Sending money home should feel like asking someone you trust

By Sajjad Ifthkar – Founder, Breeze (working title).

Millions of people in the UK send money to family abroad. It pays for medicine, school fees, or the electricity bill back home. The UK sends around $6 billion a year to Pakistan and around $13 billion to India. For the people sending it, this isn’t a financial product. It’s an act of care, and often a duty.

The industry has made real progress. Money now often arrives in minutes, and costs have come down. But when I watch relatives send money, especially older relatives or those more at home in Urdu or Punjabi than English, I still see the same moments of doubt. Which box do I fill in? Have I typed the account number right? Is this rate fair? What will they actually receive?

What I’m building

Breeze is an app that lets people send money home by simply saying what they want, in their own language. You can speak or type – in English, Urdu, Hindi or a mix – something like “send £100 to my cousin in Lahore.” Breeze works out who, how much and where it should go. It then shows one clear summary: what you’re sending, the fee, the rate, what your family will receive and when. Nothing happens until you confirm.

The money goes wherever the family already holds it: a bank account, or a mobile wallet such as JazzCash or Easypaisa in Pakistan, or UPI in India. You can add someone using just their mobile number, and Breeze shows the account holder’s name back to you before anything is sent, so you know it’s the right person.

Often the money is for a specific bill. So in Breeze you can take a photo of a bill from back home – an electricity bill in Lahore, say, or a school fee invoice. Breeze reads it, shows you what’s owed in pounds, and lets you pay it straight to the biller.

The other half of the journey matters just as much. The family on the other side is told when money is on its way and when it has landed – by WhatsApp, which most families already use, or by a simple text message for those who don’t. They don’t need to install anything, and they can reply with a thank-you that appears back in the sender’s app.

The idea behind it is simple. Sending money home should feel like asking someone you trust to do it for you, not like filling in a form.

Why me

I’ve spent more than 20 years at NatWest and RBS in business transformation, programme delivery and customer journeys. That taught me two things. First, a well-designed journey makes a real difference to customers. Second, financial services rightly demand a lot of care around trust, safety and regulation.

This year, AI tools let me test my idea in a way I couldn’t before. Working part-time over about a month, I built a working prototype of Breeze for iPhone and Android, using Claude Code, an AI coding assistant. I’m not a software engineer by background, so that has been a learning experience in itself. Breeze shows the whole journey, but it doesn’t move real money yet.

What I’ve learned so far

The most useful moment so far wasn’t a demo going well. It was a mentor telling me, kindly but clearly, that a good demo isn’t proof that people need the product.

So I’m slowing down on building and speeding up on listening. I’m preparing conversations with people who send and receive money today, to understand what they find hardest, what they’ve tried, and what would make them switch. I’m also looking at working with an established, regulated money transfer provider. That would let a first real transfer happen safely and legally, rather than trying to become a licensed firm on day one.

Why FinTech Scotland

I joined FinTech Scotland to find out, honestly, whether Breeze has legs. I’d welcome the chance to:

· Show the prototype and hear candid feedback

· Talk to anyone with experience of remittances, payments regulation or partnering with a licensed provider

· Meet people in the UK’s Pakistani, Indian or wider diaspora communities who send money home and would share how they do it today

My goal is to turn Breeze into a real, safe and genuinely useful service for families who send money home – but only once I’m confident it solves a real problem well. If any of this resonates, I’d love to hear from you.

Get in touch with Sajjad at s.ifthkar@gmail.com or connect on LinkedIn.

Breeze is one of the fintechs in our thriving community. View all of the fintechs in our community.
Read more from Scottish fintechs.

Crypto firms fear being shut out of the UK market as operational readiness lags behind ambition

By Zumo

● Initial findings from Zumo’s UK Regulatory Preparedness Assessment survey show seven in ten crypto firms see losing UK market access as a key risk of the incoming regulatory regime – yet just one in ten feel fully prepared for the new rules.

● With the FCA opening its application gateway in September, 60% of firms are still assessing how to adapt their UK operating model to meet the new requirements, while 30% are finding it challenging to determine which rules apply to them and what permissions are needed.

● As nine out of ten firms prepare to submit applications, these early insights from Zumo’s live survey show a gap between ambition and firms’ readiness; collaboration will be required to close this gap, with Zumo calling on firms to feed into its assessment to help make compliance a more structured, manageable process.

Crypto firms see continued access to UK customers as the most pressing matter at stake as the country’s regulatory regime takes shape but the majority acknowledge they aren’t yet ready for it, according to new research from digital assets platform Zumo.

Early insights from the company’s landmark survey of cryptoasset service providers serving UK clients reveal 70% identify losing the ability to serve their UK customers as a main risk of not being ready for the new regime. Half (50%) have concerns about financial penalties or regulatory sanctions, with the same figure worrying about subsequent loss of revenue or market share.
Following the publication of its final rules and guidance, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is preparing to open its application gateway for firm authorisations on 30 September 2026, ahead of the implementation of a comprehensive regulatory regime for cryptoassets in October 2027.

However, just 10% of providers consider themselves fully prepared for the new rules, while six in ten are still assessing how to adapt their UK operating model to meet the new requirements. Eight in ten perceive their risk of not being ready in time as moderate to high, while 60% believe their current operating model would be exposed to regulatory enforcement.

