Digital transformation in the financial services: where to start
1. Customer-driven innovation
Customers value their time as much as firms do, so delivering on efficient communications is a valuable plus point for clients.
2. Efficiency in internal processes
In the face of the demands of MiFID II and KYC regulations, automation is no longer an optional nice-to-have ”“ it’s essential for any firm to continue to thrive. The sheer breadth of the requirements would be all but impossible to achieve in any cost- and time-effective way were it not for the power of technology to automate processes such as onboarding and communication tracking.
Automating essential communications allows you to effortlessly maintain contact with clients, which means you can spend less time sending emails and more time working to give clients your best advice. It also makes it easier to stay compliant as tools such as Appointedd’s CRM suite automatically records all communications around appointments between firms and clients for an easy digital paper trail.
3. Security and data
When you help clients with their money, you need to know their sensitive data is safe with you, and embracing automated tools doesn’t have to mean more risk for your firm or your clients. Source tools with excellent security credentials, that are compliant with Cyber Essentials standards, and which have a proven track record of robust data security. This will put both your and your clients’ minds at ease and improve the appeal of your services.
University and fintech collaboration to improve financial well-being
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Consumers display sustainable spending patterns and have manageable debt levels
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Consumers have enough savings to face unexpected events
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Consumers have adequate savings to fund their retirement
Scottish Fintech ShareIn not a start-up anymore
ShareIn the, the Edinburgh-based technology and compliance solution for online unlisted investment, has just announced some exciting news:
Profitable year-end to October 2017 (£700k revenue, 3 times more than the previous year)
Increase in staff ”“ from 7 to 17
New clients ”“ 3 times more
A new website to highlight recent success
Work with a new crowdfunding platform called Triodos
Collaboration as a key success factor
One of the reasons behind ShareIn’s success is the solutions they’ve developed for their new clients. Amongst the latest ones is the Triodos Crowdfunding platform the first crowdfunding platform launched by a UK bank.
Andrew Pickett, Co-founder of ShareIn says:
“Working with Triodos, who are very well respected in the ethical finance sector and have raised more than £130 million to fund over 50 impact projects in the past 15 years, is a fantastic win for ShareIn.”
ShareIn are also working with Lendahand Ethex, raising over £2m for solar projects in Africa. With Mongoose Crowd they help who fund community energy projects with renewable sources.
Diversity
ShareIn are the living proof that diversity doesn’t have to be obtained by design. They’ve hired more women than men by solely focussing on skills and talents.
ShareIn’s CEO, Jude Cook says:
“Andrew and I are really proud of the brilliant team that we’ve been able to build. It’s quite unusual in a tech business to have more women in the company than men. We always hire the best person for the job but we’re lucky that great women keep applying. 12 of the 17 team members are women. We’ve got such a healthy mix of experience and nationality that makes ShareIn a very exciting place to work.”
Well done to Jude, Andrew and their team and we’re looking forward to more success stories soon.
FinTech Scotland and FinTechNZ establish a partnership
Another first
Things are moving at pace at FinTech Scotland in 2018.
Only 4 weeks ago we were welcoming our first CEO, last week we launched our first newsletter and this week we are delighted to let you know about our first partnership with another fintech hub, FinTechNZ.
So who are FinTechNZ?
FinTechNZ is The New Zealand Financial Innovation & Technology Association. They are a working group focussed on delivering economic growth in New Zealand through financial innovation. Slightly older than FinTech Scotland they have a member base of just over 100.
They work closely with the New Zealand government to offer guidance on policies and regulations.
Why this partnership?
At FinTech Scotland we are keen to develop a network with other international hubs. Several reasons are motivating us in doing so and they are all aligned with our core values:
- Inclusion. We are very much open to the world. Other hubs aren’t competition but partners we are keen to include in our network. For our innovative companies to succeed they will need to enter new markets and form partnerships along the way. We want to help them do just that by offering them facilities to expand globally.
