Helping to build Scotland’s digital expertise
Blog written by Anthony Rafferty, Managing Director at Origo
This week Origo was delighted to welcome Kate Forbes, Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy to our Edinburgh headquarters to talk about the critical tech-based services Origo delivers for the financial services sector, as well as our commitment to the future generations through our apprenticeship scheme.
We wanted Ms Forbes to see the important work being developed in Scotland and how we as a company invest in our digital skills, including development of relevant apprenticeships, to enable us to deliver industry critical services to the rest of the UK.
Origo is committed to developing digital skills both within the Scottish FinTech sector and within the company, and as well as being introduced to staff generally, we were pleased to be able to introduce Ms Forbes specifically to our apprentices and Cyber Security graduate apprentice, Taylor McAuley.
As Cyber Resilience is important to Scotland’s digital economy, Ms Forbes was also briefed on Origo’s digital ID service, called Unipass, that is used by 8 out 10 financial advisers in the UK to securely access digital services from financial providers and platforms.
We were also proud to provide a demonstration of Origo’s world-leading Pension Finder Service for the Government’s Pensions Dashboard project. The role of Pensions Dashboards is to find and display an individual’s pension savings on one screen and is intended to encourage people to engage with and, where appropriate, take action on their retirement income planning.
Origo has been heavily involved in the Pensions Dashboard project from the outset in 2014 and we are excited by the potential for Pensions Dashboard to not only benefit millions of individuals and potentially improve their financial outcomes, but also help to drive further innovation by facilitating an open pensions environment.
Commenting on her visit to our Edinburgh headquarters, Ms Forbes said:
“Origo looks set to reinforce Scotland’s reputation for high quality and innovative digital skills and services. The FinTech is investing in our youth through development and support of apprentices and a graduate apprentice as well as recruiting from a specialist digital academy, Code Clan.
“Origo’s innovative Pension Finder Service will be critical to the Pensions Dashboard project and will also enable other and different FinTechs to get involved in delivering technology such as user interfaces and integration services.
“Scotland is a highly competitive business location, with investment built around the quality of innovation and the digital skills of our workforce. Companies such as Origo can play a big part in making Scotland a centre of digital excellence.”
Alastair Ross, Head of Public Policy (Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) for the Association of British Insurers, also attended the Minister’s visit. He added:
“Millions of savers stand to benefit from a pensions dashboard system ”“ an initiative with cross-party support and the backing of consumer groups ”“ which will give everyone much easier access to information about their own retirement prospects. The ABI, having led a cross-industry group of pension providers, pension schemes and FinTech companies, has already delivered a great deal of the work needed to make Dashboards a reality and we look forward to continuing this collaboration with Government.”
Origo was formed 30 years ago in Edinburgh, making us one of the UK’s longest established FinTechs and we are proud of our long history at the forefront of innovation in Scotland’s and the UK’s financial services industries.
We are dedicated to improving the financial services industry’s operating efficiencies, lowering costs for market participants and improving outcomes for consumers. We work collaboratively with government, other industry bodies as well as product providers, platforms, financial advisers, portals and software suppliers, to find new ways to cut costs and make processes more efficient.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ The Energy Fueling FinTech!
There has been a frenzy of energetic fintech activity over the last few weeks even with the interruption of a sunny Easter break.
I’ve seen this energy fuel innovation and collaboration across a diverse range of engaged fintech participants and it is really exciting to be in amongst the activity.
For example, a couple of weeks ago I had the privilege to judge to the fintech innovation pitches by the University of Edinburgh entrepreneurship students along with David McLeay from Scottish Widows.
I was blown away by the students creative and imaginative new business models to reinvent financial services, many of which could complement propositions being developed by Scottish fintech firms.
Congratulations to Ben Spigel, the Chancellor’s Fellow at the Business School, for leading such a talented group of students. Many of whom I am sure we will hear about in the fintech community in the future.
Energetic Talent
Another example of this energetic fintech talent was catching up with Elisabetta Trasatti and Andrea, the very inspiring President and Vice President of the University of Glasgow Student FinTech Society
Absolutely fantastic to hear about their plans for the year for the Society, recognized as one of the largest student fintech student groups in Europe, and how they are engaging with the fintech sector.
Excited about working with the team, especially looking forward to an energy charged evening with Jazz band and more at the Society’s pitch final competition later this year!
My meetings with the brilliant team at University of Strathclyde have further demonstrated how much terrific energy is going in to develop the fintech talent for the future.
I am very excited to be working with the fabulous Martin Hughes, Daniel Broby, Devraj Basu and Tim Bedford in shaping the emerging fintech cluster in Glasgow and connecting with the financial services sector.
Similarly, working with Ksenia Siedlecka and the University of Edinburgh team on the development of the newly launched European FinTech Digital Office focused on new research areas and investing in new enterprises.
There’s a huge amount of interest in the fintech collaboration event being planned for June and it is great to be working with our European colleagues and fintech firms such as on this initiative.
On Tuesday it was great to catch up with the fabulous Michael Young whose energetic MBN Solutions team do so much in supporting development of talent for the sector.
Michael and the team bring a huge amount of energy to the collaboration initiatives across Scotland, especially through their very successful meet up programme.
