How Returners can address the FinTech skills gaps and increase diversity
As the FinTech sector in Scotland is rapidly growing there is the need to consider a variety of talent pools in order to fill the skills gaps. Women Returners, the UK experts in enabling the return to work of highly-qualified professional women after an extended career break, has received Scottish Government funding to manage a cross-company returner programme within FinTech for employers in Scotland.
Hazel Little, Coaching and Programme Manager, Women Returners says “This is an excellent cost-effective opportunity for FinTech companies to address skills gaps and increase diversity with gender, age and experience. Returners are a relatively untapped talent pool that bring a wealth of professional experience, maturity and knowledge to the business.”
The Returners to Business Services Scotland Programme follows the success of the Returners to Financial Services Scotland Programme which was launched earlier this year in partnership with 12 leading financial companies including RBS, Standard life, Prudential, TSB and CYBG. All participating companies have reported that the programme has been a success for their business and over 75% of the returners have been offered ongoing roles, a testament to the high calibre of talent on the programme.
About the programme
The Returners to Business Services Scotland programme will enable Scottish employers to access and support 1-5 returning professionals in Edinburgh and/or Glasgow in a highly cost-effective way. Employers will be within business services including fintech, financial, legal and consultancy. The placement will run for 16 weeks, November 2018 to February 2019, and will be driven by employers’ recruitment needs.
Women Returners will provide employers with expert consultation, best practice guidance, promotional and manager support, including a returnship toolkit, programme advertising and line manager training. Returners will receive Career Returners Coaching Programme through four group workshops. The full cost of this is covered by the government funding.
Participating employers will provide CV worthy work (either a project or BAU role) and an internal buddy and mentor and will pay the returner salary at a professional level. There will be a good possibility of permanent employment at the end of the programme.
The business benefits
Employers will be able to tap into the wealth of returner talent in Scotland. The Returners to Financial Services Programme received over 450 applications with many employers hiring additional returners based on the high calibre of talent that they met with during the recruitment process.
Employers can increase diversity (age/gender/experience). This programme, which is aimed at professional women, enables employers to target business areas where they would like increased diversity. The previous programme filled several placements within IT, an area which is notoriously difficult to attract women.
Refill the female talent pipeline and improve the gender pay gap. Bringing experienced women back in at a level in line with their experience helps to build the female talent pipeline at professional levels and to address the gender pay gap.
Fortnightly Fintech Fuse – Fintech Fever Pitch!
Fintech fever has certainly ranked alongside the football world cup excitement and the beautiful summer over the last few weeks, with a huge amount of activity on Scotland’s fintech pitch’.
The combination of fintech firms, the world cup and a lovely sunny afternoon were brought together a couple of weeks ago when we had an informal fintech practitioners meet up to watch the Brazil verses Costa Rica match at the Peartree.
Great to see many of the community join us, with the conversation more focused around fintech opportunities rather than the action on the big screen!
Ray Bugg, the terrific leader of Digit, and I agreed that it was more exciting to hear our diverse range of fintech friends, such as Orca Money, Money Matix and Agrud, share their stories with each other rather than the action on the big screen.
We were of course cheering for the Brazilian team because, as many of you know, they are twinned with the Scottish Brazil in Blue team’ Cowdenbeath FC, from the Kingdom of Fife!
Fife FinTech
Of course, I would argue that Fife is more famous for fintech than football and it was fantastic to see the growth in region noted by the recent City UK report, highlighting it as one of Scotland’s key fintech clusters along with Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Looking forward, this growth has every prospect of continuing with firms such as Revovite Technologies expanding and the economic leadership in the region by people such as Iain Shirlaw with the focus on developing the talent pipeline through a fintech academy.
Developing fintech skills is a key priority and it was valuable to catch up with Gbenga Ibikunle from University of Edinburgh to help with the plans for a new unique degree in Fintech leadership to be launched soon.
Very excited about this development along with the launch by Napier University of their postgraduate fintech degree course
Together with the fantastic leadership by David Steinburg at various universities in ensuring we bring through the human dimension of fintech skills development, I am really optimistic we can work towards building the knowledge and skills for a successful global fintech centre.
