Interview with Stephen Ingledew on why fintech matters
Our CEO Stephen Ingledew was interviewed by the Enterprise Pathway Programme team from Strathclyde university.
He gave his view on why fintech matters, the impact it can have on society and why it provides exciting new jobs for the future.
What is Fintech?
Why is it important to innovate in Fintech?
What opportunities are there to innovate in fintech?
What support is available for fintech businesses?
What examples are there in terms of existing fintech businesses?
What advice would you give to those considering a career in Fintech?
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Falling in Love with FinTech!
It is just so wonderful to see so many people falling in love with fintech and how it is fueling the opportunity to innovate through collaboration and inclusion.
This was very much the case on Wednesday morning when I joined the Lloyds Bank and Google teams for a Falling in Love with FinTech’ breakfast meet up.
The diverse audience from the fintech community, academia, large financial enterprises and many other organisations made a terrific atmosphere.
Big thanks to Misha Cunningham and Google Digital team for their fabulous hospitality
This meet up was brilliantly led by the inspiring Sarah Kenrick along with Tom, Kegode, Lisa Caldwell and Lloyds Bank team.
Lloyds, one of the initial founders of FinTech Scotland, are developing impressive innovations and collaborations by engaging the fintech community.
Community Love
The community love continued the next evening as we held FinTech Scotland Fusion’ gathering where we had a fantastic buzz and atmosphere. I know some carried it on into the very late hours!
The Fusion’ was expertly organized by our entrepreneurial friend Aleks Tomczyk with great collaboration and generosity from Kirsty Irvine and Johnston Carmichael.
Wonderful mini spotlight talks from Myles Stephenson of Modulr, Hannah Rudman of Wallet Services, Loral Quinn of Sustainably and Stuart Lunn of LendingCrowd as well as our fintech grandfather’ Gavin Littlejohn.
They all brought alive the evening by sharing their experiences and latest news and reaffirmed to a very diverse and engaged audience why falling in love with fintech was so easy.
We all decided that Fusion’ meet up will be a regular event in addition to our frequent fintech practitioner forums across Scotland so more on this to come
The community plays such an important role in welcoming new fintech enterprises working in Scotland and it was terrific to see firms new to the community with us on Thursday such as SageCity, Listings Ledger and Miconex.
The role of the community is something I shared with Stuart Harvey of Datatics and Graham Paterson a couple of weeks ago and we look forward to seeing them both at future events.
Supporting the growth of new fintech enterprises will see the community expand across Scotland and it is fantastic to be working with the Craig Wilson, Colin Carmichael of Sopra Steria and Gordon Donald and John Lonsdale of University of Edinburgh with a new accelerator programme.
Supporting the love of fintech innovation was very much in evidence when Mickael and I spent some time last week at Codebase with the Barclays Eagle Lab team.
Always wonderful to catch up with Trish McClay and talk about their terrific engagement along with the magical fintech entrepreneur Suhail Ahmad of AdviserDirect and the awesome Colin Hewitt of Float, who have now expanded into twenty plus nations.
We had been in Codebase the previous week for two fantastic sessions of massive significance in bringing more love into fintech, both of which will spread the fintech love far and wide.
Downstairs we had a FinTech consumer inclusion workshop with the Karen Rodger, Andrew McConnell from Scottish Government and along with Yvonne Macdermid, David Hilferty from Money Advice Scotland, Allison Barnes from Money Advice Service and other consumer groups.
The session was led by the inspiring duo Barbara Mills from CivTech and Nicola Anderson in developing a roadmap on how fintech can play a significant role in addressing financial inclusion challenges. This was all about the building new demand for fintech
Then, in parallel, upstairs, we had the Scottish Government session with entrepreneurs on how the engagement with small enterprises could be developed to improve the supply of innovation. This was a fantastic session led by Clare Mills, Carron McNab and colleagues.
It is a privilege to be part of this valuable work being led by Trish Quinn and hugely exciting to have the fintech community being involved in the opportunity to really impact big innovation with Government.
We shared these mutually aligned initiatives with the Digital Minister Kate Forbes and the FiSAB sub group with Graeme Jones the following day and it was great to get the endorsement to build on this big love’ opportunity for fintech.
Big Love
The broader love of fintech on a big scale is going to provide exciting opportunities to scale up the innovation in Scotland.
For example, in working with the rapidly changing M&G Prudential business engage with the fintech community and it was valuable to catch up with Mark Simpson and the Managing Director, David Macmillan a couple of times over this last fortnight
Then on Wednesday it was terrific to meet up with Sam Bedford, Gary McLellan and innovative team at CYBG in Glasgow.
Fantastic to see the leading edge examples from Jennifer and Jack of how they are innovating to improve customers financial engagement and the opportunities to engage with the fintech community in Scotland.
Really looking forward to progressing with the Sam and the team and combine our mutual love of fintech with real purpose.
The combination of big and small coming together to love fintech was one of the key themes for the discussion with Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce members on Thursday morning.
Thank you to everyone for the engagement and support, especially Liz Mcareavey and Rebecca Meish for inviting me to discuss how Scotland can develop the fintech love on a bigger scale.
This is something we were very much putting into action with senior executives Frank Tong and KC Tsui from HSBC Global who flew from Hong King to meet with us and firms from the fintech community.
Thank you to Ahmed El-Ryias from the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh for setting up the meeting, it was a terrific session late into the last Wednesday evening and onto the Thursday as well.
Thank you also to Colin Halpin who led HSBC to be one of Fintech Scotland initial founding partners and has played an important supporting role in our progress in the first year.
It was the fantastic presentations and engagement from the Scottish fintech firms which very much illustrated the innovative developments in Scotland and the significant opportunities to collaborate with the HSBC Global team.
In fact, Frank mentioned that the activities in Scotland were world leading and certainly made Scotland stand out as a global fintech centre, especially with date driven innovation.
Global Love
The global love continues to be an important part of work and this has been increasing even more over this last few weeks.
For example, absolutely I loved catching up with our good friend Thorsten Terweiden, who leads on fintech developments at Hong Kong Invest, on his visit to Scotland.
Great engagement with Thorsten and his team as we work with Graham Hatton and the SDI team in developing he Hong Kong Scotland bridge for our respective fintech communities.
This opportunity to share the mutual love of fintech opportunities was very much on the agenda when I met up on Tuesday with the fabulous Dan Roselli who is the founder of the impressive FinTech Accelerator Hub in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dan took time out of his vacation to share the amazing story of what the team has achieved and there were so many parallels with the what we are building in Scotland.
I thanked Dan with one of the great Scottish beers and we agreed to take forward a joint number of areas to develop the mutual love of fintech both sides of the Atlantic.
The collaboration opportunities with USA was also the focus of my conversation with Jennifer Ericson, a Global Scot based in Minnesota and I very much value the connections Jennifer is helping us build for our fintech community.
Exporting is an important part of the fintech agenda, and it was valuable to catch up Suzanne Henderson from the Scottish Government team who is leading on the work to identify global market priorities for all sectors.
Very much looking forward to progress this work with Suzanne, Lesley Ward, Scott Strain along with Lorraine Mallon from SDI and build on the progress being made by a number of firms.
A great example of this is hearing last week about The ID Co, who are part of the DIT fintech trade mission to New York in a couple of weeks and Craig Buchan, the founder of QPal, who are progressing amazing innovations in the Middle east and Africa.
Last Monday, I was delighted to be invited by Graeme Jones of SFE to join him and SFE members for the dinner with the City of London Mayor Peter Estlin for an engaging conversation on the global role for Scotland in financial services and fintech.
I had met with Peter Estlin the previous week at the latest Department of International Trade Fintech Board meeting which considered a number of areas in developing the international reach of fintech.
In particular, it was great to hear from the very engaging Laura Royle from the FCA who outlined the valuable work in developing the Global Financial Innovation Network.
Laura recently led a fantastic FCA Project Innovate event for the Scottish fintech community and we are looking to do this again to cover some of the global regulation opportunities for fintech firms.