Energetic City Collaboration
Later that evening on Tuesday, Michael as well as Elisabetta joined me at the Glasgow Economic Leadership meeting where skills development and collaboration were a key part of the discussion.
I very much appreciated the engagement of the group on how we further develop fintech collaboration across the City and thank you to Mark Napier, and JP Morgan for hosting the session.
This energetic city collaboration was also very much in evident when I was invited to present at the FinTech North conference in Manchester a couple of weeks ago.
A wonderful atmosphere generated by a diverse audience and terrific fintech entrepreneurs sharing their innovative propositions to a very engaged audience.
For me it was also special to meet up with some great entrepreneurs such as Adam Bickell of Jamtoday and David Smith a wonderful colleague from 20 years ago, who gave an awesome presentation explaining the Uinsure proposition
The FinTech North conference captured everything that is so special and energetic about the fintech movement and it was a real privilege to be part of it.
Huge thanks to the inspiring leaders Chris Sier and Julian Wells along with the whole FinTech North and Whitecap Consulting team for delivering such an innovative community driven occasion.
I was given the opportunity in Manchester to share the stage as well as catch up with the terrific Charlotte Crosswell, chief executive of Innovate Finance
It was a recognition of our shared values for the ambition for the fintech movement and the mutual opportunities that prompted us to agree to more formally collaborate going forward.
Hence the announcement on Monday this week of a new Fintech National Network to provide collective support for FinTech Scotland, FinTech North and Innovate Finance fintech communities.
Our aim is to see our collaboration activities and engagements provide more support and we are looking forward also to FinTech Wales and FinTech Wales joining with us in the coming months.
The new Network was announced at the Innovate Finance Global Summit in London which a number of the Scottish fintech community attended.
Including Professor Jane Lewis from Womens Coin, a newer member of the Scottish community, who was invited to share how the exciting developments were taking shape in Scotland. Big thanks to Jane.
The week before was another global event, EIE 2019, with many Scottish fintech firms taking centre stage to share their propositions to an international investor audience. A huge accolade must go to Steve Ewing and the team for a fabulous occasion
Big congratulations to everyone who participated, and a special mention to Callum Murray of Amiqus for winning pitch presentation of the day.
Global Energy
Scotland’s fintech activity is certainly attracting global energy, for example it was terrific to welcome the delegation of Hong King and Singapore fintech innovators to Edinburgh on Thursday.
It was great to share the Scottish fintech developments with a diverse range of firms in the morning with Graham Hatton from Scottish Development International.
Then in the afternoon, to have an engaging session in the afternoon with our friends from the Far East with a fantastic mix of people from Scotland’s fintech community, considering collaboration opportunities.
Great to meet Bettina Wong and Charles Lam of Cybersport and Avere Hill of Cynopsis, Ivy Tse of FreightAmigo as well see Joel Ko, again who has exciting fintech plans for Edinburgh
All brilliantly hosted by the fabulous Kent Mackenzie, Chris Brown and the Deloitte team who are doing so much to develop the global fintech collaboration and energy.
The event with a global diversity was wonderful to be part and embodies everything that Scotland’s fintech is all about. All fantastically organized by Karen Craib and Mandy Cooper from Scottish Enterprise.
Sandwiched in between the two events I was given the opportunity to talk about embracing diversity through fintech at the Women in Banking and Finance conference on Thursday.
An absolute privilege to be on the stage in front of a big audience with the inspiring Sue Liburd, Wincie Wong of RBS and Maggie Craig of FCA.
All expertly hosted by the fabulous Andy Nicol, chief executive of Abstract, who do terrific people leadership work in this space.
Many thanks to Niamh Sims and Nomi Puri for inviting me to join you and for a terrific event and energetic atmosphere.
Scotland is certainly contributing to the positive global energy, for example, it was great to catch up with Chris Tait and Omar Shaikh to discuss the fintech participation in their Global Ethical Finance conference
Delighted we are working together on this global exciting event in October which very much reinforces Scotland’s leadership role in sustainable finance as well as fintech.
Also, on the global energy theme it was a pleasure to catch up this week with Gurjit Singh Lalli, the curator of TEDx for Glasgow, about the amazing event planned for June and future role for the fintech community.
I am hugely excited about the global energy being generated by the planned fintech festival for Scotland in September which Mickael is working hard on.
Excellent strategy meeting with the terrific Rory Archibald of Visit Scotland and Karen Craib of Scottish Enterprise who are doing such fantastic work to help us prepare for the festival later this year.
Talking about how we build on this global energy with developing the strategic international opportunities for Scottish fintechs was the key part of the valuable discussion with Lorraine Mallon and Andrea McLeish from SDI this week.
Strategic Energy
Sharing the strategic energy behind the fintech developments in Scotland is always a key role and there have been so many interactions over this last few weeks to do this
For example, we very much valued the opportunity to present to the team at the Financial Conduct Authority and great to meet the teams shaping the regulatory landscape for future fintech progress and good consumer outcomes.
Thank you to Ed Smith and the team for arranging with Nicola for this. We followed this up with a great conversation with Tom Kegode and the innovation team at Lloyds Bank who are leading some terrific strategic fintech collaboration initiatives
Over this last few weeks I have also had the opportunity to discuss the strategic developments with other major financial groups
For example, very enjoyable and constructive conversations with Ali Law of Royal London, Peter Bole of CYBG and Bob Hair of Cazenove.