Ambition ahead of execution

Their ambition, by contrast, is in little doubt.
Nine in ten firms intend to apply for authorisation during the FCA’s application window, which will shut in February 2027, and 60% expect the regime to expand their UK business – the same figure (60%) believe the incoming regime will boost interest among their customer base in crypto as an asset class.
While awareness of the regime is universal among respondents, execution is at an early stage with half (50%) of firms still at the planning phase when it comes to their regulatory readiness initiatives.

When asked about their organisation’s single biggest challenge, three in ten said it’s determining which rules apply to them and what permissions are needed. Beneath this headline challenge lies a consistent set of operational pain points, including the cost and internal resource demands of getting ready, mapping services to UK regulated activities, and implementing compliant custody or safeguarding arrangements.

Confidence that the regime is unfolding in firms’ favour remains limited: only two in ten agree it’s developing in a way that sets firms up to operate successfully in the UK.

The call for collaboration
The early insights from Zumo’s survey show the gap between ambition and firms’ current state of readiness is now the defining feature of the market.

Few are attempting to close this gap alone. Some seven in ten have sought, or plan to seek, external support from legal and compliance advisers, industry bodies, or technology providers as they work through the challenges.
Respondents are also looking for more support from the regulator. While FCA guidance to date was rated ‘fair’ by 80% of firms – with none rating it ‘poor’ – the research has uncovered a consistent set of asks: clearer guidance on regulatory scope and applicability, more time and transitional arrangements, and better signposting of UK-compliant infrastructure and technology solutions.

The FCA’s Pre-Application Support Service (PASS) meetings for cryptoasset firms are now officially underway, which provide an opportunity to connect some of the dots. These meetings give firms an opportunity to ask questions and discuss their business plans ahead of the application window.

Commenting on the emerging survey findings, Zumo’s Founder and Chief Executive Nick Jones said:
“With the UK’s regulatory regime now set in stone, authorisation will become a game changer. Authorised market participants will have the potential to shift the status quo and unlock pent-up institutional appetite.”
“The early findings from our survey indicate a market caught between ambition and execution; firms have decided the UK is worth the effort, but must overcome a number of obstacles to be ready in time to realise the opportunity. It’s encouraging that firms are treating readiness seriously and reaching for the expertise they need – the cost of getting it wrong is cutting off access to one of the world’s most compelling markets.”

“The asks emerging from this research are practical ones – clarity on scope, realistic timelines, and visibility of the infrastructure that meets UK-specific requirements. At Zumo, we’re focused on providing the UK market solutions to help firms accommodate new levels of operating obligations. From customer onboarding to UK-routed liquidity and compliant safeguarding, we’re building the core components of a full UK-ready tech stack.”

“It’s an exciting time for the UK, but also the end of an era: of offshore provision, start-up style business processes, and unregulated business models. As the industry moves onshore, providers will need access to critical partner infrastructure that can act as a bridge to the scaling UK cryptoasset market.”

Zumo’s UK Regulatory Preparedness Assessment survey is open until Wednesday 30 September 2026, and available at here.

Why financial crime detection needs a new approach

By Swagatam Sen, Founder & CEO, ControlOne

A few years ago, I sat in a meeting with a financial crime team at a major bank. They had just finished a year-long project using machine-learning to spot suspicious activity from past data. The number of alerts was down. By the usual measures, the system was doing well. Everyone in the room agreed it was an improvement.

Then someone asked a quiet question. “Are we catching more crime?”

Nobody could answer with confidence.

That moment has stayed with me. It gets to the heart of what the industry has been doing for the last decade: improving the machinery of compliance without solving the underlying detection problem. From the outside the two things look similar. They are not the same.

The problem is not the technology. It is what we choose to look at.

Money laundering is a crime of networks. Criminal organisations do not work through single accounts acting on their own. They work through coordinated groups: accounts used to move money on behalf of criminals (often called “mules”), long chains of transfers designed to hide where the money came from, and companies that exist only on paper. Any single transaction looks harmless, but put together the pattern clearly reveals criminal activity. Every major laundering method that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) have documented over the last twenty years shares this feature. The risk sits between accounts, not within any one of them.

Yet every generation of detection system has been built to assess one account at a time.

Rules: easy to explain, but frozen in place

The first generation of these systems relied on fixed rules. Flag any cash deposit above a set amount. Raise a flag on transfers sent to high-risk countries. Rules can be checked and traced, regulators understand them, and the teams using them can explain why every alert was raised. But by their nature they never change. Criminal networks work out where the limits are set and simply route around them. The result is a system that reliably catches the tricks of the past while raising thousands of false alarms — keeping investigators busy without catching much organised crime.

Rules were never going to solve the problem. But they set an important expectation inside these institutions: that a detection system should be explainable. That expectation matters. Any architecture that replaces them has to meet it.

The first wave of machine learning: smarter scoring, same limit

The industry’s first serious move into machine learning — software that learns patterns from data rather than following fixed rules — brought genuine improvements to how alerts were sorted and how risky each customer was judged to be. These systems are quicker to update than rules, better at handling complicated combinations of information, and far more accurate by the usual measures.