Collaborative Love
Last Thursday I had the opportunity to share this global opportunity for fintech at the City Deal Conference and the importance of collaboration to deliver data driven innovation success for the country.
I very much enjoyed the chance to share the stage with Digital Minister Kate Forbes as well as Professor Mark Parsons and Professor Charlie Jeffrey along with the distinguished panels.
To highlight the importance of collaborative love I was given the challenge by Andy Nichol form Edinburgh City Council to finish with the words from a song by The Men They Couldn’t Hang!!
This I duly did with the very apt words from their song Great Expectations’!
Huge thanks to Hamish Miller, Will Peakin and the Future Scot team for putting on such an important collaboration conference. Looking forward to the next one in Glasgow in May.
I’m also looking forward to speaking at the FinTech North events in April and May and always valuable to catch up with Julian Wells on Monday to talk through sharing the fintech collaboration love both sides of the border.
There are some great expectations from the data driven innovation programme and with the momentum growing now behind building the Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence then Scotland’s fintech enterprises will play a central role.
It was hugely exciting to be part of the collaboration bringing alive the Centre of Excellence working with various partners including Damien at University of Edinburgh and Gavin with his FDATA team.
You’ll hear more on that in the coming weeks although if you were with us on Thursday night at Fusion then Gavin gave you some of the exciting snippets of news!
Another wonderful collaborative initiative for Scotland is the forthcoming launch of The European FinTech Digital Satellite Office in Edinburgh next month
This is a first for Scotland and for Europe and it is brilliant to be collaborating with our friends in the EU to make this significant investment happen with the University of Edinburgh and Scottish Enterprise.
This Digital Office will invest in academic research in fintech as well as new start up fintech enterprises. Watch this space for more.
The collaboration with Scotland’s world leading universities is a hugely important and it was a real pleasure to be invited to speak to Heriot Watt students on career opportunities in fintech by the inspiring David Steinberg.
The talent from all disciplines is becoming an even stronger pull with international fintech enterprises, Datafest is a fantastic two weeks of sharing this with the world.
Terrific to work with MBN Solutions and Deloitte with excellent fringe meet up events as part of DataFest.
I shared this and the wider talent and diversity attraction of Scotland with long standing innovator and friend Nish Kotak of Talecco on his recent visit to Edinburgh.
Very much looking forward to working with Nish to encourage some large enterprises to come to Scotland.
The week finished off with the quarterly FinTech Scotland board meeting expertly chaired and hosted by David Fergusson at the impressive Nucleus Financial offices.
A very valuable and constructive conversation on the longer term future strategy for FinTech Scotland as we look to the next stage of our journey.
It was great to have Digital Minister Kate Forbes join us for the discussion and I am looking forward to progressing over the coming months.
Running Love
My running love has been hugely strained over this last two weeks as illness and unusual toe injury have meant I have not run for a fortnight!
Going from running 55+ miles a week to none is really tough in so many ways although the intensity of the fintech engagement and presentations has taken my mind of this a little bit.
However, it has even more reinforced my passion and love for running and I hope to be back on the road and the Spring races in the next week.
With trips to the EU in Brussels and Dublin to build Scotland fintech collaboration over the next two weeks I am hoping to take my love of running and fintech to Europe! Until next time.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Falling in Love with FinTech!
It is just so wonderful to see so many people falling in love with fintech and how it is fueling the opportunity to innovate through collaboration and inclusion.
This was very much the case on Wednesday morning when I joined the Lloyds Bank and Google teams for a Falling in Love with FinTech’ breakfast meet up.
The diverse audience from the fintech community, academia, large financial enterprises and many other organisations made a terrific atmosphere.
Big thanks to Misha Cunningham and Google Digital team for their fabulous hospitality
This meet up was brilliantly led by the inspiring Sarah Kenrick along with Tom, Kegode, Lisa Caldwell and Lloyds Bank team.
Lloyds, one of the initial founders of FinTech Scotland, are developing impressive innovations and collaborations by engaging the fintech community.
Community Love
The community love continued the next evening as we held FinTech Scotland Fusion’ gathering where we had a fantastic buzz and atmosphere. I know some carried it on into the very late hours!
The Fusion’ was expertly organized by our entrepreneurial friend Aleks Tomczyk with great collaboration and generosity from Kirsty Irvine and Johnston Carmichael.
Wonderful mini spotlight talks from Myles Stephenson of Modulr, Hannah Rudman of Wallet Services, Loral Quinn of Sustainably and Stuart Lunn of LendingCrowd as well as our fintech grandfather’ Gavin Littlejohn.
They all brought alive the evening by sharing their experiences and latest news and reaffirmed to a very diverse and engaged audience why falling in love with fintech was so easy.
We all decided that Fusion’ meet up will be a regular event in addition to our frequent fintech practitioner forums across Scotland so more on this to come
The community plays such an important role in welcoming new fintech enterprises working in Scotland and it was terrific to see firms new to the community with us on Thursday such as SageCity, Listings Ledger and Miconex.
The role of the community is something I shared with Stuart Harvey of Datatics and Graham Paterson a couple of weeks ago and we look forward to seeing them both at future events.
Supporting the growth of new fintech enterprises will see the community expand across Scotland and it is fantastic to be working with the Craig Wilson, Colin Carmichael of Sopra Steria and Gordon Donald and John Lonsdale of University of Edinburgh with a new accelerator programme.
Supporting the love of fintech innovation was very much in evidence when Mickael and I spent some time last week at Codebase with the Barclays Eagle Lab team.
Always wonderful to catch up with Trish McClay and talk about their terrific engagement along with the magical fintech entrepreneur Suhail Ahmad of AdviserDirect and the awesome Colin Hewitt of Float, who have now expanded into twenty plus nations.
We had been in Codebase the previous week for two fantastic sessions of massive significance in bringing more love into fintech, both of which will spread the fintech love far and wide.
Downstairs we had a FinTech consumer inclusion workshop with the Karen Rodger, Andrew McConnell from Scottish Government and along with Yvonne Macdermid, David Hilferty from Money Advice Scotland, Allison Barnes from Money Advice Service and other consumer groups.
The session was led by the inspiring duo Barbara Mills from CivTech and Nicola Anderson in developing a roadmap on how fintech can play a significant role in addressing financial inclusion challenges. This was all about the building new demand for fintech
Then, in parallel, upstairs, we had the Scottish Government session with entrepreneurs on how the engagement with small enterprises could be developed to improve the supply of innovation. This was a fantastic session led by Clare Mills, Carron McNab and colleagues.
It is a privilege to be part of this valuable work being led by Trish Quinn and hugely exciting to have the fintech community being involved in the opportunity to really impact big innovation with Government.
We shared these mutually aligned initiatives with the Digital Minister Kate Forbes and the FiSAB sub group with Graeme Jones the following day and it was great to get the endorsement to build on this big love’ opportunity for fintech.
Big Love
The broader love of fintech on a big scale is going to provide exciting opportunities to scale up the innovation in Scotland.
For example, in working with the rapidly changing M&G Prudential business engage with the fintech community and it was valuable to catch up with Mark Simpson and the Managing Director, David Macmillan a couple of times over this last fortnight
Then on Wednesday it was terrific to meet up with Sam Bedford, Gary McLellan and innovative team at CYBG in Glasgow.
Fantastic to see the leading edge examples from Jennifer and Jack of how they are innovating to improve customers financial engagement and the opportunities to engage with the fintech community in Scotland.
Really looking forward to progressing with the Sam and the team and combine our mutual love of fintech with real purpose.
The combination of big and small coming together to love fintech was one of the key themes for the discussion with Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce members on Thursday morning.
Thank you to everyone for the engagement and support, especially Liz Mcareavey and Rebecca Meish for inviting me to discuss how Scotland can develop the fintech love on a bigger scale.
This is something we were very much putting into action with senior executives Frank Tong and KC Tsui from HSBC Global who flew from Hong King to meet with us and firms from the fintech community.
Thank you to Ahmed El-Ryias from the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh for setting up the meeting, it was a terrific session late into the last Wednesday evening and onto the Thursday as well.