Along with exploring strategic fintech collaboration opportunities with Jim McCumesty of SAS, Neil Delany of Contis and Kirsty Irvine of JCCA. Brilliant to have their engagement win working with the Scottish fintech community.
On Monday, I had the opportunity to share FinTech Scotland future plans with a broader engaged audience at the FiSAB (Financial Services Advisory Board) quarterly meeting chaired by the First Minister and Jim Pettigrew of CYBG.
It was great to have fintech on the agenda along with the terrific work being led by Barry Connolly of RBS on skills and Helen Page of CYBG on the social impact of financial services.
Both significant pieces of work align with the fintech developments on skills and inclusion and it was great to continue the conversation on these at the Scottish Financial Enterprise AGM on Thursday evening all expertly organized by the magnificent SFE team.
Thank you, Graeme Jones for the FinTech Scotland progress shout out great to be there with the SFE members. Many congratulations to the awesome Sue Dawe for being elected to the SFE Board
Energetic Running
After an eight week injury lay off, I am back out running energetically and what a really amazing feeling in so many ways.
This included a return to the race circuit with the Stirling half marathon last Sunday which was just wonderful.
Coming up are races in Coatbridge, Dalkeith and Balerno as well as a few Saturday morning Park Runs, all before the Edinburgh marathon at the end of May.
Although I’m having to control my running energy at the moment, so I don’t pick up another injury but despite this I have fallen in love with running event more!! Until next time
How AI helped Interactive Investor with Customer engagement
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Blog by Michael Mauchline, Industry Leader, Marketing Automation & Personalisation at Watson Marketing
Very often when AI and investment are mentioned together it is about Robo Advice or high frequency trading. However, in the case of Interactive Investor AI proved useful for customer engagement.
IBM Watson Marketing works with Fintech clients to improve customer engagement as well as boost digital revenues. Interactive Investor deployed the technology in 2018 and have since been able to inspire thousands of customers to actively engage in their portfolios:
- increased newsletter open rates by over 80% through personalising content based on a customer’s segment
- improved clickthrough rates more than 70% by sending emails to customers at optimal times based on an individual’s behavior
Those results were achieved by the personalization of investment content based on customers’ segments. Going beyond segment, personalization was achieved for each individual.
Personalisation isn’t all to do with the content itself but also about send time. By learning about people’s habits IBM Watson was able to send email at the most appropriate time for each individual.
Head of CRM at Interactive Investor, Phil Ireland explains how this happened:
“IBM Watson has been an integral tool over the last six months in helping my team achieve specific objectives set by our business. The platform has allowed us to dynamically target our customers with personalised information. For example, the platform has allowed us to target customers who hold any of the top 20 stocks within our business dynamically with news relating to that stock and provide updates on the performance of each stock.”
“The platform has allowed us to automate our new customer welcome journeys and provide trigger based campaigns dependent upon customer behavioural actions. We’ve seen considerable uplifts in our KPI’s due to the impact of the IBM Watson platform.”
Read the full story at:
https://www.ibm.com/case-studies/interactive-investor
About Watson Campaign Automation
Watson Campaign Automation is a SaaS-based digital marketing automation platform that puts the power of data insights in the hands of the marketer to design smarter campaigns that exceed your customer expectations. Use behavioural data from any source to create consistent campaigns across email, web, mobile push, SMS, social, group messaging and more. Marketers can work smarter with an AI powered Watson Assistant for Marketing’.
- Improve Customer Engagement
- Boost customer engagement and conversion with personalised experiences and offers that connect with your customers, when and where they expect it.
- Increase Customer Loyalty
- Leverage AI-powered insights and capabilities to deliver the right message and offer at the right time in the right channel to grow customer loyalty and, ultimately, revenue.
Any questions? Contact Michael Mauchline 07764 666 813 mauchline@uk.ibm.com
What the heck is that on my Bank statement?
We have all asked that question at one time or another, fretted and then called our Bank to see if it is fraud. Unfortunately, Banks know less than we do because the payment processors do not tell them what a transaction was for. The majority of these calls are about online purchases so friendly call center staff request that we check our email for a receipt.
For this reason I opened my pitch at EIE19 with the statement, With purchasing going on line, there are now 200x more email sent than there are Google searches’, grabbing the attention of the packed University of Edinburgh’s McEwan hall (my thanks to Danny Helson and the EIE team for an amazing event). It went down well, two days later I was pitching to a smart bunch of investors at ESM Investments.
The cost of not knowing
Finding an email receipt for the corresponding Bank transaction is almost impossible, email has become a dumping ground for spam, phishing and promotions. But it’s not just Fraud we worry about, we often want to find the receipt to return goods or use it to process a business expense. Banks also suffer, they field 6 million calls a year from customers concerned about online fraud (UK Finance.org reported that 78% (£393.4 million) of all fraud was online), at an average cost of £5 per enquiry, this costs the industry in excess of £30m a year. If Banks knew what was purchased they could make our customer experience better, for example, offering personalised Travel insurance to someone travelling abroad or putting an Uber button in their App to book the onward taxi and pushing the Uber receipt to the Expenses system to be automatically paid back.