But they depend entirely on clues that people have to define in advance. You have to know what you are looking for before you can teach the system to find it. It catches someone breaking a large deposit into lots of small ones only because a person told it to look for exactly that. A new laundering method that doesn’t match a known template stays invisible. The system can only ever be as good as the clues it has been given, and no one can describe a pattern the bank has never seen before.

Mapping the network: the connections become visible, but frozen in time

The realisation that financial crime is a network problem led to serious investment in approaches that map how accounts connect to one another. Instead of looking only at what a single account does, these systems learn from the links between accounts. This is genuine progress. Connecting accounts that share the same trading partners, the same hidden owners, or the same flows of money reveals patterns that account-by-account systems simply cannot see.

But most of these systems in use today treat the network as a single frozen photograph. They learn who is connected to whom at one moment in time. They do not learn the sequence of events flowing through those connections over time.

Financial crime is not a structure. It is a process. A network of mule accounts is defined not just by how it is wired together but by the rhythm of the money moving through it: the gaps in timing, the order in which accounts are used, the coordinated pattern that appears when several accounts act together over weeks or months. A frozen snapshot captures the wiring and misses the movement.

Following events over time: the timeline arrives, but not the group

The latest approaches are powerful at reasoning about sequences of events. They can learn patterns of timing across long transaction histories, apply what they have learned across different kinds of institution, and spot unusual activity that no rule-writer ever thought to describe. In some tasks like reviewing documents, writing up case summaries, building a picture of customer behaviour, they are game-changing.

But they are almost always pointed at one account at a time. One model. One customer. One timeline.

Financial crime does not operate one customer at a time. It operates across many customers at once. A system racing through individual account histories side by side is still solving the wrong problem. Doing it efficiently, and on a huge scale, but the wrong problem all the same.

What a detection system actually needs to do

Each generation has solved a real part of the problem. Rules gave us the ability to explain decisions. The first wave of machine learning gave us the ability to adapt. Mapping the network let us see the connections. The latest models let us follow events over time. But no system in use today has combined all four of these strengths while looking at the right thing.

What is needed is a system that treats whole groups of accounts; not single accounts; as the main thing it examines. One that learns the tell-tale sequences of criminal behaviour directly from the data, without needing analysts to spell out the patterns in advance. One that works out the role each account is playing within a group, not from fixed rules but from the patterns that emerge in the data itself. And one that produces an explanation you can genuinely follow: not a risk score with a rough justification bolted on afterwards, but a clear, step-by-step record showing exactly which coordinated chain of behaviour led to the decision.

This is not a matter of fine-tuning the systems we already have. It calls for something built around the criminal network, not the individual account, from the ground up.

Where this leads

The institutions spending tens of billions every year on fighting financial crime are not failing for lack of effort or money. They are running systems designed for a different problem. The question is not whether to upgrade. Regulators and investors are already forcing that conversation. The question is whether the next generation of tools will change what we look at or simply run faster while looking at the same old thing.

Closing the detection gap means starting from the right place. That means looking at the whole ring, not just one of its members.

That is what ControlOne is building.

Why payments automation is key to operational resilience for growing businesses

By Myles Stephenson, Founder & CEO at Modulr

The world is becoming increasingly uncertain, and for businesses, this means that market and economic volatility is now the norm. Disruption can hit from many angles, and if your organisation is not resilient, the consequences can be damaging both reputationally and to your bottom line.

This is something that Scottish businesses deeply understand and is reflected in their current outlook. In Scotland, for example, recent MFMac survey data shows that 25% of firms say their most recent financial year performed worse than expected (up from 16% a year earlier), while 47% now identify a weak economy as their primary concern.

But business leaders must move beyond merely admiring the problem and take steps to protect and improve their business resilience to weather these fast-evolving conditions.

In the industries we operate in, including payroll, lending, and travel, we are seeing one thing very clearly: businesses that focus on their payments infrastructure as a driver for growth rather than a simple function are significantly strengthening their position and competitiveness.

And within this context, operational resilience is an essential element of the systems that automate money movement.

Resilience in the core payments that drive your business

Consider payroll, a function that exists in every organisation. When it goes wrong, the effect on employee productivity and engagement is considerable. Research indicates that 25% of UK employees have been hit by payroll errors, and 46% of those affected have seen it happen more than once. In more than half of cases, the problem took over a week to fix. This results in time lost as staff resolve these issues and erodes employee sentiment in an already unsettled climate, which in turn feeds into staff churn.

Businesses that have not automated payroll encounter inefficiency at every step. Manual file exports, reconciliations, and disconnected workflows introduce failure points across the process. Bringing payroll and payments together into one automated flow strips out those handoffs, cuts errors, and creates an operating model that can absorb higher volumes without adding overhead.

Real-time payments integration provides the speed, control, and transparency needed to keep up as volumes rise. Future-proofing payroll means designing systems that take change in their stride rather than buckling under it. The organisations that manage this reliably, and at scale, convert payroll from an operational liability into a foundation for lasting growth.