- Collaboration. As we develop FinTech Scotland we want to be up to date with what’s happening around the world, identify collaboration opportunities and develop a unique offering.
- Financial innovation. One of our goal is to establish Scotland as one of the leading hubs in the world. With so much innovation happening in Scotland we need to outreach to other countries and ensure our success stories are relayed around the world. We also believe this is the best way for us to attract fintechs and incumbents looking for a new base as well as attract investors’ interest to fuel even more innovation.
What’s next?
We’ll keep you updated on this blog about opportunities that will arise from this partnership. We’ll also keep you up to date with future partnerships with other hubs.
As we grow our community we wish to offer you a digital community for you to interact with people around the world so stay tuned.
Jenny Campbell in Edinburgh to address business women’s event
One of the top UK business women will be in Edinburgh in March at this year’s Ambition & Growth Conference dinner which will take place at the Sheraton Hotel.
Jenny Campbell, the Founder of YourCash Europe will be sharing her story and passion towards helping people succeed in business.
More about Jenny Campbell
Aged only 16, Jenny joined the banking fraternity. At 23 she had completed her banking qualifications and been awarded a Chartered Institute of Bankers prize.
In 2006 she joined Hanco, a cash machine company
owned by RBS, as director of operations.
In 2010 she took charge of a management buyout
of the business. She renamed it YourCash Europe before impressively expanding the business’ operations.
In 2013, she took the business through a secondary buy-out which allowed her to obtain full control of the business. She sold the company in October 2016 to Euronet Worldwide Inc.
Vitalise Business Woman of the Year in 2014 she was then welcomed as a Freeman to the Guild of Entrepreneurs in the City of London.
Very experienced public speaker she also spend a lot of her time helping entrepreneurs launch their business.
Most people will know her best for her role as a dragon on the BBC programme Dragon’s Den.
Jackie Waring, CEO and Founder of Investing Women, the organisation behind the Ambition & Growth Conference, said: “We are delighted to welcome Jenny, a high profile and hugely successful businesswoman, to the third annual Ambition & Growth Conference. Along with
her formidable track record in the global banking sector, Jenny really stands out for the work she does to support young people in business and promote a positive message about entrepreneurialism.”
Ambition and Growth Conference
Ambition & Growth 2018 is set to inspire, motivate and inform aspirational entrepreneurs as well as business angels and professionals in leadership roles.
Other speakers will include:
Professor Heather McGregor CBE, Executive Dean,
Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University and
Mary Harper, Affluent Customer
Director at Aviva.
For more information visit:
http://www.investingwomen.co.uk/ambition-growth- conference/
RBS FinTech Accelerator goes national ”“ but Edinburgh remains core location
RBS and fintechs?
After a successful trial at the Entrepreneurial Spark Hub in Edinburgh last year, RBS is expanding its FinTech Accelerator programme across three more locations in the UK – London, Manchester and Bristol ”“ but attracting FinTechs to join the programme based out of their Gogarburn head office is still seen as vital.
We spoke to Steve Chown who leads the FinTech proposition for the Bank:
“Having the Entrepreneurial Hub in our head office in Gogarburn over the last few years has transformed the feel of the building. The layout has been designed to really encourage engagement between Bank staff and Entrepreneurs, with the Hub and our Innovation teams next door to each other and even sharing an event space. It’s a big building, with coffee shops and even a Tesco Express and you often see Entrepreneurs in the queue for their Latte next to Bank Execs!”
“We’ve got 6000 staff based in Gogarburn alone, from every function within Banking you can think of and that’s a key part of our offering for FinTech businesses – linking them up with staff who can add value to what they are building ”“ for example if you are a payments business we’ll endeavour you a linked in to someone from our payments team who talks your language and can give you advice and feedback. Our staff are really keen to engage, I’ve even had our Analytics and Modelling team offering to help, hands on, with businesses struggling to manage their data or with large analytics problems”
“The Banks attitude to dealing with start-up businesses has really changed over the last few years ”“ we now realise that sometimes we don’t know best, and there’s massive value in partnering with specialist businesses with ready made solutions”
So what does a FinTech Accelerator involve?