Fixing the problem
As a Data Science business we wanted to find a solution to the problem, we decided to use Machine Learning to extract the data in email receipts and enrich the corresponding Banking transaction, we pursued this route for four reasons;
- Email was dead (email is dead – inc.com), it is becoming just another data source. It was plain that the world had moved on from Email and now prefers Whatsapp, etc for private communication but we all need an email address (and card) to buy things online.
- US financial services were already doing similar stuff, companies like Capital One , Earny.co and Siftwallet.com had been at this for years – they read email receipts, obtained refunds and have amassed millions of users.
- Concerns about Privacy were not founded, especially in Millennials and Gen Zs, as this article Online value exchange by the Populus consultancy showed in The Drum.
- Apple and Google already use Machine Learning to auto add things to a Calendar (iOS 10 Siri auto adds events from email) or Wallet, Google now pulls Tickets and Loyalty data from Gmail and puts it in Google Pay (The Verge – April 16 2019).
Security and Application
Monily uses the same Machine Learning technology as Apple and Google to extract the data from the email receipt found on your Smartphone and populates the Bank transaction with the items you purchased, with no data going to the cloud. This makes it completely secure, safe and private. At first we developed our own App (Shoppa) but we came to realise the real benefits were for Retail and Business Banking, Personal Financial Management applications and Accounting solutions. Using our Splinter solution, we can help to reduce fraud enquiries by 50%, assist in selling personalised financial products and cut expense processing times down by 30%.
After years of development we are now actively selling the product and are pleased to be collaborating with Money Dashboard, pioneers in Personal Financial Management, and others to reduce fraud and improve expenses processing. If you would like to know more please email me on Adrian.James@moni.ly or visit Monily.co and I’ll get right back to you.
Can technology help the crucial impartial debt advice sector?
Photo by Alice Pasqual on Unsplash
The first blog in a series connected to FinTech Scotland’s consumer inclusion work. Nicola Anderson shares her reflections on work we’ve been doing with the impartial and independent debt advice sector. There is no doubt technology and fintech can play a role in the future of this crucial sector and we’re keen to support more collaboration and finding ways to build needed solutions.
Recent research and studies have found that 51% of consumers run out of money before payday; 23% report they are finding it difficult to manage; one in five consumers have no savings and almost 16% of the population can be described as over-indebted.
Recognising demand for debt advice services is rising, we invited representatives from a range of debt advice agencies and Scottish Government to discuss the current problems facing the sector and the potential for seeking technology-based solutions to practically improve the experience for those both providing and receiving debt advice.
Working collaboratively and across sectors the aim of the initiative was to identify priority issues that, if addressed through technological developments, would benefit the debt advice sector, building efficiencies and putting users at its heart.
The input from these experts has shaped three main problems and we’re pleased to share details of these in this blog. Of course, the next stage is to find solutions for these issues! Ever the optimist I’m hopeful that collectively we can do that, starting with sharing what this vital sector thinks its main problem are!
Unanimously, the experts agreed that the problem top of their list was the sectors limited ability to access available data efficiently or to its fullest extent. They shared examples where it can often take weeks to have a fully verified understanding of a clients circumstances, due to time consuming nature of the range of data and documentation checks needed to verify the position. Understandably this can exasperate the stress for people but in addition there can be circumstances where it also can limit the appropriate options for debt advice solutions.
Second problem held by the experts in the room was that current debt solutions and repayment plans are inflexible and do not reflect the reality of people’s lives – which exacerbates problem debt. Current solutions, more often than not, seem to force people into a set date repayment plan with little of no flexibility to reflect the fact that income could be variable or paid at different points each month. The view in the room was that there seemed to be little room for flexibility once a plan was in place and there was a general desire to see all creditors think about the benefits of greater flexibility in repayment plans not just when someone enters a problem debt scenario.
The third problem centered on the lack of pre-emptive engagement options to enable earlier intervention in a developing debt scenario. Experience shows that general recognition of the tipping point’ into problem debt is poor, increasing in the numbers of people moving from debt to problem’ debt scenarios. The inability to recognise the tipping point’ happens across a range of vested stakeholders including, Consumers/Citizens, Financial Organisations and Statutory bodies.
Money Advice Scotland in particular, are hopeful that technology solutions plays a key role in the debt advice sector of the future and have plans to work with FinTech Scotland and the fintech community to help develop and raise further awareness on financial inclusion issues impacting today’s society.
The insights coming directly from the experts who work with people at the heart of this issue are invaluable. Are there any quick wins available to any of these issues ”“ we’d love to know!
In the meantime, thank you to all those who shared their views, its good to know the debt advice sector will continue the focus on this initiative.
Income Verification: The Next Stage in Open Banking
As I’ve iterated more times than I can remember over the last two years, the implementation of Open Banking has changed the face of finance for ever.
To my eye, most financial institutions have now reached base camp’ with Open Banking, that is to say, the development of account aggregation within mobile apps. This is nice, and I’m sure consumers are enjoying having access to all their accounts in one place.
The next stage will be for banks and financial institutions to begin deriving value from its use. Within the next year I fully expect to see new services being launched by banks and FinTech’s that will allow financial institutions as well as consumers to reap the rewards from Open Banking.