Speed as the new competitive edge in lending

Lending is another market where we’re seeing firms differentiate themselves through automation. Here, reliability alongside speed and accuracy in collections is key. Streamlined, automated payments strengthen operational stability by accommodating irregular or partial repayments, enabling quick schedule changes, and delivering dependable processing.

Lenders are handling high volumes of collections, reconciliations, and reporting at once, often spanning multiple products and borrower segments. In an industry where margins are thinner and borrowers more sensitive, a single payment error can create compliance risk, damage borrower relationships, and open up operational exposure at the very moment a lender can least afford it.

Automated, real-time payment infrastructure takes much of that vulnerability away. Collections are validated automatically, and reconciliation happens in real time instead of at the end of a manual process.

Building resilience in an unpredictable travel market

One of our other key sectors, travel, must also deal with its own pressures, sharpened by the cross-border nature of travel payments. Additionally, disruption has been growing in this sector for some time with no sign of easing, which makes operational resilience more critical than ever.

Earlier this year, we saw geopolitical tensions cause mass flight cancellations and disruption. More recently, the World Cup has put strain on the travel industry with last-minute travel plans being made as the tournament progresses. This presents complex challenges for travel firms.

The consumer-facing side tends to grab attention, but supplier-side problems are frequently far more intricate and demand tighter cash flow management.

Travel companies are settling payments with airlines, hotels, ground transport providers, and a range of other suppliers. When disruption and uncertainty take hold, two operational risks intensify: time swallowed up by manual processes and running short of funds at a key moment.

Many operators are still tied to manual processes and legacy infrastructure that generate errors and slow processing times, precisely when speed and precision matter most. Late or incorrect supplier payments can put partnerships under strain, activate penalty clauses, and set off a second round of operational problems at the worst possible time. The effect only grows at scale, as larger volumes across multiple currencies create further complications. With automation, payments are triggered and processed without manual involvement, supplier settlements stay on schedule whatever the level of disruption, cash flow and reconciliations are tracked in real time, and the errors that pile up in manual environments fall away.

Payment infrastructure is the foundation of operational resilience

This is a pattern that shows up time and again across payroll, lending, and travel. External pressure builds, and the businesses that manage this well are those with automated, real-time payment infrastructure beneath them.

In a world where disruption is becoming a regular feature, payment infrastructure sits at the heart of how businesses protect themselves, serve their customers, and stay competitive. The organisations that see this now will be in a far stronger position than those that wait for the next shock to discover that payment infrastructure has become much more than an operational function.

Rethinking cross‑border payments: Market Town’s Bitcoin approach from Edinburgh

Written by Henry Murray-Smith, Market Town

“Imagine a contract where every January first, forever, I will give you one dollar. You can sell and transfer this contract. You want to sell this contract to Charlie. How much does he pay?”

This question is really asking “why is a dollar today worth more than a dollar tomorrow?” and is as fundamental to finance as a writer of the English language starting on the left hand side of the page. Charlie buys the contract for about eight dollars.

In 2021, five years into an informal financial education, I stood in the kitchenette of a data centre waiting for tea to brew, closing a wealth management textbook from the CISI (the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment). Concluding my first reading I was more certain finance was, at its most favourable angle, a hot mess. And for all the detail and breadth of my education, I still had no idea what money was.

Some years later, the best definition I can muster is that money is part of human nature. It’s a phenomenon that appears with any collection of people, expressed through technology. My favourite example is cigarettes in prison, because they’re so perfectly divisible and scarce. They also have a practical purpose: you *can* save them to trade another day, or smoke one in a moment of reflection. But step outside prison and cigarettes are no longer tender. A shopkeeper will no sooner trade cigarettes for groceries than they would accept a nugget of gold.

When investigating money, the inevitable subject of Bitcoin appeared. My cynicism only began to erode reading Fidelity’s ‘Bitcoin First Revisited’ which explains why Bitcoin, not the thousands of other ‘web3 projects’ satisfies the properties of money to a greater degree than fiat currencies and gold. I still despised its energy consumption, because I hadn’t connected the dots that, if electricity is almost all of your running costs, finding stranded and renewable energy would be incentivised.

I also hadn’t considered the energy cost of the current system: millions of offices, bank branches, and autoteller machines serviced by vehicles – that system full of failure points, gatekeepers and opaque fees. So what backs Bitcoin? Even if fiat currency isn’t backed by gold (anymore) it’s backed by a government’s ability to raise taxes and sell bonds. Well, it takes a lot of energy to mine one Bitcoin, almost a hundred thousand US dollars of electricity. It can’t be created without significant cost. Saying it’s backed by energy doesn’t exactly stir the soul, but it is, and the market values that captured energy, or that Bitcoin, very highly.

So why wasn’t there a browser for the Bitcoin network, I wondered? Why didn’t some clever developer build a portal like so many thousands of startups during the early days of the internet, which had Mosaic and Netscape? The sad truth is that many of the innovation dollars went to adjacent crypto projects pretending to be superior to Bitcoin, optimised for different things, and now they’re all fading. Only Bitcoin persists, everything else dies and, yet, few use it as currency.

Today, half a billion people own Bitcoin, most indirectly, and it’s one per cent of global money supply. Numbers like these inspire us to build the future of payments, banking and financial services.