Thank you also to Colin Halpin who led HSBC to be one of Fintech Scotland initial founding partners and has played an important supporting role in our progress in the first year.
It was the fantastic presentations and engagement from the Scottish fintech firms which very much illustrated the innovative developments in Scotland and the significant opportunities to collaborate with the HSBC Global team.
In fact, Frank mentioned that the activities in Scotland were world leading and certainly made Scotland stand out as a global fintech centre, especially with date driven innovation.
Global Love
The global love continues to be an important part of work and this has been increasing even more over this last few weeks.
For example, absolutely I loved catching up with our good friend Thorsten Terweiden, who leads on fintech developments at Hong Kong Invest, on his visit to Scotland.
Great engagement with Thorsten and his team as we work with Graham Hatton and the SDI team in developing he Hong Kong Scotland bridge for our respective fintech communities.
This opportunity to share the mutual love of fintech opportunities was very much on the agenda when I met up on Tuesday with the fabulous Dan Roselli who is the founder of the impressive FinTech Accelerator Hub in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dan took time out of his vacation to share the amazing story of what the team has achieved and there were so many parallels with the what we are building in Scotland.
I thanked Dan with one of the great Scottish beers and we agreed to take forward a joint number of areas to develop the mutual love of fintech both sides of the Atlantic.
The collaboration opportunities with USA was also the focus of my conversation with Jennifer Ericson, a Global Scot based in Minnesota and I very much value the connections Jennifer is helping us build for our fintech community.
Exporting is an important part of the fintech agenda, and it was valuable to catch up Suzanne Henderson from the Scottish Government team who is leading on the work to identify global market priorities for all sectors.
Very much looking forward to progress this work with Suzanne, Lesley Ward, Scott Strain along with Lorraine Mallon from SDI and build on the progress being made by a number of firms.
A great example of this is hearing last week about The ID Co, who are part of the DIT fintech trade mission to New York in a couple of weeks and Craig Buchan, the founder of QPal, who are progressing amazing innovations in the Middle east and Africa.
Last Monday, I was delighted to be invited by Graeme Jones of SFE to join him and SFE members for the dinner with the City of London Mayor Peter Estlin for an engaging conversation on the global role for Scotland in financial services and fintech.
I had met with Peter Estlin the previous week at the latest Department of International Trade Fintech Board meeting which considered a number of areas in developing the international reach of fintech.
In particular, it was great to hear from the very engaging Laura Royle from the FCA who outlined the valuable work in developing the Global Financial Innovation Network.
Laura recently led a fantastic FCA Project Innovate event for the Scottish fintech community and we are looking to do this again to cover some of the global regulation opportunities for fintech firms.
Collaborative Love
Last Thursday I had the opportunity to share this global opportunity for fintech at the City Deal Conference and the importance of collaboration to deliver data driven innovation success for the country.
I very much enjoyed the chance to share the stage with Digital Minister Kate Forbes as well as Professor Mark Parsons and Professor Charlie Jeffrey along with the distinguished panels.
To highlight the importance of collaborative love I was given the challenge by Andy Nichol form Edinburgh City Council to finish with the words from a song by The Men They Couldn’t Hang!!
This I duly did with the very apt words from their song Great Expectations’!
Huge thanks to Hamish Miller, Will Peakin and the Future Scot team for putting on such an important collaboration conference. Looking forward to the next one in Glasgow in May.
I’m also looking forward to speaking at the FinTech North events in April and May and always valuable to catch up with Julian Wells on Monday to talk through sharing the fintech collaboration love both sides of the border.
There are some great expectations from the data driven innovation programme and with the momentum growing now behind building the Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence then Scotland’s fintech enterprises will play a central role.
It was hugely exciting to be part of the collaboration bringing alive the Centre of Excellence working with various partners including Damien at University of Edinburgh and Gavin with his FDATA team.
You’ll hear more on that in the coming weeks although if you were with us on Thursday night at Fusion then Gavin gave you some of the exciting snippets of news!
Another wonderful collaborative initiative for Scotland is the forthcoming launch of The European FinTech Digital Satellite Office in Edinburgh next month
This is a first for Scotland and for Europe and it is brilliant to be collaborating with our friends in the EU to make this significant investment happen with the University of Edinburgh and Scottish Enterprise.
This Digital Office will invest in academic research in fintech as well as new start up fintech enterprises. Watch this space for more.
The collaboration with Scotland’s world leading universities is a hugely important and it was a real pleasure to be invited to speak to Heriot Watt students on career opportunities in fintech by the inspiring David Steinberg.
The talent from all disciplines is becoming an even stronger pull with international fintech enterprises, Datafest is a fantastic two weeks of sharing this with the world.
Terrific to work with MBN Solutions and Deloitte with excellent fringe meet up events as part of DataFest.
I shared this and the wider talent and diversity attraction of Scotland with long standing innovator and friend Nish Kotak of Talecco on his recent visit to Edinburgh.
Very much looking forward to working with Nish to encourage some large enterprises to come to Scotland.
The week finished off with the quarterly FinTech Scotland board meeting expertly chaired and hosted by David Fergusson at the impressive Nucleus Financial offices.
A very valuable and constructive conversation on the longer term future strategy for FinTech Scotland as we look to the next stage of our journey.
It was great to have Digital Minister Kate Forbes join us for the discussion and I am looking forward to progressing over the coming months.
Running Love
My running love has been hugely strained over this last two weeks as illness and unusual toe injury have meant I have not run for a fortnight!
Going from running 55+ miles a week to none is really tough in so many ways although the intensity of the fintech engagement and presentations has taken my mind of this a little bit.
However, it has even more reinforced my passion and love for running and I hope to be back on the road and the Spring races in the next week.
With trips to the EU in Brussels and Dublin to build Scotland fintech collaboration over the next two weeks I am hoping to take my love of running and fintech to Europe! Until next time.
Tech nothing for granted – How a new kind of scholarship creates an opportunity for industries to deliver on diversity
by Kathryn Pierce – Founder, Somewhere EDI CIC
Within the UK, Scotland is uniquely placed in terms of diversity, as it is a world leader in LGBT+ rights. It is the only country in the world to have LGBTI-inclusive education embedded in the curriculum, and second only to Malta in terms of the legal rights and freedoms afforded to its LGBT+ communities. As a relative newcomer to Scotland – moving from England in 2017 – I believe this celebration of difference is something that Scotland should be very proud of, and while there is still plenty of work to be done for specific marginalised communities such as my own, the momentum of Scotland’s progressive reputation stands it is good stead for future investment and growth.
However, reading about the top 23 LGBTQ+ people in tech last month, and feeling even more inspired by the work of these US LGBT tech groups, I wondered how long it would be until LGBT+ tech becomes more visible in Scotland. Creating LGBT+ visibility in such industries, who struggle with poor gender balance, can be a real uphill battle, and we know that active diversity initiatives are vital for disrupting established norms which either discourage more diverse communities from entering the industry, and/or influence unconscious biases which also serve to keep true diversity out.
So if existing organisations are struggling to deliver on diversity, what does that mean for the minority entrepreneurs? The thinkers, the innovators, the LGBT+ tech and fintech people who want to set up on their own, or who have an idea that needs supporting through partnership, sponsorship or collaboration, through connective organisations like Fintech Scotland? It’s known that only 1% of all enterprise investment goes to women-led enterprises, so how do LGBT+ people fare? And what about intersectional communities, such as lesbian, trans and/or bisexual women in fintech? The continuing global success of Lesbians Who Tech shows there is indeed an overlooked community.
Given how little academic research has been carried out in the UK into LGBT+ entrepreneurship, as part of my recent Master of Enterprise (MEnt) postgraduate degree, I decided to focus on the experiences ofa diverse group of LGBT+ entrepreneurs to understand their challenges and motivations.My research study (which forms the basis for a new book to be published by Emerald), revealed first-hand the tensions and difficulties in reconciling a mainstream business world with an authentic LGBT+ identity. It also revealed a lack of LGBT+ entrepreneurial role models, a lack of community-specific enterprise support for LGBT+ people wanting to start their own businesses, and a stark difference in the career-based experiences for entrepreneurs with career histories in the public sector (positive) versus the private sector (negative).