To that end, we here at The ID Co. have been working with banks and lenders over the last year to bring a new proposition to market.
The ID Co.’s Income Verification solution offers banks and lenders the opportunity to capitalise on the Open Banking opportunity.
We work with numerous banks and lenders. On top of that we’ve spoken to many more over the course of the last year, both in the UK and Europe, and across the globe.
As such, I have a fairly good idea in my head of some of the challenges that are witnessed in the banking sector. One of the biggest that we’ve witnessed is the need to cut operating costs in order to stay competitive.
It’s no secret that the sector is far more crowded than it was just 10 years ago. And some of the Challenger banks now boast healthy customer acquisition, impressive UX across their apps and the web, and innovative new services.
Banks and lenders therefore have the dual pressures of bringing to market new services that will make their core offerings stickier’, while also attempting to streamline back office solutions.
It’s for this reason that I’d suggest exploring an income verification solution.
Verifying income is vitally important for banks and lenders, ensuring they have an accurate view of applicant’s financial income prior to awarding credit in order to ensure they are lending responsibly and offsetting any future risk of bad debt.
Operational Costs
Having an applicant’s income calculated within seconds of them making an application for a loan or credit totally negates the need for paper-based bank statements. The savings in time and resource here are enormous. It could take a few weeks for an applicant to submit their bank statements. And in that time, there’s plenty of opportunity for them to decide not to proceed, or to find an alternative.
We’re sympathetic to the hurdles that banks and lenders need to jump through in order to grant a loan. As well as AML and KYC checks, there are new rules on affordability to consider. For these reasons and more, it is vital that a sound lending decision is made, and not only that, be able to demonstrate why it was a sound decision.
Income verification allows you to do just that. With a solution such as ours, banks and lenders can know an applicant’s income exactly and can then calculate their monthly disposable income accordingly.
Thin Credit Files
Many of us will have friends and colleagues who are not British by birth. It feels a long time since I made the long journey from Canada to Scotland, but it is one that I remember well.
With individuals moving homes and countries with such frequency why is it that when beginning life in a new country, you also start with a blank credit file? Those with a thin credit file, perhaps because they’ve just moved into the country, can now illustrate their earnings and therefore capacity for credit through income verification.
Credit Risk
It’s a difficult challenge because most people aren’t paid monthly, or consistently. With the gig economy, students, retired, and others, those that get paid monthly are in the minority. To make a decision around credit risk, Underwriters or others need some context on which to base a lending decision. We need to understand what kind of income applicant have ”“ frequency, recency and more are all critical factors.
And this works both ways. While those with thin credit files can demonstrate why they might be right for a loan, it also gives the creditor more protection as they can protect themselves from applicants unable to practically make repayments or those that pose a bad credit risk.
Fraudulent Applications
When we were conducting research into loan applications and how Open Banking could support banks and lenders, I was struck by the volume of fraudulent activity that financial institutions needed to filter out in order to service genuine applications. Open Banking removes any opportunity for fraud as through APIs, direct access is made with an applicant’s bank account. Our Income Verification solution then looks back over many months to calculate income, not just the last one or two.
Conclusion
Income verification is the first of the services that will allow banks and lenders to derive value from Open Banking. The savings in time, cost and resource through its use are enormous and as its such reception from those who have trialled it use has been universally positive.
Reducing fraud, servicing customers with a thin credit file, widening prospect pools of potential customers, and illustrating good governance are all vitally important to lenders in 2019. We think that the introduction of our Income Verification solution will give financial institutions the answers to these questions.
Pensions Dashboards ”“ a positive step forward for the nation’s financial wellbeing
By Anthony Rafferty, MD of Edinburgh-based Fintech, Origo
Improving the overall wellbeing of citizens is becoming and ever more important focus of government, an important element of which is financial wellbeing ”“ the vision being a society where people make the most of their money and pensions through being more financially aware and equipped.
Technology has an important part to play in this, notably in respect of the implementation of the Pensions Dashboards. Primarily, dashboards are about enabling individuals to find and view all their pensions in one place, thereby increasing engagement with their long term savings and retirement planning.
Last week the DWP published its Pensions Dashboards paper, which is the Government’s response to the consultation that ended in December 2018. It sets out the practical steps necessary to implement Dashboards, starting with the establishment of an industry delivery group by the end of the summer under the new Money and Pensions Service (MPAS).
Some initial commentator reaction to the paper suggested the project wasn’t being moved on fast enough, but the paper is what we expected at this stage in the project and we see it as a positive step forward. In the paper, government clearly stated its intention to introduce Dashboards as quickly as possible’.
The four key elements necessary to make the Pensions Dashboards a reality are governance, compulsion to provide data, state pension and digital architecture. Next steps for all of these elements have been addressed in the paper, which we see as good news.
What’s more, through the consultation, government was able to test its proposals with the industry, consumer groups and other interested parties. Some 125 organisations gave feedback and the paper says the vast majority’ of them agreed with the suggested approach.
This approach includes establishing a single Pension Finder Service ”“ the core architecture that orchestrates an individual’s search for their pension data across all pensions companies and which displays their data on the dashboard they have chosen to use.