After eighteen months of product development, our mobile app is being designed in California by Alexander Lambert, who led the design, often from day one, of Friendster.com, car sharing platform Getaround.com, and Airkit.com (acquired by Salesforce).

To explore our roadmap beyond global payments, say hello@market.town

Learn more about Edinburgh fintech Market Town and its Bitcoin‑powered cross‑border payments platform.

Regulatory Insights: September 2025 – Balancing Growth, Innovation and Consumer Protection

Our strategic partner Pinsent Masons has released the September edition of its FS Regulatory Risk Trends update, highlighting the latest developments shaping the UK regulatory landscape.

This third edition of 2025 comes at a time when government and regulators are under pressure to balance economic growth, innovation and competitiveness with strong consumer protection and the integrity of the financial system.

FCA focus: innovation with safeguards

The FCA continues to implement its five-year strategy, with an emphasis on innovation and efficiency. This quarter’s insights point to several areas of interest:

AI regulation and adoption: the FCA is engaging with the opportunities and risks around AI in financial services.
Payments innovation: consultations on contactless payments and targeted support show a regulatory push for consumer benefit and wider adoption.
Market infrastructure: the FCA has approved the first PISCES platform, a milestone for digital settlement systems.

Wider government initiatives

Alongside the FCA’s actions, HM Treasury is consulting on significant changes to the redress framework overseen by the FCA and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). These proposals could have a major impact on how firms manage complaints and consumer redress.

Risks on the horizon

While innovation is encouraged, firms also face heightened scrutiny. Recent regulatory activity includes:

Market reviews into retail insurance, digital customer journeys and premium finance.
Ongoing exploration of the future of cryptoasset regulation.
Criminal prosecutions linked to financial crime.
Preparations for an industry-wide redress scheme following the Supreme Court motor finance case in August.

To discover the full update click here.

Scotland’s Evolving Coworking Landscape: Glasgow, Edinburgh & Aberdeen Lead the Way in Q2

As Scotland’s fintech and innovation economy continues to thrive, so too does its flexible office infrastructure by offering agile, scalable workspaces that meet the needs of growing startups, enterprise teams, and remote workers alike.

According to CoworkingCafe, Scotland is now home to 279 coworking spaces, placing it firmly on the map as one of the UK’s most active regions for flexible work. The report draws on proprietary July 2025 data and offers in-depth insight into inventory levels, subscription pricing, and operator presence across the UK and Ireland.

Scotland’s Coworking Snapshot: Q2 2025
Total inventory: 279 coworking locations

National median prices across Scotland:
Monthly memberships: £150
Day passes: £23
Virtual offices: £95
Meeting rooms: £25/hour
Top Scottish operator: Wasps, with 18 locations

As fintech companies continue to scale and decentralise, demand for high-quality, flexible workspace solutions is rising outside of London and the South East. Scotland’s coworking scene — especially in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen — offers a cost-effective, collaborative alternative to traditional office setups. Let’s take a closer look at how these top-performing coworking hubs are shaping the future of flexible work in Scotland.

Glasgow: Scotland’s Largest Coworking Market

With 61 coworking spaces, Glasgow ranks #4 in the UK overall and stands out as Scotland’s leading hub for flexible office solutions. The city combines affordability with an increasingly sophisticated offer — making it attractive to both startups and established businesses.

Monthly memberships: £160 — below the UK median (£180), but slightly above the Scottish median (£150)
Day passes: £23 — tied for the most affordable in the UK
Virtual offices: £119 — significantly higher than the national and Scottish averages
Meeting rooms: £23/hour — one of the UK’s most cost-effective options

Edinburgh: High Demand, Premium Pricing

Edinburgh ranks #5 nationally, with 55 coworking locations offering a premium experience in the heart of Scotland’s capital. The city’s thriving fintech sector and knowledge economy are reflected in above-average pricing.

Monthly memberships: £192 — well above both Scottish and UK medians
Day passes: £30 — a capital-level price, in line with greater London
Virtual offices: £99 — slightly above the UK and Scottish averages
Meeting rooms: £40/hour — among the most expensive in the UK outside of London

Aberdeen: A Growing Presence in the UK Top 15

With 26 coworking spaces, Aberdeen ranks #11 in the UK and completes Scotland’s trio of cities in the national top 15. Its coworking market is maturing steadily, balancing competitive pricing with national benchmarks.

Monthly memberships: £160 — on par with Glasgow
Day passes: £28 — higher than average, reflecting solid demand
Virtual offices: £95 — matching both the UK and Scottish medians
Meeting rooms: £30/hour — aligned with the national average

For a deeper look at coworking trends across the UK and Ireland — including operator rankings, detailed city-level data, and full pricing breakdowns — explore the full Coworking Industry Report for Q2 2025.

Photo by CoWomen: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-using-laptop-photography-2041398/

Navigating Imposter Syndrome in Tech Leadership Roles

Imposter syndrome at work can affect anyone, regardless of how senior they are or their impressive professional background. Even in the fintech world, where innovation and confidence are prized, self-doubt can manifest and affect high-performing leaders.