Steve explains more:
“At the core of our offering is the coaching and mentoring from Entrepreneurial Spark alongside office space in our Hub but we really wanted to ensure FinTechs got real value from joining our programme so asked them what their main challenges were. Based on what we were told we have arranged additional content around IP protection, regulation, partnering with Corporates and raising investment alongside technology and sales strategy reviews from our partners at Dell – plus of course connections into relevant Bank staff and will end the programme with a Demo day event to pitch their ideas. We are really looking forward to welcoming some more FinTechs in to our head office.”
If you’re interesting in learning more about this or if you’d like to apply for this programme contact us below or via the contact us form.
Previse’s expansion in Scotland. Interview with the Chief Product Officer
Earlier this month we received some great news from Previse. The B2B payment decisions start-up managed to secure £800k R&D grant from Scottish Enterprise in order to to set up an new development centre in Glasgow, creating 37 new data science jobs.
FinTech Scotland spoke with David Brown, Previse’s Chief Product Officer to understand the decision process that lead to the firm’s move this side of the border.
How did Previse come about?
We identified that current solutions to financing trade finance assets involved too much process change and this change more often than not would lead to the demise of payments in the supply chain as most focused on the Top suppliers i.e. the 80/20 rule. The majority of any major corporate spend is with the top 100-200 suppliers, the remainder [referred to as tail spend] can involve thousands of smaller suppliers more often than not most SME’s would fall within this segment. Previse identified a huge gap in the current market offerings and their failure to address this segment and have now developed a solution specifically to address SME payments within the Global Supply chain using, with virtually no process change to deploy.
Why did you choose Scotland to establish your new base?
After meeting with the Scottish Enterprise, Datalabs and the university professors, we came to the conclusion that the right building blocks are being put in place to address the skills gap that is required to enable a digital world and from there a fintech solution.
And why did you choose Glasgow specifically?
This was perhaps the hardest of the decisions but based on the fact the JPM, Barclays and MS have their operations in Glasgow, helped in our final decision.
Where would you like to see improvements in the Scottish fintech proposition?
Fintech in our opinion involves several key ingredients; technology, liquidity and legal without this it could become just tech. It is important that whilst we challenge the use of new technologies, we also challenge our legal frameworks and boundaries to ensure the asset is attractive for finance. Active collaboration between all parties is necessary and should be without conflict as the outcome benefits all.
In your opinion what is the biggest challenge Scotland is facing when it comes to becoming one of the leading fintech hubs?
References. We need strong case studies as change is hard but once you get through the inertia of change it becomes the norm. Scotland must collaborate, promote and get behind platforms, to generate the need and desire for talent, after all this is a new world with new challenges but also amazing opportunities to build world class talent and present a showcase of successful reference accounts to build upon.
Can you tell us about some exciting developments at Previse?
We are in the final stages of some major announcements both in partnerships and in client adoption and are busy hiring in Glasgow to support our growth. Partnering is key to Previse as we have built an enabler and each partnership we announce confirms our strategy and validates our vision.
You told us previously you’d like to spend more time in Scotland. What are the thing you enjoy doing/visiting when you’re up here?
Now I am here after working away for close to 30 years, I am looking up and finding everyone that meant something to my life and growing up, so catching up with neighbours, school and work friends and ex work colleges etc. is top on my agenda.
Are you planning on moving permanently to Scotland?
You never say never and I would like to think that is possible at some stage, I may need help with my Wife Sammi.
You told us previously you’d like to spend more time in Scotland. What are the thing you enjoy doing/visiting when you’re up here?
One of my best friends is Colin Barr who happens to own the Bierhall in Gordon Street so it would have to be that one.
What’s your favourite place in Scotland?