Origo has taken a leading role in the project from the start, quickly demonstrating how the technology could meet the government’s policy intent and objectives. We have built and scale-tested the central components to more than handle the 15 million and more potential requests the service could receive. Furthermore, we believe that the digital architecture can be deployed quickly to meet the stated timescales.
Through the DWP paper, government has given dashboards the green light. The task now is for the industry to help MAPS and the delivery group take the project forward to launch. It is a most exciting challenge and one that can have a significant positive effect on the wellbeing of this nation’s retirement savers.
Can fintech help employees engage with their work pensions?
Manuel Peleteiro, CEO of Scottish fintech Inbest.ai, Ed Owens from Pension Wise and Gavin Marshal, Senior Financial Wellbeing Consultant at HSBC will be on a panel discussing how technology, amongst other things, can help with engagement when it comes to workplace pension.
This panel will be part of a series of event organised around the latest behavioural research into employee engagement with workplace pensions schemes by Dr. Robertson-Rose of the University of Edinburgh. Her research shows how HR practices influence employee behaviour and explains what employers can do to help increase pension scheme engagement.
Each seminar will last approximately one hour and will be followed by refreshments and an opportunity to network.
These free seminars will be of interest to employers seeking to improve the financial well-being of their employees
Book your tickets
| Locations | Dates | Venues | Tickets |
| Edinburgh | 15 May, 17:00 ”“ 19:00 | University of Edinburgh | Book here |
| Dundee | 16 May, 16:00 ”“ 18:00 | Gallery of Contemporary Arts | Book here |
| Glasgow | 21 May, 16:00 ”“ 18:00 | University of Strathclyde | Book here |
| Aberdeen | 23 May, 16:00 ”“ 18:00 | Society of Advocates Library | Book here |
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Embracing our role in the European FinTech Team!
My travels and meetings over this last few weeks have again reinforced to me that Scotland’s fintech developments are very much embracing being much part of a wider European team.
With our shared values and ambitions, there are enormous opportunities to work with our European team partners in reinventing financial services through fintech innovation.
This was certainly brought alive on Wednesday evening in Edinburgh with the launch of the ground breaking European Innovation and Technology (EIT) Digital Office with its focus on fintech.
European Collaboration
The new fintech digital office based at the Bayes Centre will deepen relationships between Scotland and Europe, increase innovation and investment in new fintech initiatives, grow knowledge exchange across the continent and attract inward investment.
Working with the EIT team along with Scottish Enterprise, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Funding Council and Highland & Islands Enterprise, it has been terrific to see this initiative international come alive.
It was a privilege to share the platform with Willem Jonker and Morgan Gillies at the launch along with Scottish Government Minister Ivan McKee and Charlie Jeffrey from the University of Edinburgh to explain how the collaboration will boost innovation and investment in fintech.
The atmosphere for the launch was made special by having a packed diverse audience with us representing all corners of the Scottish ecosystem.
Including some of the exciting fintech enterprises such as Tynah and Helene from MoneyMatix, James from Xpand, Loral from Sustainably, Rab from Wallet Services, Daniel from Listings Ledger as well as Kevin from Hylomorph.
The event was a great opportunity to catch up with some of the inspiring people making things happen across Scotland driving innovation such as Poonam Malik, Jude McCorry, David Robertson, Jasmina Lazic, Martin Hughes, Amanda Fergusson and Daniel Broby, Terry Murden.
Thank you to Courtney Garner from SciTech Europa for making the long journey to be with us and to the terrific EIT and Edinburgh Innovation teams for making it all happen on the night.
The European collaboration opportunities were also very much in evident for my recent visit to Brussels with Graeme Jones and Clare Carswell of Scottish Financial Enterprise for a range of very constructive meetings at the EU.
There is so much mutual common ground in developing fintech collaboration opportunities and a huge thank you to the magnificent team at Scotland Europa, Sarah English and Marija Ivoninaite and Fraser Clark from SDI.
It was great to have the opportunity to present on Scotland’s fintech progress with an engaged European audience on the Tuesday evening along with Graeme and John Maciver from Pinsent Masons.
We made a number of great connections and I’m sure there will be many more visits to our European friends in the near future as we commit to work even closer.
I flew back from Beautiful Brussels directly to Glorious Glasgow to present at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries to speak at their knowledge sharing session.
It was wonderful to have a very engaging full house with so many of the profession interested in the role of fintech in shaping the future of financial services.
Thank you, John Taylor and Barry Shannon for inviting me to present as well as to Ji-Hyang Lee and Alan Watson for being terrific hosts for the session. I look forward to repeating in Edinburgh in June!
European Innovation
Europe was very much part of the discussion at the asset management dinner on Tuesday evening with Ministers Derek Mackay and Kate Forbes along with senior members of the investment world.
It was good opportunity to share the examples of how the Scottish fintech community is progressing innovation with the major financial institutions in these uncertain times and highlight the growing global interest in Scotland’s fintech sector.
Thank you to Graham Laybourn and the Baillie Gifford team for hosting the engaging evening as well as for the ongoing support from Anurag Agrawal in exploring new ways to develop fintech innovation in asset management.
There are a growing number of global fintech with a focus on asset management looking at setting up in Scotland due to the depth of Scotland’s investment sector.