Imposter syndrome can emerge when leaders are confronted with the dual pressures of high expectations and rapid industry evolution, particularly in fintech, where technology moves at lightning speed. Imposter syndrome is more common than we often acknowledge, and knowing you’re not alone can be helpful in taking the first step.

Spotting the Signs of Imposter Syndrome

There are some tell-tale symptoms fintech leaders should be mindful of, particularly as they step into new roles or face significant challenges:

Persistent Self-Doubt: Despite proven achievements, you may question whether you’re qualified enough to lead your team. This is especially prevalent in a field like fintech, where the technology and regulatory landscapes are constantly shifting.
Attributing Success to External Factors: Many leaders downplay their role in success, attributing achievements to “luck,” “good timing,” or team efforts, sidelining their own contributions.
Fear of Failure: The high stakes in innovation can cause hesitation in leaders, stalling key decisions out of fear of public mistakes.
Difficulty Accepting Praise: Praise can feel uncomfortable, as though you haven’t earned it or it is not deserved, even if the results show otherwise.
Feeling Like a Fraud: Despite scaling teams or raising funding rounds, a lingering fear persists that one day, “the truth” about your perceived inadequacies will come out.

What Drives Imposter Syndrome

The fast-paced, competitive environment in tech can often amplify feelings of inadequacy. When this is accompanied by a top-down management style, this can unintentionally exacerbate imposter syndrome. Leaders operating in progressive firms find value in adopting a coaching style.

Equally,a drive for perfection, common among tech leaders, can fuel imposter syndrome. In fintech, teams may be handling critical financial solutions or compliance-heavy challenges, which can make leaders feel overwhelmed by the need for flawless execution.

For many, a lack of a strong support systems can also drive that overwhelming feeling. While this is certainly improving, many tech organisations have limited opportunities to openly discuss vulnerabilities. Peer groups become a value asset for everyone, but especially for those feeling a sense of loneliness in their leadership role.

Recognising Growth vs. Imposter Syndrome

It’s important to distinguish between natural discomfort from stepping into a new, challenging role and true imposter syndrome. Feeling unsettled during periods of growth can be a positive sign. It means you’re stretching yourself outside of your comfort zone.

However, if self-doubt persists long-term or intensifies despite external success, it may signal deeper imposter syndrome that needs addressing.

I’ve worked with lots of highly capable leaders willing to challenge themselves to move beyond their existing comfort zone. Feeling off balance and/or a sense of discomfort is normal and to be expected when you’re growing. But if you’re still doubting yourself long after the wins stack up, that’s not humility, that’s imposter syndrome in disguise.

Strategies for Managing Imposter Syndrome

So how do you deal with the challenges of imposter syndrome? It doesn’t have to impede your leadership. Here are a few practical steps to combat it:

Shift Your Mindset: Transitioning to a leadership role requires a company-wide perspective rather than just focusing on your niche. Spend time understanding how other departments, including engineering or compliance, align with the overall vision. Spend the first few meetings observing rather than contributing. Listen to understand team dynamics and alignments.
Lean Into Coaching: Don’t rely solely on your current expertise. Coaching can help uncover blind spots in leadership and offer clarity, and provide a sounding board. In-person executive coaching is a powerful tool for deep personal growth. Complementing this with innovative solutions like AI leadership coaching apps, make coaching more accessible, offering real-time support across a wide range of scenarios and providing around-the-clock guidance when you need it most.
- Delegate and Empower: Avoid the trap of micromanaging as an enterprise scales. Effective delegation helps leaders maintain focus on high-value priorities while teams feel trusted with ownership of responsibilities.
Build a Network: Connect with external leaders, both within and outside the world of FinTech. Whether it’s meeting other founders or attending conferences, these connections inspire new ideas and reinforce how widespread certain challenges are in the sector.
Set Realistic Expectations: Startups and scale-ups thrive on innovation over perfection. Mistakes will happen, but they often lead to invaluable lessons. Start small, iterate, and improve.
Reframe Success: There may be a mindset shift required, from considering the volume of tasks completed on a given day, to how, as a leader, you are contributing towards long term strategies.

Avoiding the Comfort Zone Trap

One of the biggest risks for leaders in any sector battling imposter syndrome is retreating to the comfort zone of their previous roles. Whether it’s over-involvement in day-to-day technical work or doubling down on tasks better suited to others, this behaviour can:

Frustrate teams by signalling a lack of trust.
Undermine broader strategic goals.
Increase feelings of inadequacy, as managing every detail cannot solve complex challenges.

This can be a difficult shift. It’s common to like hanging on to the things we’re great at, it’s comforting, and can be a security blanket. But growth demands a shift. The real leadership move is letting go of what you can do well and stepping into what your company actually needs from you now.

Leaders’ Takeaway

Imposter syndrome may not discriminate, but it’s navigable. By acknowledging it, seeking support, and adjusting your focus from perfection to progress, leaders can drive innovation and growth without being derailed by self-doubt.

Imposter syndrome comes with the territory, particularly in tech. But when you reframe it as part of a learning experience rather than a limitation, you’ll find that it’s not an obstacle but a stepping stone.