Melrose FinTech
The various fintech skill development programmes will ensure we are well placed to support the growth across all parts of the country.
The importance of this was highlighted when I met up with the fantastic Andy Smith and Jason Forsyth of Melrose based fintech Agenor Iceflo to hear about how they have successfully taken their fintech proposition to the Middle East.
Hugely excited about supporting the team develop take their proposition in other parts of the financial services sector and global markets working with strategic partners IBM, Deloitte and Sopra Steria.
I’m very much looking forward to my trip down to the Borders to meet the whole Agenor Iceflo team in Melrose and developing the collaboration opportunities with the team at Vivolution, FinTech Scotland’s commercial partner in supporting fintech enterprise growth.
Working with specialist business consultants such as Vivolution is critical to supporting fintech firms maximise their opportunities in Scotland and internationally.
I do believe this will be a key strength going forward especially when I hear about the great work by people such as Alisdair Gunn at Framewire, Carey and Mark at Proposition Builder, Eddie Curran at CBS Consulting and David Reid at Because Brand Matter all supporting young developing firms to get to the next stage of growth.
This week I’ve also really enjoyed catching up with Sharon Ritchie and Lorraine Politi of Catax who very much complement the range of business consultants supporting fintech growth.
Furthermore, my recent catch ups with Susan Staiao and Pam Reid of Ekosgen on their research into the need for specific fintech environment has certainly emphasized the need find more effective ways to connect up fintechs with the right support
Leith and Linlithgow FinTech
This all reinforces the key role of Fintech Scotland in connecting up the various players in the fintech ecosystem so collaboration becomes a big driver of growth and innovation.
To this point, it was really motivating to meet with Catherine Bell, Managing Director of Leith based Mearns & Co to hear about their terrific ground breaking fintech innovation called Lightbox and discuss the various collaboration opportunities
As a further example, I had a fabulous catch up with the inspiring Stephen Marshall to talk about the exciting developments with his fintech business Insure Apps and connecting into the vibrant ecosystem.
I’m delighted I was able to connect Stephen with fellow Linlithgow residents Neil Cunningham and Robert McKechnie from our strategic partner Equifax to explore the mutual opportunities.
Bringing alive these collaboration examples is an exciting part of what we do and so it is super to be working with the brilliant Rory Archibald of Visit Scotland for the Innovate the Nation event in Stirling for September where we can share more.
Over this last couple of weeks I’ve also had great conversations with Paul Mosson of the Law Society of Scotland as well as Firas Khnaisser and Rachel Aldigheri of the Marketing Association on how we develop lateral collaboration to bring the fintech opportunities to wider communities.
Greenside and Gogarburn Fintech
A couple of weeks ago there was an opportunity to take a step back from the fever pitch of fintech activity and take stock on how far we had progressed since the start of the year at the first ever FinTech Scotland board meeting.
Hosted by the wonderful Nucleus Financial people at their Greenside offices and chaired masterfully by David Fergusson we had a very constructive Board discussion on what had been achieved to date and the priorities going forward.
I must admit I was a little bit nervous beforehand in bringing together such a diverse set of very successful leaders around the Board table, all with strong views on the potential for fintech in Scotland.
However, everybody gelled and after couple of hours of terrific engagement I was certainly enthused about realizing our ambition of becoming a leading global fintech centre. Thank you to the Board members for the collective endorsement and support.
This was then translated a few days later through the SFE Fintech Development Group meeting held at the RBS Gogarburn conference centre.
This meeting really got focused on how we execute the details of the FinTech Scotland plan over the coming months and was hosted chaired by Graeme Jones and Louise Smith.
Thank you to everyone who came along from the broad range of players across the ecosystem as well as to Janine Stewart and Murdo Connochie for making things happen on the day.
The early follow up conversations are very encouraging on progressing the various fintech opportunities, for example, meeting with Anurag Agrawi of Baillie Gifford at their Greenside offices and talking with Adam Pollock from RBS.
Dundee and Dunoon Running
I had the opportunity to reflect on the fever pitch of fintech activity when I was interviewed by Rob McLaren of the Dundee Courier, sometimes it is only when you take a step back and explain to someone what is going on that the scale of exciting activity becomes clear.