Talking last week with Hamish Croll of Singapore based fintech BlueFireAi, there is no doubt the potential in Scotland is very much getting recognized.
The opportunities for fintech enterprises are also rapidly evolving in banking and it was great to catch up with Gary McLellan of CYBG this week to develop how we progress the collaboration opportunities
Thanks also Gary for allowing me to be one of your guinea pigs’ for your innovative approaches to online fintech innovations for personal data security, great to experience at first hand.
The RBS fintech accelerator demo day a week or so ago was another fantastic example of a large institution supporting new fintech innovators.
Inspiring pitches on the day including by Adrian James from Monily, Chris Herd from Nexves, James from Xpand.
It was great to be on the stage with Matt Perkins from FreeAgent and Karen Bird of RBS in sharing insights on developing fintech innovation through collaboration
Fantastic leadership by the RBS team Steve Chown and Janice Cunningham for running such a constructive event.
Unfortunately, I could not stay for all the fintech demos as Nicola and I had to dash off to Glasgow for the University of Strathclyde Enterprise Network event.
Another amazing evening listening to the budding entrepreneurs. I was particularly struck by the innovations coming from the Fing & Pay and Hotei fintech teams, both expertly mentored by our friend and fintech guru Nick Cousins.
Many congratulations to the always inspiring Eleanor Mackay, it is no surprise that Strathclyde has an enviable reputation across Europe when it comes to fintech innovation.
This is invaluable in developing the collaborative innovation opportunities for fintech entrepreneurs across Europe and the world.
European Entrepreneurs
It was super to catch up with entrepreneur Derick James, the founder and CEO of Symphonic, to hear about the brilliant progress his team has been making in Europe and wider alongside the move into the new office in Edinburgh.
Very much looking forward to sharing the Symphonic international innovation story with the fintech community in the coming months.
Similarly looking forward to working with experienced expert innovator George Kelsey with what he is brewing up for the fintech world! Reflecting on my catch up coffee with George this week, I must introduce to Derick James.
I’m thinking it could be another example of one plus one equals five in creating even more fintech innovation in collaboration and what a story that would be!
Last week we shared the awesome entrepreneurship story of FNZ who are a fabulous example of a Scottish based fintech expanding in Europe and worldwide in helping consumers manage their long term savings.
Another inspiring innovation example I learnt about in this last fortnight was Cortex Worldwide.
Terrific conversation with founder and chief executive Peter Proud and such a truly inspiring journey in scaling a market leading technology enterprise. Peter’s experience is invaluable, and I am keen to share to many budding entrepreneurs.
The European and global innovation can come in various forms and I really enjoyed meeting Jordan Stewart of AlbaFX in Glasgow recently and hear how his proposition can help small firms gain the most from international trade.
Very much looking forward to connecting Jordan with the growing fintech community to develop mutual valuable connections.
I had the opportunity to meet Craig Anderson of venture capital firm Pentech in this last fortnight as well and talk through how the fintech community was evolving and the emerging investment opportunities.
In this respect, I also had a very constructive conversation with Andrew Wilson of Charlotte Street Partners on how we could do more to help fintech firms present themselves to potential investors.
I’m hoping that talking about the how the Scottish fintech community of firms is developing will encourage more of the entrepreneurial activity across the country.
So, it was good to be interviewed on Monday by Kim McAllister for a new BBC Radio show which will give live in May on the exciting fintech developments and the impact on people’s lives.
Meeting the engaging media professional David Lee on the same day, who is writing the Scotsman supplement on fintech for May, was a good time to reflect the whirlwind of activity over this last twelve months.
I shared with David that a major strength of Scotland’s fintech progress is our diverse range of people.
Whether this is the data analytic expertise being developed by DataLab and the MBN Solutions team, something which was showcased at Aviva a couple of weeks ago in growing their data centre of excellence.
Then there is the fintech entrepreneurial expertise being developed in our universities
In this respect it was wonderful to share joint plans with Claudia Cavalluzzo and Georgia Goodall of Converge Challenge who do amazing with new entrepreneurs from our universities
The enterprise spirit was very much demonstrated to Nicola and me recently when we were asked to present to the University of Stirling fintech postgraduate students.
A terrific group of people and thank you Andrea Bracciali for arranging the session, really enjoyable and insightful as was the visit to Newbattle Community Campus to see first hand the wonderful progress of this new digital’ school environment
Newbattle is very progressive educational role model for the future and it was absolutely fantastic to spend time with Gib McMillan and leadership team and the inspiring students, in their hands we have a very bright future.
The conversation with David Lee also gave me the opportunity to reaffirm the ambition to be a top five global fintech centre one year into the journey and the importance of working with European and global partners to achieve this goal
European Partners
One such group of partners are of good friends in Ireland and it was just absolutely wonderful to spend a few days in Dublin as part of Scottish Irish Finance Initiative (SIFI) conference on fintech.
Such a warm and welcoming reception from our European partners and the mutual relationships being developed though the SIFI team are going to be invaluable going forward.
Massive thank you to magnificent SIFI trio David Clarke, Pete Townsend and Terry Quinn for organising as well as to the brilliant Dublin Business School team, Andrew Quinn, Andrew Conlan-Trant and Rory Mo-ran.