My findings, while small-scale, were enough to create a case for approaching a project partner to design and deliver a new way of disrupting the inherent homophobia in business and enterprise.Through Louise Arnold at Interface, through my social enterprise, Somewhere EDI Community Interest Company, was introduced to the University of Edinburgh Business School MBA team, and together we devised a way to both support minority entrepreneurship as a viable career choice, but also, and crucially, to acknowledge the barriers LGBT+ business people face every day and to actively disrupt those, especially given 62% of graduates go back into the closet when they leave university and start work.
The result is a first for Scotland, the new ‘Somewhere EDI’ MBA LGBT+ Scholarship, launched by The Princess Royal in February, as part of the University of Edinburgh Business School centenary celebrations and to mark 50 years since the founding of the global LGBT+ rights movement. This flagship programme is a game changer, given that a fifth of all MBA students choose to embark on venture creation. The scholarship is named after my social enterprise in recognition of my research, but also because we are working in partnership with the University, providing recruitment and promotion assistance, and most importantly, mentorship of the chosen candidate. This type of project is the first home-grown initiative of its kind, supporting all UK, EU and international students identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBT+) or as LGBT+ community allies.
The Somewhere EDI MBA LGBT+ Scholarshippublicly acknowledges the value of collaborating with authentic community organisations, and in facing the reality of ongoing discrimination against LGBT+ people, bold and innovative projects like this mean that little by little, LGBT+ people can begin to bring their whole selves to work, living and working authentically, enjoying the freedom to be themselves and, especially in the case of entrepreneurs, to be the agents of their own destiny.
I sincerely hope that by stepping into a new collaborative space between university, community organisation, business and entrepreneur, that we can open up many new industries to visible inclusion of minority people, who value their difference and understand it as an opportunity, rather than an add-on.
Applications for the scholarships are now open, and candidates have until 10th May to apply.For the Somewhere EDI MBA LGBT+ Scholarship application details, visit the University of Edinburgh Business School.
—
Extra notes:
Kathryn Pierce is Founder of Somewhere EDI,a new LGBT+ culture and enterprise hub created in Scotland in 2018, after a successful “Somewhere MCR” Manchester prototype as part of her MEnt degree.
Kathryn also works in higher education in Learning Support, and over seven years has supported nearly 100 students one-to-one across a wide range of academic disciplines, in seven different UK universities, including the Open University. She also volunteers as an Enterprise E-Mentor for The Prince’s Trust.
Social media: @SomewhereEDI, #SomewhereMBA
Actuaries, are you prepared for the future?
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
Barry Shannon, Senior Risk Manager at Standard Life and member of the Scottish Board of the IFoA, asks whether the profession is prepared for the financial future.
The role of an actuary has often been described as “to make financial sense of the future”. As individuals, we might tend to focus on the “financial sense” aspect of our role. But how prepared are we for the future? The rapidly evolving fields of Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Financial Technology (FinTech) are expanding technological boundaries at a fast pace and offer exciting opportunities for the profession.
Whether we like it or not, we ”“ and anyone with a smartphone ”“ are all part of the recent boom in data gathering that will form the building blocks of future developments. To take full advantage of the future we should be prepared to embrace these emerging fields.
Preparing the profession for the future
The IFoA has been encouraging members to engage with the future through a number of working parties and initiatives, like the Risk Management in a Digital World working party. This working party was established to form views and recommendations to assist actuarial practitioners in risk management considerations relating to operating in a digital world and has delivered initial findings at IFoA conferences throughout 2018.
The IFoA has also been addressing the emergent field of Data Science, with the 2017 Autumn Lecture exploring Data Science and its potential for Actuaries. The IFoA will host its first ever virtual conference exploring Data Science: Opportunities for Actuaries in Spring 2019.
Focus on FinTech
FinTech is an emerging industry that uses new technology to enhance activities in finance and aims to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services in the future. The FinTech sector is growing fast and there are now more than 80 FinTech focused small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based in Scotland alone, according to FinTech Scotland (a joint initiative by a number of financial services firms, the University of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government).
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Spreading The FinTech Network Far and Wide
This last couple of weeks has reinforced to me once again the enormous value in developing the fintech network far and wide.
I’ve believed from the outset that developing a broader and deeper network will enable the community of fintech SME enterprises to thrive and grow as well establish Scotland a significant global fintech cluster.
Therefore, it was a real privilege to share this philosophy at the Scottish Business Network (SBN) event on Tuesday evening in London
Scottish Business Network
The SBN team is by far the exemplar role model in how to bring a diverse group of business leaders together to establish a dynamic network of people sharing a mutual interest in enterprise and innovation.
The event on Tuesday evening very much demonstrated this, organized expertly by Christine Esson and hosted by Alex Threipland and the Silicon Valley Bank team
It was wonderful to hear from Jo Halliday of Talking Medicines and Isobel Brown from Internet of Equals share their stories on their terrific enterprises
I very much appreciated the opportunity to share with the full house of SBN members and guests the role of Fintech Scotland in leveraging the Scottish fintech network to establish a global centre of excellence.
Big thank you to the inspiring host of the evening, Russell Dalgleish, who for a number of years now has provided me with valuable counsel, encouragement and insight.
The SBN event was of real value in further building the Scottish fintech network in London but also on a broader global level.
This is something SBN team is extremely well versed in doing with its community of global scots around the world and something the fintech community will be able to leverage going forward.
Global Network
Building visibility of the fintech developments on an international level is something we are seeing the benefits from in this early part of 2019.
My time in London coincided with a visit from by Avi Karani, the founder and CEO of Alice Financial, the market leading New York fintech firm.
Great to catch up and looking forward to welcoming Avi and his CTO Paul to Scotland very soon.
Earlier in the day I enjoyed meeting up with Miten Amin of VendEx Solutions, a new exciting fintech enterprise platform which we are looking to collaborate with to develop the global network connections for Scottish firms.
Following the recent trade mission to Switzerland I was introduced to Shantanu Bhagwat of the Department of International Trade Venture Capital Unit, who I met in London on Tuesday.
Great conversation with Shantanu on how we can leverage their global network of investors to connect with the innovative fintech enterprises in Scotland.
There will be opportunities to expand on this in late April with Fintech Week and it was useful to catch up with Peter Cunane of Innovate Finance to discuss working together on their Global Summit in London
Looking forward to working with Charlotte and the Innovate Finance team along with Julian Wells of FinTech North on demonstrating the value from an extensive global fintech network.
There are also plans for major global conferences in Scotland which will certainly expand the fintech network.
For example, very much appreciate the great introduction by the wonderful Amanda Fergusson of Marketing Edinburgh to the ESOMAR team regarding their global data conference
This will provide great opportunities to demonstrate data driven fintech innovation from Scotland and looking forward to working with seeing Angela, Neda and Rhiannon on this.
Then also brilliant working with Professor Emilios Avgouleas, Paul Mosson from Law Society of Scotland, Gordon Dow from the University of Edinburgh and Laura Henry from Marketing Edinburgh on the proposed International Law Conference coming to Edinburgh.
Global events such as this reinforce the innovation taking place in Scotland and help build the international connections for Scottish fintech enterprises
A super example of this is the Well Being Alliance, a global movement with firm roots in Scotland in which fintech can play a major role. Thanks to Una Bartley and Jock Encombe, another wonderful long standing network connection, for involving me in this great initiative.
Very much enjoyed the inaugural meeting at the Scottish Parliament with excellent presentation from Dr Katherine Trebeck, Peter Kelly of Poverty Alliance and Andrew Cave of Baillie Gifford
It was great to be there with some of the larger financial institutions such as Aberdeen Standard, RBS and Baillie Gifford collaborating in this valuable network as well as meeting new network contacts such as Charlotte Millar from New Economy
Collaboration Network
There are an increasing number of examples of larger organisations recognizing the value of the Scottish fintech network and looking to play a more active role.
For example, useful to catch up with Robert McKillop and Ross Hayter at Aberdeen Standard Investments on Thursday to discuss mutual fintech innovation opportunities in the asset management sector.
