in September with 60+ events across the country with international fintech guests attending from over twenty nations
- Collaboration with UK fintech organisations to form the Fintech National Network to support investment, innovation and inclusion initiatives
- Founding member of the European Fintech Discovery Programme with eight leading fintech hubs across the continent to offer greater access to innovation across nations
- Ongoing close collaboration with the financial regulator, the FCA, including the extention of the of the secondment of a senior regulators to FinTech Scotland
- Developed financial inclusion and diversity initiatives working with consumer groups, social enterprises and charities such as Money Advice Scotland
- Facilitated cross sector fintech innovation, for example, with ScotlandIS, Law Society of Scotland and as well as Scottish Government Digital Team
- Partnership agreement with University of Strathclyde in developing the Glasgow fintech cluster as part of the City’s Innovation District
“It is a privilege to lead the FinTech Scotland team and galvanise the broad range of support from across Scotland to support the growth of innovative fintech enterprises in this last year.
Our progressive, collaborative and inclusive agenda is certainly establishing Scotland as a major global fintech centre which can contribute to Scotland’s economic and social ambitions.
There is still much to do but with the support of a range of stakeholders from private sector, Government and academia actively participating we can achieve the top ranking global fintech status. I am excited about a number of new initiatives planned for early 2020 which will enable us to build on the momentum throughout Scotland.“
Stephen Ingledew, Chief Executive of Fintech Scotland
“Congratulations to FinTech Scotland for an another immensely successful year. Under Stephen Ingledew’s leadership at FinTech Scotland has galvanised collaboration between Scotland’s innovative SMEs, universities, financial industry and public sector. Together, we are building Scotland’s reputation as a major global FinTech centre and commend FinTech Scotland team for their collaborative leadership over the last year and their vision for the future.”
Digital Economy Minister, Kate Forbes
“Scotland’s rich heritage in financial services coupled with its reputation as a country of innovators means it’s ideally placed to become one of the world’s leading fintech ecosystems. This is evident in both the number of new Scottish fintech companies and those international businesses that are relocating their operations to take advantage of Scotland’s experience and expertise in the sector.
“The fintech movement in Scotland has been determinedly driven forward by FinTech Scotland over the past two years. Stephen and his team deserve great credit for keeping the momentum going ”“ here’s to another successful year.”
Linda Hanna, Managing Director, Scottish Enterprise
The second anniversary was recognised on Tuesday the 8th of January at the joint quarterly Government and financial industry meeting, the Financial Services Advisory Board (FiSAB), chaired by Scottish Government ministers and the Chairman of Scottish Financial Enterprise who is Philip Grant of Lloyds Banking Group, one of the founding partners of FinTech Scotland, and attended by executives from across the financial sector.
New Edinburgh Office for Autorek
Scottish fintech AutoRek recently announced the opening of their new office in Edinburgh at Apex One in Haymarket.
Following a very important recruitment push in 2019, a new office was deemed a priority for the 25 year old successful company which provides financial controls, regulatory reporting and data management software solutions.
The new office is just over 5,000 square foot and equipped with the latest technology. It’s ideally built to accommodate for training courses, helping their customers make the most of of their solution.
This follows another move to a new office in Glasgow and 2020 should see their London team being relocated to a bigger office to prepare for growth as the demands from the industry is also rapidly growing.
“After years of sustained growth we are excited to be able to move into a much-needed bigger office space. Apex one in Haymarket is a great location with amazing views. The space is best in class, and we look forward to welcoming our clients to the along for meetings and training days”.
Gordon McHarg, Managing Director
Scottish fintech GiftRound is Fundraising
The Scottish Fintech startup GiftRound is seeking to raise £75,000 (SEIS Pre approved) investment through Crowdcube.
www.crowdcube.com/giftround
Organising a group gift by passing the traditional card and brown envelope around the office is not efficient or effective in an increasingly cashless society. What’s more teams are frequently spread over different locations, home working or overseas.
GiftRound is a new online service that is changing the way people collect money for gifts. GiftRound provides a quick, hassle-free and secure way to collect money for gifts in the workplace and with friends & family. GiftRound customers can easily create a collection, invite people to contribute
and purchase a gift.
Since its launch GiftRound has received nearly 4000 contribution into 350 successful group collections.
“I found using GiftRound so much easier than collecting money for gifts before, particularly as my colleagues are based across the country. I love the transparency and it not going through my own bank account. I’ll be using it again and recommending it to others.”
RBS Office Manager
“GiftRound made the collection for Xmas gifts for our class teachers super smooth this year. Thank you! Have recommended the service to other classes at the school and I’ll be looking into using this at work too.”
Parent collecting for Primary School Teacher’s Christmas gift.
The initial focus for GiftRound was workplace teams in the UK that wanted to celebrate together and show that they care. However, GiftRound has also proven very popular with parents buying a gift for primary school teachers and friends getting together to buy a special wedding gift.
GiftRound is 100% free to use and generates its revenue when customers purchase gifts, gift vouchers or experiences from quality retailers that GiftRound has a relationship with via the GiftRound Store.
GiftRound is seeking to raise £75,000 through Crowdcube to improve the user experience of the platform and integrate a GiftRound Store to provide customers a seamless experience.
www.crowdcube.com/giftround
Edinburgh based fintech crowdfunding for new app
Financial education Scottish fintech MoneyMatiX is launching a fundraising campaign to raise £12,000.
This campaign will support the launch of its KUZAKASH APP using the RBS Back Her Business scheme which pledges to match fund up to 50% of their crowdfunding target. MoneyMatiX was launch by two highly motivated and driven mums passionate about making money management accessible to all.
Financial habits are becoming ever more complex with young people turning to adults for financial guidance but finding them ill-equipped at money management. This led MoneyMatix to develop KUZAKASH, a family finance management APP promoting meaningful financial interactions between children, parents & teachers.
Kuzakash uses visualisation tools to make financial goal setting fun and achievable. Both adults and children can set, track and contribute towards their goals which are used as the educational touch-points to illustrate healthy money habits.
This raise will be used to carry out beta testing of the KUZAKASH APP and a consumer education campaign.
“Financial management skills are one of the most important factors that determine our lifestyle choices. Money is a continuous touchpoint throughout our lives and technology can help make this touchpoint meaningful by enabling people to create healthy interactions with money.”
Tynah Matembe, CEO of MoneyMatiX
“There is an African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child, but I want to add to it that it takes a family and community to foster good financial habits. In this day and age of influencers, young people should not only be influenced by fashion or talent, but they should also be influenced by skills that will last for a lifetime like financial education. We are building a generation of financially savvy youngsters who will not only impact their communities but the economy at large. We can’t do this on our own! We need your help to build financially capable communities.”
Helene Rodger Co-Founder and COO of MoneyMatiX
To get the matched funding from RBS they need to get at least 100 unique backers for their APP. The campaign will run for 30 days and you can get involved to back KuzaKash here.