It was great to hear from so many new friends such as the inspiring Hesus Inoma and the amazing Susan Sweeney as well as Scotland’s leading fintech guru Daniel Broby of University of Strathclyde.
The trip to Ireland also gave the me the opportunity to meet up with Peter Oakes, the highly respected global fintech leader and founder of FinTech Ireland. Thanks Emma Shiel from SDI for arranging and joining us.
It was fantastic to hear first hand the story behind FinTech Ireland and the significant presence Peter has established in Europe and across the globe. Peter’s next trip was to help with the formation of FinTech Cyprus, another European partner for is to collaborate with.
It was poignant that we met Peter in the Hibernian Club and sat in the very chair that FinTech Scotland was conceived five years ago.
Looking forward to developing closer collaboration with Peter and the FinTech Ireland team as European partners.
My return from Dublin was via Hampshire (and Reading to see my mum) as I had the opportunity to meet up with Mark Hanson, Managing Director of Simply Health who provide valuable health insurance plans for millions of consumers.
The worlds of fintech, insurtech, healthtech all overlap, and we had a super conversation on some emerging innovations in this space and the potential to work in partnership with University of Edinburgh and entrepreneurs to explore further.
Collaborative partnership is also very much at the core in developing a Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence in Scotland and we are delighted the joint FinTech Scotland, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Enterprise and FDATA proposal has been shortlisted for funding.
A huge amount of credit for this must go to our very own European and Global Open Finance presidential’ leader, Gavin Littlejohn who is instrumental in the strategic development.
I’m looking forward to seeing Gavin next week when he returns from formidable open finance mission trip to Hong Kong, Australia and India.
The Open Finance initiative is facilitating further collaboration with partners and this is also true of the Ethical Finance Hub team based at Heriot Watt University
It was valuable to catch up with Chris Tait recently and talk through the fintech contribution to the Global Ethical Finance Forum which will take place in Edinburgh in October with many distinguished international partners.
Barry Wingate it would be super to work in partner with you on this following our chat a week or so ago!
International partnerships were the focus of the conversation with James Bernard of the Dubai DMMC, the enterprise agency, when we met in Edinburgh last week, thank you Russell Dalgleish for making the connection.
Encouraging a European and global innovation and growth mindset with the Scottish entrepreneurial community as a key focus of the conversation for the executive dinner of fintech organized by FWB Park Brown last Wednesday evening.
I very much valued the challenge and constructive feedback from the diverse group of successful business leaders from sectors outside of financial services and fintech and thank you to those who have reached out to follow up.
Big thanks to Graham Burns and Michael Dickson for expertly arranging and professionally hosting the engaging evening, I look forward to the next one, maybe in Aberdeen or even another European city?
Running Europe
Unfortunately, and to much frustration, my toe injury has not cleared up which means my running opportunities in Europe have been somewhat curtailed.
Whilst the buzz of the exciting fintech activity with so many fabulous people has kept me occupied, I am a bit of a bear with a sore head’ as I have not been able to get out and run.
I have tried swimming, but my limited breaststroke ability does not replace the three hour runs I so much enjoy!!
I know I will need to be patient in recovering but if I look angst when you see me you will know why!
Let’s hope I am going to be ready for the Stirling, Livingston and Lock Leven half marathons in the run up to Edinburgh marathon in May!! Until next time.
Utilising the Irish/Scottish finance corridor
Blog written by Terry Quinn at the Scottish Irish Finance Initiative
The Scottish Irish Finance Initiative seeks to serve the people of both Scotland and Ireland, the companies that already work in our communities and the wider global financial services industry, whom we hope to attract to our corridor.
In our first 18 months of operations we have already created the beginnings of a common financial industry between Scotland and Ireland, emphasising the benefits of treating both places as the bridge to overcome trading barriers and as a target for new investments. The only sure-fire way that we can maintain our world beating financial industries and see off the challenge from locations such as Berlin, Paris and financial hubs in Asia, is through greater cooperation, and we are delighted that we are garnering such interest in our initiative.
Ireland and Scotland have enough in common culturally, legally and politically to make cooperation worthwhile, and enough complementary skills so as to make cooperation beneficial to both parties. We have already seen fruitful progress in the fintech sector through meetings organised between Irish and Scottish companies, considering a wide range of innovative solutions in areas such as data quality and cleansing. Our project is also driving engagement in ensuring that both locations benefit from cooperation in areas such as asset management and servicing and the creation of a more unified labour market.
Our aim with this document is to gather together into one place the resources that any company might need to mitigate any Brexit challenges, and to guide them in using the Scottish Irish corridor in their future growth plans. Already the challenge of Brexit has spurred some companies into accelerating sales programmes and to look proactively at the international options available to them.
Our hope now is that trade between Scotland and Ireland will not only continue but expand and that a proactive, pragmatic and sensible approach to Brexit difficulties can actually open up opportunities.
One of the key targets as set to us by our Advisory Group is to bring together in one document all the information that anyone interested in the Scottish Irish finance corridor would need.
The result can be found here:
http://scottishirishfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIFI_brexit_utility.pdf
At present it’s focused on expediency in mitigating Brexit challenges but this is just the first iteration and we hope this will develop over time to become a fully fledged guide to all that our fabulous industries and companies have to offer the global finance sector and its clients and stakeholders.