Then also to meet up with Mark Napier of JP Morgan on how to give greater visibility to the exciting developments in Glasgow across fintech enterprises and large organizations.
This was discussed further with the inspiring Michael Young and Rob Huggins of MBN Solutions, who already do so much in amplifying the data driven innovation and talent being developed across Scotland
I’ve also been encouraged by the new interest in the Scottish fintech network and cluster from large organizations hearing about the developments for the first time.
For example, I enjoyed meeting Laura Mason, chief executive of L&G Retirement to talk through mutual areas to explore on innovation
Alongside this the FinTech Scotland strategic partners play a crucial role in the expanding network.
It was valuable to catch up with Simon Pink and Mairi Cairney of IBM to plan joint initiatives and then while in London meet with the Equifax executive team to talk through collaboration progress.
Thank you, Neil Stephenson and Robert McKechnie for hosting me, I very valued the conversation with Equifax colleagues Suzanne Brown, Rhona Parry, Jorge Hernandez, John Power and the breadth of their strategic engagement with Fintech Scotland.
HSBC was at the forefront in creating FinTech Scotland just over a year ago through Colin Halpin’s leadership, and it was fantastic to catch up with Marc Ellis, Paul Macdonald and KC (Kwok Ching Tsui) on the areas we can progress
Excited about connecting more Scottish fintech community into the HSBC innovation sandpit’ and developing fintech collaboration opportunities with the University of Edinburgh
We’ll be progressing this in a couple of weeks when Frank Tong, KC will have an opportunity to meet some of the Scottish fintech community in Edinburgh.
Thank you to Ahmed El Rayis from the University’s School of Informatics for arranging this exciting session which will be a great opportunity to showcase the expertise of the Scottish fintech network in action.
Expert Network
The expertise of the Scottish universities in the fintech network is a significant component of the innovation and entrepreneur activity.
Very evident this week, with the launch by Daniel Broby and his team at University of Strathclyde of a new fintech enterprise Listings Ledger.
Hugely exciting and another example of how fintech activity in Glasgow is thriving in so many ways
This was something which was high on the agenda a meeting with Charlie and Billy from HPE with Adrian, Olga and Tim from University of Strathclyde a couple of weeks ago.
Later that day, it was fantastic to meet up with the newly formed Strathclyde University Student Fintech Society who are going to be another fabulous active addition to the Glasgow fintech network.
The meeting with students wanting to be involved in the fintech network is always very motivating and I was delighted to join Louise of Common Purpose to support the Heriot Watt students on their innovation task.
The role of students, amongst a host of other areas related to the fintech network, was also a key part of the conversation with Gail Boag, David Potter and Brian Windram of Edinburgh Napier University recently.
Excited about working with the team to embrace the academic and student expertise in the coming months.
Similarly, with the initiatives at the University of Edinburgh such as the setting up of the new European Digital Office focused on fintech in the Bayes Centre.
Great to catch up with Morgan Gillies, Gbenga Ibikunle and Damien McGarrigle on this and sharing this fantastic opportunity with the fintech network across Scotland.
Another initiative which is progressing in putting resource in place to take forward is the global open finance centre of excellence.
Thank you Damien for the updates and coordinating the support from the University, Scottish Enterprise and FDATA.
The Open Banking Excellence meet up on Monday evening gave me the opportunity to share the latest developments on the Centre of Excellence with people from across the network.
Thank you to the terrific Dave Jennings and The ID Co team for hosting the session and to the always insightful Stephen Hart for his impromptu session on open banking evolution.
Communication Network
The various meet ups across the Scottish network are hugely valuable in engaging the broad range of participants, I just wish I had more hours in the day to participate!!
Therefore, I always find it valuable to catch up with communication leaders who support the fintech network such as Andy McIver from Message Matters.
Thanks, Andy, for your ongoing support and looking forward to pushing forward on building the Scottish fintech communication channels even further, especially with open banking.
This week it was also an absolute pleasure to meet up with Mandy Rhodes of Holyrood Communications and share our mutual objectives and plans.
Very much look forward to working with Mandy and the team, especially with the exciting emerging developments in respect of fintech, GovTech and CivTech.
The Scottish Enterprise team have always played a leading role in working with FinTech Scotland in developing the network
So, it was valuable to catch up with John Booth when I was in Glasgow to talk through the collaboration opportunities to amplify the substantive examples of positive innovation.
Running Network
My running network is almost as dynamic and diverse as the Scottish fintech network!!
Everything from Strava to Garmin to Good Run Guide to Facebook running groups and more!
My latest running race adventures took me to South Lanarkshire and the town of Strathaven for the Run with the Wind half marathon’.
The reality was it was more of a run against the gales and hailstorms whilst climbing several hundred feet!! It was a great tester and the warm Scotch broth at the end was most welcome.
Next up is the Meadows Half Marathon a week on Sunday, involving nine laps of Edinburgh Meadows!
Before then, there is lots more network connecting to be done around the streets of Scotland and beyond. Until next time
The dangers of cashless and how to design for a digital economy
Blog written by Sergei Miller-Pomphrey – analyst, designer, full-time finch nerd – @goforsergei on twitter and medium
Many have recently spoken about the dramatic cashless uptake by consumers. June 2018 was a big month with the breaking news that UK debit card transactions had overtaken cash transactions for the first time (13.2bn transactions compared to 13.1bn)”Š”””Šreported in various media, examples here, hereand here”Š”””Šand contactless transactions (5.6bn) had grown dramatically, also.
In terms of debit cards, the uptake is an outcome of many factors like fewer branches and cash machines, but probably most prominent is the general cultural shift toward using cash less frequently and leveraging the efficiencies that card transactions bring.
As for contactless, this has been made possible in part by the enhancements made to UK bank cards”Š”””Šall new cards printed in the last several years have generally been contactless-enabled, barring a few slow off-the-mark legacy banks, with the earliest contactless adopters going back a decade (and longer if you’re a real pedant).
Contactless debit cards coupled with smartphone ubiquity, the rise of smartwatches, and Apple, Google and Samsung Pay enabled on almost every device, has made paying by some form of cashless payment easier.
Not to mention the meteoric rise of internet shopping, which now goes beyond buying books and small electronics, with everything available online from food and clothing to holidays and cars.
Also, Direct Debits are now so standard it’s hard to imagine that there ever was a time when you got a physical bill from a supplier and you went to the Post Office to pay it!
(Many) Users are obviously embracing contactless and a cashless economy.
But none of this could have been made possible without merchants evolving to accepting cashless payments as a standard, also.
Your local coffee shop these days is as likely to have a sign that says “No Cash” as it was a decade ago that the sign read “Cash Only”.
The challenge
Let’s cut to the chase”Š”””Ša cashless economy requires democratised, stable and secure infrastructure.
Users need the ability to engage in a cashless economy, which means they need bank accounts to get debit cards and smart-enabled devices to pay for things cashlessly.
Getting a bank account means you need proof of identification and a fixed physical location to call a home.
Even mobile numbers and email addresses are mandatory in many instances these days when applying for a bank account, which means you need a home landline or mobile phone contract and some form of internet access.
And all of that is just for the consumers”Š”””Šbusinesses that rely on cash and cheque need to invest in business bank accounts that generally charge the business a monthly fee and additional fees for transactions, payments, deposits, withdrawals.
Businesses need EPoS machines (electronic point of sale”Š”””Šcard readers) to take payments. In order for card readers to work, they need internet. EPoS vendors can charge monthly fees, flat percentage fees on transactions, or varying tiers depending on value or number of transactions.
Then comes the underlying payments network infrastructure. Mastercard and Visa, the two biggest players in the game”Š”””Šcheck your bank cards, their logos are likely on them! (With American Express being another biggie.)
Last year, in June, the Visa network went downall across Europe. It was a pretty crazy day.
Then, a month later, Mastercard went down.
With the growth in cashless payments, these down times were felt by consumers hard ”“ people were rushing to cash machines to withdraw funds to pay for dinner, buy shopping, go out, or even just manage to make it home safe from wherever they were.