The opportunity to step back is one of the reasons I love my running to reflect on everything that is happening in the fintech community although my participation in the Dundee half marathon last Sunday was of less interest to Rob than the world of fintech!!
For me you can’t separate the important links between the two, I’m sure people like David Steinburg and many others will testify to this!
For example, my next race is a trip to the birthplace of fintech, the Kingdom of Fife for the famous Aberdour Donkey Brae seven mile race a week on Sunday.
This will be followed six days later by the Dunoon half marathon where I am hoping to come across some signs of fintech fever in this beautiful part of West Scotland! More on this next time.
Growing your Own ”“ the natural antidote to the Data Talent Shortage
This article was written by Robin Huggins, Director of Academy & Client Services for MBN Solutions
Following the success of 2016/17’s Data Lab MSc Placement Programme, the challenge for us was simple: How to deliver “Bigger & Better” results.
2017’s Programme increased in size and complexity with student and participating University numbers growing.
Last year’s results were spectacular ”“ almost 50 students placed into dissertation-worthy Industrial Placements with Scottish organisations. Over 75% of these students immediately securing permanent roles with their summer “host company” or similar Scottish organisations.
How do we improve on that?
The process began late in 2017 with a team from MBN Solutions visiting each of the participating MSc. courses to deliver Employability training under our MBN Academy #MBNSkills banner.
We’ve been working with students for a number of years now so are well versed in delivering a balance of factual and fun based activities designed to achieve one objective: Improve the soft skills, domain expertise and Employability prospects of each student we engage with.
Following our tour of the campuses of Scotland we then worked on an individual basis with students to understand their Placement preferences.
Then, we moved on to the tiny matter of generating enough projects for this group of students to be placed into.
Did we mention there were over 100 Data Lab funded students this year?
Ok, a considerable amount of these students indicated that they’d be more interested in University-based projects, but that still left a large number ”“ based on projections from last year’s Programme – we estimated at least 70 would require an Industrial Placement. How this was to be achieved was a combination of inspiration, perspiration and, to be frank, some desperation!
It’s “hats off” time, now ”“ and we’d like to thank the amazing organisations that we’ve been privileged to work with over the last few months. In a exercise of this nature, without the support of the Scottish business community, our and Data Lab’s efforts would be fruitless.
There are too many to mention each and every one by name in this blog but thanks to Scottish Government, NHS National Shared Services, Wood McKenzie, NCR, Merkle Aquila, Mudano, VShips, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Power who all agreed to host more than 1 student this summer.
Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician and Data Officer at Scottish Government said
“We’re delighted to be taking on 5 people as part of their data science MSc this year. My ambition is to systematically improve outcomes for people in Scotland with data: saving time, money and lives. Data Lab and MBN Solutions play an impressive role in ensuring we get high quality data scientists”.
So, the months between February and May of 2018 saw us frantically working to match students to projects, facilitating meetings and introductions, dealing with feedback and, most importantly, handing over each and every successful placement to The Data Lab.
The Scottish FinTech community stepped up to the plate in a huge way and I’d like to thank RBS, Clydesdale Bank, Sainsbury’s Bank, Royal London, Aberdeen Standard Investment, Tesco Bank and Lending Crowd for their support throughout this period.
We’re delighted that so many students will receive their first experience of commercial Data Science within these organisations and we are sure their experiences will contribute to a very bright future.
Sainsbury’s Bank Chief Data Officer, Mark Hunter wrote “
Sainsbury’s Bank is delighted to be participating in this year’s MSc placement project. It is really important for the future of Scotland’s data industry that our students get exposure to real-world’ data projects and hopefully this experience fuels their desire to bring their skills to bear in Scotland after graduating. MBN have expertly managed the process of marrying our projects with the students who’ll benefit the most from the experience”.
So, with the Programme completed for another year, what did the results look like?
We are delighted to say that we exceeded last year’s total ”“ and more than matched our initial projection for this year ”“ with a total of 73 students securing Industrial Placements.