Kirsty Bathgate, accredited executive coach, founder of gearingforgrowth.com and co-founder of www.bravyn.ai

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Dealing with deal fatigue: managing your finances after selling a business

Selling a business can be both financially rewarding and emotionally exhausting. After months of negotiations, scrutiny and stress, it’s common for many entrepreneurs to experience ‘deal fatigue’. This is a state of mental and emotional burnout that makes it difficult to immediately tackle personal financial planning.

Yet, with potentially millions in proceeds at stake, it’s crucial to protect your wealth while giving yourself space to reflect and plan your next steps. Here’s how to strike that balance.

Take time to reflect

The period following a business sale is ideal for pausing and reassessing your goals. Beyond the financial windfall, the sale often marks a major lifestyle shift. Before making long-term financial decisions, it’s important to understand what you want your future to look like.

Rushing into investments or commitments without clarity can lead to costly mistakes or the need to unwind decisions later.

The four-box framework

To help navigate this transitional phase, a structured approach can provide both security and flexibility. One effective method is the ‘four-box framework,’ which segments your funds based on short and long-term needs:

1. Instant access

This is your emergency fund. It’s liquid, safe and ready for unexpected expenses. Typically held in an instant-access savings account, it won’t earn much interest but offers peace of mind. Just be aware of the £85,000 Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protection limit per person, per bank, were the bank to fail. Note that FSCS protection does not apply to NS&I, but these accounts are guaranteed by HM Treasury.

2. Lost income replacement

Post-sale, many entrepreneurs see a drop in regular income, especially if they stay on in a reduced capacity. This box covers the shortfall, ensuring you can maintain your lifestyle while you transition. For instance, if your income drops from £200,000 to £80,000, this fund bridges the gap.

3. Capital expenditure

This box is for planned expenses such as celebratory purchases, tax bills, mortgage repayments or other large outlays expected in the next few years. Setting aside funds for these ensures they’re accounted for without disrupting your broader financial strategy.

4. Long-term investments

This is where your future wealth grows. However, it’s wise not to rush into investment decisions immediately after a sale. Your risk tolerance may be temporarily skewed, and markets can be volatile. Taking time to develop a thoughtful investment strategy is key. Investment firms also fall under FSCS protection, but this is only applicable if the firm fails, not if investment underperform. Remember, investments carry risk and you could get back less than you invested.

Using a gilt ladder

To manage these medium-term needs (such as those outlined in points two and three earlier) while avoiding the risks of equities or the erosion of cash by inflation, a ‘gilt ladder’ can be a smart solution. This involves purchasing UK government bonds (gilts) with staggered maturities that align with your income or capital needs.

For example, if you need £120,000 annually for the next three years, you can build a gilt portfolio that pays out that amount each year. These can also be adjusted for inflation. Additional gilts can be used to cover future expenses or serve as a temporary holding place for long-term investment funds.

While gilts are generally lower risk than equities, their value can fluctuate with interest rate changes, especially those with longer maturities. That’s why it’s important to seek professional advice when building a gilt ladder or exploring other investment options.

Creating space to plan what’s next

Selling a business is a major life event. The financial gain is significant, but so is the emotional impact. A structured approach like the four-box framework helps you secure your wealth while giving you the breathing room to consider your next chapter, whether that’s retirement, a new venture, or something entirely different.

Article written by Alison Fitzsimons at Evelyn Partners – alison.fitzsimons@evelyn.com

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Crypto, Code, and Kilts: Scotland’s FinTechs Eye the Metaverse

The metaverse is not the internet extended online; it’s a virtual, always-present universe where users can engage and with other users, and with the world, in real time. Decentraland, The Sandbox, and HTC Viverse are some of the earliest innovators, providing virtual worlds for social interaction, gaming, business, and entertainment. Platforms are growing exponentially, with virtual real estate markets alone reaching $1.4 billion in 2022, 180% year-on-year.

These virtual assets fund this new metaverse economy. The user payments in these areas need to be preceded by secure, scalable, and efficient financial services. Scottish fintech firms can bridge this gap at this point.

Why Scottish FinTechs Ought to Take Notice

Scotland is a natural candidate for fintech metaverse leadership for several reasons:

Innovation heritage in finance and technology (host to the Bank of Scotland, one of the oldest in the world).
Edinburgh and Glasgow as global fintech hubs.
UK pro-business policies and regulatory sandboxing possibilities.
Solid academic foundation facilitating blockchain, AI, and quantum computing R&D.

Harnessing these strengths, Scottish fintechs can offer the infrastructure to secure, grow, and make the metaverse economy accessible.

Scottish Fintech Opportunities in the Metaverse

Facilitating Seamless Payments

Metaverse legacy payment systems also break down due to latency, security, and interoperability. Scottish fintechs can create and deploy metaverse-native payment solutions. Some of them are:

Cryptocurrency Payment Gateways: Enabling users to pay in cryptos like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or stablecoins.
NFT-Based Transactions: Enabling users to buy and sell digital assets using NFT marketplaces.
Cross-Platform Payment Systems: Developing cross-platform transaction solutions.

With blockchain technology, such payment systems are able to provide transparency, security, and efficiency in the midst of the virtual economy’s inherent challenges.