It exposed just how reliant we are, now, more than ever, on systems rather than people. When working in hospitality. If you’re working in a café and your till system goes down, you just have to use a piece of paper, a pen, and a calculator, and you take cash only.
There was no alternative here for those that didn’t already have cash on them or who couldn’t get to a cash machine.
In the grand scheme of things, a few hours of payment processing being down is manageable”Š”””Šthink about how we manage power cuts and bus replacement services, we just need a back-up infrastructure.
At the moment, that backup infrastructure is cash. But this may not always be.
Cash and cashless
Cash
One of the huge benefits of cash and the physical economy is that it is democratised for, of and by the people ”“ you don’t needa bank account for cash, you don’t need a home, you don’t need a driving license, Council Tax bill, phone number, email address or passport.
While some may have more or less money than others, nobody (practically) owns money or the cash economy itself”Š”””Šregardless of who prints the money.
Another huge benefit is that you don’t need a technical infrastructure”Š”””Šcash is good old brain and brawn (counting and moving).
If there’s an issue with a register, EPoS machine or calculator, you can always just figure it out yourself.
Cashless
In essence, many of the benefits of cashless are just the negative points of cash”Š”””Šlike all good evolving innovations, cashless is finding and fixing the weak(er) points of its predecessor.
Cash is physical, so it’s SUPER dirty”Š”””Šit’s pretty disgusting when you think about it.
Cash is physical, so it’s fragile”Š”””Šthe number of times I washed my last fiver while in school makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Or that ripped £20 that you taped back together so you could top up the leccie card and keep the lights on!
Cash is physical, so it goes missing”Š”””Šremember looking all over the house for the tenner that fell out when you emptied your pockets that night?
Cash is physical, so it takes up space”Š”””Šall those times you walked down the street with your pockets sounding like the unmistakable jingle jangle of a high-school janitor!
Holding cash can bring risk.
You could be mugged in the street for the contents of your wallet, if you’re lucky, or sustain injuries or worse if you’re unlucky that day.
Your business could be burgled, losing a day or week’s or month’s takings depending on how often you get to the bank.
One big point about digital however, is that it is every bit as susceptible to theft as hard cash.
The difference being that we now put even more of that burden of protection on the organisations that hold our cash, in exactly the same way that we did when banks first started operating.
The pros of cashless essentially boil down to three things, efficiency, security and convenience.
The bigger issue
System infrastructure is one thing, but socio-economic infrastructure is another, much more difficult issue altogether.
There has been a lot of discussion about two main things to do with the negative effects of a cashless economy (with, of course, many other issues and nuances, also):
- Inherently denying access; and
- Hurting businesses that rely on cash
Let’s take them in turn.
Access
The first part of the infrastructure outline above should act as a warning bell to every one of you reading this”Š”””Šhow do the homeless, those who can’t prove their identity, those without access to internet, the unbanked and the underbanked gain access to the cashless economy?
Access to the cashless economy is a privilege.
Cashless is inherently baking additional privilege in to the world’s economies.
This additional privilege thereby adds more disadvantage those who are already hugely disadvantaged and deprived in our societies to start.
With cashless adoption growing, there’s less need for a physical infrastructure such as bank branches or cash machines (though, of course, more reliance on an network of card readers).
This has negative effectson those who rely on those services, which invariably includes the poor, the elderly, the not-digitally-enabled, the un- and under-banked, and those who just don’t know how to manage their finances, digitally, or engage in the system.
There are many, many, manyarticles to read on the subject.
Business
The second part is about how micro and small enterprises can survive in a cashless economy.
Part of the reason for this struggle is due to cash flow.
Businesses that rely heavily on cash and cheque transactions are able to manage their cash flow more easily against low turnover.
For example, if a cheque takes a few days to clear, then they can write the cheque on the Friday but use the takings from the weekend to pay for the cheque come Tuesday.
Other issues include the additional overheads that businesses need to absorb in order to engage in a cashless economy”Š”””Šphone line, card reader rental, fees on transactions, all of that needs to either come off the business’s bottom line or be put on to the consumer.
The future of cash
Cash will die. Eventually.
Just like the horse-and-cart are no longer the primary mode of logistics and transportation, and the quill is no longer the prevalent form of writing implement”Š”””Šcashless is the evolutionof cash.
It is inevitable.
Now, it may not happen tomorrow or in the next decade. Cash still has some fight in it yet, but that isn’t necessarily down to any inherent traits in the benefits of cash.
The necessity of holding on to cash actually comes from the sheer scale of the culture change required and our failures in being able to adapt quickly enough to build for a cashless economy that was peaking over the horizon for the last decade.
Let us re-frame and reverse a position above”Š”””Šcashless does notinherentlydeny access to the economy.
Cashless doesn’t think. It’s not a thing or a person. It’s a concept. It’s a culture. And it’s a culture born out of the real world and how people interact.
And those that are denied access to the cashless economy is not because of those that are engaging with it, but because financial institutions have not solved access to the economy for those people.
For those that don’t have access to internet, this is due to government and big telcom not having solved issues of access as a right for the populace.
The last one is more difficult”Š”””Šfinancial literacy and awareness, in being consciously able to adapt and embrace a cashless / digital economy. That’s huge culture change and the government and banks and all financial institutions should be working together provide access to information and knowledge that can help these people engage.
And businesses, how do we help them?
Well, part of this isn’t cashless’s fault, again. High-streets all across the UK are being squeezed because of online shopping and changing demand.
Cashless is only one part of a larger trend for businesses and they need to adapt their business models regardless of whether they take card or not.
But they must know that if the trend is leaning towards cashless payments, then they risk losing customers if they can’t accept this payment.
And as for managing suppliers and cash flow, there are ways to re-set yourself there, too”Š”””Šbusinesses need to recalibrate to be able to hold cash for future payments, not pay yesterday with today.
So, what..?
Well, we need to do something about it.
And by we’, I don’t mean consumers. I don’t mean that they need to shop local, ignore online retailers, and hoard cash under their mattresses.
Consumer trends are consumers voting with their feet and the economy needs to react to them, not attempt to control them.
The worry here is that government may impede progress by placing regressive policies on consumers or businesses, instead of acknowledging that change is needed and pushing onwards.
It’s always better to fix forward instead of policing back.
We need to have some form digital economy design council that coordinates and aligns financial institutions, businesses, consumers, and most importantly, government.
We need to agree that access to the digital economy is a right, not a privilege.
If we agree that access is a right and not a privilege, it changes how we frame the issue.
It becomes a social imperative to provide access, just like health, education, security, and infrastructure, rather than putting the blame on consumers and changing habits.
Then we can begin designing forward, finding ways to include individuals that are excluded or at risk of exclusion by the many criteria out there.
Maybe we could increase and speed up government incentives for telcoms to provide internet and cellular infrastructure to those in remote or rural areas?
Maybe financial institutions could leverage their Corporate Social Responsibility policies to provide low-cost starter’ smart-enabled devices to allow those without a mobile phone, a computer, internet, or even a branch to access their bank account?
Maybe financial institutions could provide starter’ bank accounts for immigrants, vagrants, and transients?
Maybe government can create a basic account associated to your national insurance number so that every single citizen has basic access to some form of bank account?
Maybe that could be provided in collaboration with a challenger bank like Starling, who have an infrastructure built for the modern economy?
Maybe.
Maybe.
Maybe.
None of these issues are easily solved, but the conversation needs to be had to start trying to solve them.
Thinking forward instead of back is the key to how we can solve this and build for the inevitable digital economy.
But the first step is to think at all.
Why ”˜adopt’ a MSc Data Lab Student?
Article written by Bethany Rodgers-Rintoul, Delivery Lead at the MBN Academy part of MBN Solutions. MBN are one of the UK’s leading Recruitment/Talent Solutions organisations with a focus on the Data space.
If you follow MBN or The Data Lab, you’ve probably heard a lot of noise recently about The Data Lab’s MSc. Placement Programme ”¦but what really is this Programme? Why do companies take part? And most importantly, how will it benefit my organisation?