These students were placed with a variety of Scottish businesses; Start-Ups, large corporate organisations, SMEs and the public sector. Everyone played their part. From Aberdeen in the North, to Ayrshire in the South, students will be working on real-life Data Science projects throughout the summer that will greatly enhance their domain expertise and, ultimately, Employability prospects.
The last word?
We’ll leave that to one of the amazing students we were honoured to assist.
Kieran Kyle, an MSc. Student from the University of Strathclyde’s Data Analytics course said:
“The information provided at the Employability session was extremely helpful, not only for helping me find my placement, but also for carrying over into further job interviews. I managed to secure a placement with Standard Life, an incredible opportunity that I cannot thank Rob and the MBN team enough for, it is certainly something I would never have imagined just a few years ago”.
An interview with Fraser Edmond, co-founder of Broker Insights
Earlier this month, we met with Fraser Edmond, CEO and co-founder of the Insurtech Broker Insights. The company recently won an award and is growing at pace. We wanted to know more about Broker Insights and the reasons for its success.
Fraser, could you tell us a bit more about yourself and your career?
I was 25 years in Aviva, latterly the Broker Distribution Director before leaving to set-up Broker Insights. In my early career I started as an insurance underwriter (writing policies), then moved to London for a few years. There I held a number of development and operational management roles. For the last 15 years my focus has been in the sales and distribution space having worked with banks, retailers and affinity brands to distribute personal insurance products. More recently moving to commercial insurance, working with all shapes and sizes of insurance brokers.
How did Broker Insights come about?
When you have a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo, you feel there’s got to be a better way of doing something. You have a moment of clarity and realise how to do’ differently. It’s then a case of assembling the best possible blend of skills to deliver on that vision and go for it.
Within Scottish fintechs, insurtechs are rare? How do you explain this?
That’s a tough one, my best guess is that Scotland is a massive employer in the banking sector, which has seen unprecedented change in recent years which inevitably leads to fintech start-ups around the sector. In terms of insurtech, I think it’s a few years behind fintech in general coupled with Insurance being very London centric with less roles in Scotland and that starts to explain the imbalance a little bit.
You recently scooped £75K at the Scottish Edge12 Awards. Congratulations!
Do you know what made you win?
The feedback we received from Scottish Edge across the various rounds centred around solving a real market challenge, being unique with first mover advantage and globally scalable, coupled with the experience of the team and our early demonstrable delivery.
Will the prize help you accelerate your development?
The prize accelerates our rate of recruitment ahead of current cashflow forecasts, which will drive growth and product development, and hopefully help us capitalise on our first mover advantage.
You have some very impressive investors backing you up. How did you go about identifying and convincing them?
We knew we had the sector knowledge and all the good disciplines that you learn in corporate. Our weakness was the tech know how’ and start-up dynamics were new to us. With Chris [Van Der Kuyl] and Paddy [Burns] we struck gold in complementing our teams skills. They needed no identification as their track record speaks for itself. In terms of convincing them to be involved, that was everything you would expect. We also had the good fortune that our business aligns with their interests of being first to market with a new concept, in data and technology and our concept was globally scalable.
Would you have any advice for young fintech start-ups?
Don’t be pre-built technology looking for a problem to solve. Really understand a sector, then build technology that solves an existing market problem, challenge or customer experience. Scan other sectors for technology solutions that could translate to your opportunity. Consult widely on your business concept and don’t be afraid to refine it until its really clear and focussed. Most importantly, you need the right blend of skills in your team with the right mind set and you’re ready to make a difference.
Public Blockchains and the Unbanked
According to The World Bank, only 62% of the world’s adult population has a bank or other financial account. This means, nearly 2 billion people around the world do not have bank accounts.
According to the World Bank’s 2016 Findex Report, this is why financial inclusion is so crucial:
Financial inclusion has been broadly recognized as critical in reducing poverty and achieving inclusive economic growth. Financial inclusion is not an end in itself, but a means to an end””there is growing evidence that it has substantial benefits for individuals. Studies show that when people participate in the financial system, they are better able to start and expand businesses, invest in education, manage risk, and absorb financial shocks. Access to accounts and to savings and payment mechanisms increases savings, empowers women, and boosts productive investment and consumption. Access to credit also has positive effects on consumption””as well as on employment status and income and on some aspects of mental health and outlook. The benefits go beyond individuals. Greater access to financial services
for both individuals and firms may help reduce income inequality and accelerate economic growth.