Loch Lomond, I have fond memories of my childhood and swimming there and also my big sister Ireney had her ashes spread there so it is now a very special place for all of us.
Appointment of FinTech Scotland’s CEO
At FinTech Scotland we’re proud about the fact that we’ve been created and managed by members of the eco-system through the Scottish Financial Enterprise Fintech Steering Committee. Being built from the ground up means that we’ve gained a great understanding about the needs of fintechs, established brands, academia and the public sector. We’ve now reached a stage to use that insight to take FinTech Scotland to the next stage and develop a strategy for the fintech sector in Scotland.
We’re delighted to announce the appointment of Stephen Ingledew as CEO of FinTech Scotland.
Stephen bring with him years of experience in the financial sector where he focussed amongst other things on implementing customer focused and technology enabled initiatives.
Stephen previously worked as senior executive for companies such as Standard Life and Barclays as well as small innovative financial enterprises He’s always been an influential advocate of making financial services more open, creative and inclusive to all through new innovative technologies, encouraging diversity and progressive ways of working as well as improved collaboration across stakeholders and participants.
Throughout his career Stephen has also occupied a number of non-executive director roles including with Scottish Financial Enterprise; The Institute of Financial Services; The Chartered Insurance Institute and The Financial Services Authority.
He is a frequent author of articles and regular contributor at major global conferences on subjects ranging from customer strategy and execution, fintech and insurtech innovation as well as business change leadership. He is currently a non-executive director of Marketing Edinburgh, the body responsible for promoting the region.
Our new `CEO will work closely with a broad range of stakeholders including members the fintech community through the FinTech Practitioners Forum, SFE’s Fintech Steering Committee, and our 2 HM Treasury envoys. Stephen has already indicated that he would focus his efforts on creating an integrated and thriving ecosystem through the provision of funding, support, infrastructure and talent that recognises and responds to the needs of all stakeholders and connect Scotland to other global Fintech centres.
You will be hearing a lot more from Stephen in the coming weeks so stay tuned and subscribed to our newsletter.
University of Stirling Launches new Fintech Masters Course
Seed Haus ”“ open for second cohort
Seed Haus, the Scottish pre-seed tech accelerator, are now accepting applications for their second cohort. If you’re interested you have until 30th December to apply for £30,000 of equity investment from Scotland’s top-tier tech investors.
Who are Seed Haus?
Calum Forsyth, CEO, and Robin Knox, Chairman founded Seed Haus after identifying a gap in the startup support system. They decided to create the only incubator in Scotland which provides entrepreneurs with start-up capital as part of the package. On top of office space and the capital the pair also designed a solution that provides mentoring, peer meet-ups and investor sessions.
The first cohort launch early 2017 with 5 of the most exciting start-ups in Scotland: Drinkly, Kindaba, Sansible Wearables, Security CTRL, and Taka.
The selection process
Out of all the applications, 5 startups will be selected and offered a place in the programme. Seed Haus is working with renown partners: Alistair Forbes, James Watt of BrewDog, Gavin Dutch, Paul Walton, Judy Wilson, Rob Dobson, Paddy Burns, Chris van der Kuyl, Paul Davidson, and Sir Tom Hunter.
Calum Forsyth declared: “Our deal terms are incredibly founder friendly. The founders backed in cohort 1 were originally looking to raise around £100,000 with very little traction. Based on the current investment climate in Scotland, that would have meant selling a big part of their business, at a formative stage, hampering future growth and fundraising. Pleasingly, they saw the value in aligning with Seed Haus which allows them to hold on to a greater portion of equity and lay the foundations for a truly scalable business”.
Who can apply?
Most entrepreneurs can apply but Seed Haus is most interested in people with domain expertise. Seed Haus provide investments which allow entrepreneurs to cover their living costs. It therefore removes some of the risks that could have stopped some entrepreneurs making the leap. Transitioning from full-time work to entrepreneurship can be hard, Seed Haus take some of the fear away.