What is this Programme?
Essentially, The Data Lab’s MSc. Placement Programmeis a 10-12-week paid internship where current MSc. Data students are paired with companies across several industries and locations in Scotland. This year, we are tasked with placing around 100 students who come from 11 Universities from Aberdeen to Glasgow and everywhere in-between. These students are all funded by the Data Lab and are roughly ¾ of the way through their post graduate studies. They have the full support of the Data Lab and their University and can utilise resources from both.
How it’s organised
MBN, the Data Lab’s official delivery partners for the Programme, train all funded students in Employability skills, work with organisations to promote understanding of the Programme, help shape a suitable Project and match the most appropriate students to. MBN have been delivering the Programme for 3 years.
5 reasons to get involved:
- Address The Data Skills Gap in Scotland
The potential Data opportunity in Scotland is huge and the skills needed to take advantage of this are in great demand, but unfortunately in short supply. This Programme aims to create a steady pipeline of talented data individuals who are perfectly equipped with the relevant skills needed to help them build their professional data capability. The Data Lab MSc Programme differs from most other academic courses as it is focused on building applicable domain and soft skills expertise in addition to theoretical understanding. By developing both technical skills and industry gained “non-technical” skills that are essential to becoming a successful data scientist, we hope that these students obtain the perfect balance of hard and soft skills to ensure success in industry.
- Inclusion and Diversity
Diversity in approach, background and thought is a key driver within most organisations. A student can bring a world of fresh, diverse, new ideas to your company. They can see things from a different point of view, can help to influence decisions from a different perspective and can add value with a wider technological lens. This, along with the added research and support that they have access to, both from their University and the Data Lab, could massively help the development of your company. Often, a fresh set of eyes is all that is needed to solve problems and add innovate insight to your company.
- Gain technology knowledge
Upskilling staff through professional development/ refresher courses is often a time consuming as well as an expensive exercise. University students have been exposed to the latest technologies and tend to be very tech savvy and up to date with the latest trends. As these students are completing an MSc, they often have the added advantage of maturity which can be used to benefit an organisation. When you add “exposure to the latest tools and technologies” to “grounded maturity” you have a powerful combination. This shared knowledge can help you stay ahead of the curve and beat the competition.
- A set of helping hands
We’ve all been in this situation before, 1 million things to do and hardly any time to compete any of them. In brief, these students can help reduce the workplace pressure and “get things done”. Even with minimal commercial expertise, an extra set of hands can make all the difference. Also, with so many things to do and so little time, projects which are not high-priority’ are often put out on the back burner and forgotten about. A student can help with these projects, which in turn lightens the workload for others and can produce very interesting results.
- A chance to give back
These students are at the start of their data careers, this internship will mark the commencement of their practical’ experience. This is a huge and sometimes daunting step for these students, so helping them to establish themselves in the working world of data is a huge deal! We are all where we are today because of people who have coached and mentored us. Now, is it time to repay the favour? When you create an opportunity for a student, you are helping to prepare the next wave of Scotland’s Data Talent.
If this sounds like something that could interest you – please get in touch by dropping me a line at:
I’d be happy to talk you through this amazing initiative!
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Developing the Global FinTech Fellowship
This past two weeks has involved a range of international activities which have further contributed to Scotland being recognized as a global fintech centre.
The time has never been so important to empahsise our global collaboration and inclusive international mindset with all corners of the world, especially Europe.
Importantly, the positive engagement from the international community to fintech developments in Scotland has been hugely encouraging, very much reflected in last week’s trade mission to Switzerland.
European Fellowship
Last week it was a privilege to join seven Scottish fintech firms on the trade mission to Zurich to meet with a range of financial institutions and stakeholders from Switzerland.
Each of the senior leaders from the seven firms delivered compelling presentations on their business propositions to a very engaged European audience.
Congratulations to Jason Forsyth from Agenor Iceflo, David Waddington from Asura Financial, Wayne Johnson from Encompass, David Smith from Renovite, Dave Jennings form The ID Co and Tom Butcher from Trakz Labs for fantastic engagement and showing fintech innovation at its very best.
Massive thanks must go to the brilliant Pat Kunz of Scottish Development International, Noel McEvoy, Marie Gow and James Penn of the Department for International Trade who engineered the delivery of such a constructive trade mission.
We were hosted by the wonderful Sabrina Schenardi at the excellent SIX Group offices for the mission which was chaired by the awesome Manuela Andalora who acted as the magnificent master of ceremony throughout the event.
It was a terrific to join an esteemed panel of Gavin Littlejohn, Katharina Bart, Keith Phillips of the Investment Association and Michael Coletta of London Stock Exchange to share thoughts how fintech can really change the financial services landscape for good.
Later in the day it was great to hear from major influencers, Catherine McGuiness of the City of London Corporation, Maria Leistner of UBS, David Bundi of PWC, Angela Yore of SkyParlour and Petra Arends-Paltzer on driving creating diversity through fintech initiatives.
On the Thursday evening, I was given the opportunity to host a Scotland dinner to bring together the fintech firms with a range of key influencers, investors and senior executives.
This gave me the opportunity to share Scotland’s international mindset based on community, collaboration and a progressive culture.
This was then brought alive even further by the inspiring Gavin Littlejohn who shared the emerging developments of a Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence in Scotland
I must also thank Catherine McGuiness who shared so eloquently her thoughts on the close collaboration between the City of London and Scotland in supporting shared objectives.
The visit to Switzerland also gave the opportunity to catch up with some of the Avaloq team including the innovative Anders Christensen and Philippe Meyer.
Avaloq are certainly a “Rolls Royce’ fintech enterprise making great strides and it is a real privilege that they are one of FinTech Scotland’s founding partners, further demonstrating their strategic leadership credentials
The links with Switzerland are growing stronger and it was wonderful to meet Caroline Rosenberger and Mike Johnson from the Chamber of Commerce team who are doing so much to build on this
Our European engagements have also extended to France this last two weeks and Mickael Paris has been at the Paris FinTech Forum, where once again we were given a very warm welcome and support.
Developing the European fintech collaboration and fellowship opportunities will continue to be an important focus for FinTech Scotland in 2019.
London Fellowship
The Switzerland trade mission also gave me the opportunity to meet and listen to some exciting London based fintech enterprises such as Rebecca Peche from Smart Pension, Sean Hunter from Oak North and Justin Farr-Jones from Creditscript.
I’m hoping they will all make a visit to the fintech community in Scotland soon.
This week saw many of the Scottish financial services and fintech leaders in London for the official launch of Scotland’s financial services prospectus at the Mansion House in the City.
It was a wonderful Burns night occasion hosted by the City of London Mayor which was brought alive by an inspiring speech by the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon and then followed by an awesome Address to a Haggis’ by Steve Ewing of Informatic Ventures.
The evening was a special fellowship opportunity to catch up with many of the inspiring leaders in Scotland such as Gillian Docherty, Russell Dalgleish and Jamie Coleman as well as make new friends such as Anyi Hobson of Commerzbank.
Big congratulations to Clare Carswell and Bronwyn Torrie from Scottish Financial Enterprise for a wonderful evening and for bringing alive Scotland Is Now’ with the prospectus.
The next morning it was along to the London Stock Exchange for the launch of Elite Scotland, the investment funding programme to support high growth companies such as Encompass.
Terrific to listen to Gordon McArthur of Beeks Financial on their impressive journey as well as hear from many of the leading figures from the Scottish investor community such as Sarah Hardy of Archangel Investors, Fraser Lusty of Equity Gap and Jackie Waring of Investing Women.
Supporting fintech firms in accessing funding options is a key priority and it was valuable to have a session recently with a range of investors on progressing this.
Many thanks to Andrew Coleman of Equity gap, Ian Mitchelmore of British Business Bank, Thomas Brock of BE Group, Michiel Smith of Apollo, Aidan Macmillan of Par Equity and Andrew Sloane of ADV for a very constructive session with actions we will follow up on.
The time in London gave me the opportunity meet up with Vishal Patel of Anthemis Group to discuss how we may work together in connecting with fintech investment opportunities in Scotland.