Digital Asset Management

The boom of the digital asset metaverse demands strong management solutions. Scottish fintechs can create platforms upon which users can store their digital assets securely, track, and manage them, for instance:

Digital Wallets: Empowering users to be able to benefit from secure storage of cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Asset Tracking Tools: Providing information and insights into the value and performance of digital assets.
Portfolio Management Services: Helping people to diversify and manage their portfolios of digital assets.

These services can make people experts in decision-making and achieving optimum advantages from their digital assets.

Virtual Financial Services

With the maturity of the metaverse comes the maturity of the need for conventional financial services within such virtual environments. Scottish fintechs can be at the forefront in being innovative by providing such services as:

Virtual Banking: Virtual branch establishment through which consumers can access banking services in the form of loans, savings accounts, and advice on finances.
Insurance Products: Creating insurance products specific to the virtual environment and assets.
Investment Platforms: Establishing venues through which users can invest in metaverse property, digital artwork, and other assets of the metaverse.

By incorporating these services into the metaverse, Scottish fintechs will connect mainstream finance to the virtual economy.

Strategic Benefits of Scottish Fintechs

Organic Financial Ecosystem

Scotland has a well-established financial services industry with Edinburgh and Glasgow being key hubs for banks, insurers, and investment companies. This established environment is perfectly suited to allow fintechs to grow and thrive in the metaverse.

Favorable Regulatory Environment

UK regulatory environment provides reassurance and relief to fintech firms, especially those dealing with new-generation technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrency. Such a facilitative climate will assist in smoothening the spread and roll-out of financial products derived from the metaverse.

Talent and Innovation Access

Scotland has a robust tech community and top-class universities, adequate access to leading talent, and frontier-level research. Access to the latter pool is most critical in creating innovative solutions fit for the metaverse.

AML, KYC-as-a-Service, and Compliance

Meta-mode operations pose significant regulatory issues, particularly issues of money laundering, identity theft, and jurisdictional compliance.

Scottish fintechs with regtech experience can provide:

AI-driven transaction monitoring platforms for virtual economies.
Avatar-based KYC services using facial recognition or voice biometrics.
Decentralized identity systems that are GDPR- and UK data protection legislation compliant.

Fintech providers such as Symphonic Software (policy-based access control) or The ID Co. (financial identity specialists) could leverage their products into this environment.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and DAOs

Decentralized finance—DeFi—is one of the pillars of the metaverse ecosystem. It allows trustless, peer-to-peer financial systems without brokers or banks.

Scottish fintechs can:

Develop DeFi protocols for lending, borrowing, and staking in metaverse tokens.
Develop DAO governance platforms for controlling community-owned financial institutions.
Provide DeFi risk analytics platforms to enable users to evaluate protocol safety.

By connecting with Ethereum-based DeFi or Layer-2s such as Arbitrum and Optimism, these businesses are able to tap into an emerging global phenomenon while taking Scottish fintech IP to the world.

Challenges and Considerations

Regulatory Uncertainty

The metaverse is ubiquitous, frequently making legacy finance regulation useless. Scottish fintechs need to navigate this intricate regulatory environment to stay compliant and risk-free.

Security and Privacy Issues

The virtual metaverse online environment is susceptible to cyber attack. Fintechs need to have proper security measures that protect user information as well as financial transactions.

User Adoption

User adoption can destroy or create financial services in the metaverse. Scottish fintechs need to invest in user education and offer interfaces that are simple to use so that they can enable high usage.

Looking Ahead: The Next Five Years

As the metaverse transitions from experimental to critical, fintech will transition from backend utility to frontline enabler of digital life.

We can expect to see:

A virtual Scottish stock exchange for digital assets.
Interoperable digital IDs created in Scotland are used worldwide.
Tokenized whisky or property exchanged within metaverse marketplaces.
Avatar-based banking is linked to Web3 wallets and VR headsets.

By 2030, metaverse financial services might be a multibillion-pound industry, with Scotland positioned as a global hub for this emerging economy.

Conclusion

The metaverse represents a new and exhilarating frontier for the digital economy, with unprecedented scope for innovation in financial services. Scottish fintechs, in their cutting-edge capability and nurturing environment, are best placed to spearhead the progression of payment infrastructure capability, digital asset management ability, and virtual financial services fitting for this new virtual world. By embracing these opportunities, Scottish fintechs can spearhead the construction of the metaverse’s finance future.

Author’s Bio:

Druti Banerjee

Content Writer

The Insight Partners

LinkedIn: Druti Banerjee

Druti Banerjee is a storyteller at heart following the precision of research with the art of words. Druti, a content writer for The Insight Partners, combines creative flair with in-depth research to create words that bewitch. She approaches every piece she does with an academic yet approachable perspective, having a background in English Literature and Journalism.

Beyond the screen, Druti is a passionate art enthusiast whose love of creativity is rooted in the creations of great artists such as Vincent Van Gogh. An avid reader, dancer, and ever-ready to pen down thoughts, always up for binge-watching and chai on repeat. Preacher of the following vision by Vincent Van Gogh, “What is done in love, is done well”, draws inspiration from the realms of art, history, and storytelling to bring to life via writing the rich hues of culture and the complexity of human expression. The aim is to capture the nuance of the human experience—one carefully chosen word at a time.