Very much looking forward to welcoming Vishal to Scotland in April to introduce to some of the exciting fintech firms developing a national and global presence.
Global Fellowship
The global connections are a key part in building Scotland’s fintech reputation for international development as well as inward investment.
Fantastic news last week to hear that the Hong Kong based fintech Actelligent will be developing their exciting enterprise in Scotland. Great leadership by Graham Hatton, David Leven and the SDI team.
We are delighted to welcome Charmaine Lo and the team to the Scotland fintech community and support the next stage of their journey along with many other exciting international fintech firms.
There is an opportunity to develop Scottish fintech opportunities with Hong Kong with the opening of the Bridge Pilot Programme. Thank you to Thorsten Terweiden for this.
It was great to share Scotland’s international fintech ambitions with the Global Scot community last week as well and give examples of how we are progressing to be a major fintech centre
Huge thanks to Collette Hughes from SDI for setting up the double webinar to cover all quarters of the world, it was really useful to share the plans of fintech in Scotland
Very much encouraged by the follow up feedback from the Global Scot community from around the world and the offers to support firms as they progress their international plans.
Collaborating to develop the international opportunities is a key part of our partnership with the fantastic team at Deloitte and it was really useful to catch up with Kent Mackenzie and Chris Brown on the areas to focus on for 2019.
The brilliant insights and support from the Deloitte team is a valuable asset for FinTech Scotland.
The global opportunities were also very much on the agenda for the meeting in London with Tom Helm and Sameer Gulati at the Department of International Trade as we discussed the opportunities for leveraging international opportunities.
Very much looking forward to progressing the important work of DIT FinTech Board with Tom and Sameer as well as collaborating for the FinTech Week in Spring of this year along with Graham Hatton and the SDI team.
The FinTech Week showcase event will be the Innovate Finance Global Summit and it was very helpful to catch up with Charlotte Croswell and Rolf Merchant this week in London to develop joint plans.
We’ll also be working with the Fintech North team on this and it was great to catch up with Julian Wells to hear about the terrific work he has been leading in developing the various new initiatives.
I’m very much looking forward to taking up Julian’s offer to speak at the forthcoming FinTech North events in the cities of Manchester and Leeds in the Spring.
Then we’ll be reciprocating by supporting Julian and the team with an event as part of the Fintech Festival in September which will take place across Scotland’s cities.
City Fellowship
Scotland’s cities are further enhancing their reputations as major fintech areas of activity and none more so than Glasgow.
On this it was great to meet up with Graham Smith of Glasgow City Council as well as Paul Hughes, Graeme Rennison, Jamie Rankin and Jacqui Cosgrove of Scottish Enterprise on how we can amplify the great activity to a higher level.
From the exciting developments at the University of Strathclyde through to ongoing progress of firms such as market leading Castlight Financial and Previse, there is much to share with the wider world.
Many congratulations to Previse and Edinburgh based LendingCrowd for being selected for the Tech Nation Upscale programme, well deserved recognition of their high growth potential.
I had the opportunity on Thursday to share these and other examples of the exciting fintech developments with the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce members including Niki McKenzie from the highly respected Archangel Investors and the leading academic Professor Joe Goldblatt of Queen Margaret University.
Many thanks to Liz McArevey, Alexia Haramis and Rebecca Neish for inviting me to the meeting which was unfortunately cut short by the firm alarm on the coldest day of the year!
I hope we can reconvene for part two’ of the session to share how the fintech developments in the City are relevant to all sectors and businesses
The close collaboration with the Financial Conduct Authority is a key enabler which further demonstrate the value of fintech fellowship.
In this respect I found it very helpful to catch up with Ed Smith of the FCA in London earlier in the week at the Stratford HQ and highlight some of the valuable work Nicola Anderson is leading for FinTech Scotland whilst on secondment to us.
Then yesterday it was fantastic to see so many of the fintech community and the wider financial services sector come along to the FCA Project Innovate event on Thursday afternoon.
A very big thank you to Maggie Craig for her inspiring leadership and to the engaging Steven McWhirter, Molly Benjamin, Katherine Brown, Laura Royle and Thomas Ward for a valuable event
Many thanks to the other contributors to the discussions, including David Mcllwaine from our strategic partner Pinsent Masons, Fiona Kinsler from the exciting Cyber Security firm EncompassIT and the brilliant Nilixa Devlukia from the Open Banking Team
The collaboration being developed across Scotland between fintech firms, established financial services businesses, Scottish Enterprise, the FCA and the Scottish universities is very powerful and is attracting a lot of interest.
It has been really useful to progress these plans with our strategic partners Craig Wilson and Colin Carmichael of Sopra Steria as well as Neil Cunningham and Robert McKechnie of Equifax especially in connection with university collaboration.
Also great to catch up this week with Anneli Ritari-Stewart and Steve Farquhar from our strategic partner Dentsu Aegis on how we can amplify some of the collaborative innovation taking place across our cities.
There have been other fantastic examples over this last few weeks of collaborative fellowship to support the development of fintech opportunities
For example, wonderful to hear about the successful Fife FinTech Skills Academy pilot which completed this week and the plans to build on the success and take to the next stage
Magnificent example of collaboration between innovative fintech firms such as Renovite and Ingenico along with Fife College and Fife Council. So inspiring.
Running Fellowship
My running is often a solo activity, so it was fantastic to have the opportunity to go on a run with fellow runner Pat Kunz of SDI on arrival in Zurich last week.
When Pat said he was going to show me the beautiful sights of Zurich I did not expect this to be a three mile run upwards into the sky above the City.
However, with Pat’s encouragement we made it to the top and the FIFA HQ before enjoying a more leisurely run downhill for three miles.
This all did me a power of good because on Saturday I ran my best Parkrun time for over a year so I guess hills (or should I say mountains) are good for me!!
Thanks Pat, next time it is race around Arthurs Seat when you come over to Edinburgh
My next race is the Strathaven half marathon in a couple of week’s times which I know will involve a few more hills and some wind!! Until next time.
New research to improve affordability assessment
The University of Edinburgh, Afterbanks and Inbest are collaborating on a new research project that aims to develop new methods for affordability assessment. On the one hand, they will explore new statistical frameworks to take into account the changing nature of consumers personal circumstances, financial situation and behaviours. On the other hand, they will leverage on Open Banking to not only asses whether the credit is affordable at the point is taken out, but also throughout its whole life.
This research follows the new FCA regulation that makes mandatory for consumer credit lenders to include an affordability assessment (i.e. estimate borrower’s ability to undertake the credit commitments without incurring into financial struggles) into the wider consumer creditworthiness analysis.
Raffaella Calabrese, Associate Professor at University of Edinburgh Business School, said: “The affordability assessment is not only different between borrowers, but also changes in time for the same borrower when new relevant information is available. By introducing a dynamic time-series analysis we expect to increase the accuracy and robustness in the affordability prediction.”
David Lozano, CEO of Afterbanks, said: “Our platform provides financial data to grant over 30,000 personal loans per month in Spain, and this project is an unparallel opportunity to adapt our data platform to the UK market and regulation. We are also excited to become part of the Scottish Fintech Ecosystem, hand in hand with the University of Edinburgh and Inbest”.
Manu Peleteiro, CEO of Inbest, said: “We are delighted to strengthen our partnership with the University of Edinburgh. Our ongoing collaboration has become a source competitive advantage, and the IP we developed helped us to secure projects with large financial providers in Spain. We are also thrilled to welcome Afterbanks – one of the fastest growing Fintech companies in Spain – to the Scottish Fintech ecosystem”.
About Afterbanks
Afterbanks provides a platform to securely access banking data and initiate payments in real time. Our platform provides access to all banks in Spain and the largest banks in Portugal, Italy and Mexico. It is used by dozens of third-party applications and makes over 100.000 conections a day.
About Inbest
Inbest is a data analytics platform that automates the financial planning process by gathering and analyzing customers’ personal financial information. Inbest enables financial institutions to provide financial products and services to help their customers to manage their day-to-day finances, have the right protection coverage and plan for their life goals.