Furthermore, there are some real challenges to providing this financial inclusion, especially in emerging markets -Many people lack access to financial services due to eitherprohibitive costs or barriers to their use, such as regulations that require extensive paperwork, travel distance, legal hurdles, or other market failures.
How can we, as an ecosystem, better serve a large percentage of these unbanked individuals? The answer is likely through the use of globally scalable, cloud- based APIs, in combination with decentralized blockchain. Let us examine.
Prohibitive Costs
Multiple studies have shown that it can cost over $1 (per minute in some cases) each time a call is made to a financial services call center. This is one of the major reasons for high minimum balances, strict account opening requirements, and high fees for most financial services in developing markets.
Account balances of less than $100 are unprofitable for the average financial institution. However, cloud based APIs and blockchain offer a solution to this issue.Via decentralisation, data, support, and analytics can be provided to customers instantly. Gone are call centers””instead replaced with intelligent FAQ, blockchain-trained AI, and mobile alerts.
Onerous Paperwork
The majority of the world’s financial institutions do not supportdigital customer onboarding. This is not only due to a lack of necessary infrastructure and APIs to do so, but also the high cost of performing KYC, legacy document signing frameworks, and security concerns when actions are not performed in person.
For many, gaining access to a financial institution means travelling long distances. As a result, hundreds of millions of people in rural areas are ostracized from the financial system.By integrating cloud-based APIs and the public blockchain into their systems, financial institutions can instead offer a digital onboarding process. In this scenario, because onboarding may be done conveniently and securely on a mobile device, a variety of financial products can be offered, such as banking, savings, investing, insurance and more, greatly increasing the inclusion of these underserved populations.
How do these technologies achieve this goal? By leveraging the power of U.S. cloud infrastructure, within local regulatory frameworks. In such environments, APIs can be deployed all over the world. Best of all, cloud-based APIs can potentially support any language, currency or financial institution.
What if any person around the world could have an immutable fingerprint, stored on the blockchain, and have it accessible through any API-based financial platform? They could use this fingerprint to open accounts, sign documents, and more. As long as this person has access to their mobile device, and the financial institution is using REST APIs, they are good to go, no matter where they live. No more KYC and AML costs, no more paperwork.The singularity of this ID is conceptually similar to a “Snowflake”, in that no two areexactly alike.We are in the midst of a second digital revolution; It is time for financial services incumbents to embrace this opportunity.
The author
Mike Kane is CEO of cloud-based fintech API company, Hydrogen. Hydrogen allows for the digitization of financial solutions. From core infrastructure and complex financial calculations to blockchain security, firms can begin with easy-to-implement solutions and phase in other features over time. Hydrogen began as a product offering of a consumer fintech company, Hedgeable. As there was overwhelming demand and potential for Hydrogen, the team decided to scale it outside of the strict confines of a consumer application.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ People Make FinTech
New technologies are providing the opportunity to reinvent all of financial services, but I’ve always believed that it is people that will make fintech a success at all levels.
This people make fintech’ philosophy has been very much reinforced to me in the last fortnight as I meet with a diverse range of innovative and engaging people from all parts of the vibrant fintech community.
People Development
The opportunity to present at the Heriot-Watt University event on graduate apprenticeships was a great opportunity to talk about the importance of people development for a successful fintech economy.
Thank you to Gill Murray and Robert Goodfellow for the chance to share thoughts on future skills for business and finance along with Vice Chancellor Richard Williams and other esteemed University speakers.
We are delighted to be working with a number of universities across Scotland as education programmes are developed at all levels to support the fintech growth aspirations.
In this respect, really pleased to be working with Damien McGarrigle in his new role for the University of Edinburgh as Fintech Sector Lead in in developing academic and financial services industry opportunities
People development is also about leadership skills in a fintech driven economy and this was a key area of discussion in my meeting with the FCA Chairman Charles Randell and Head of Scotland Maggie Craig this week.
However, leadership is not just about digital know how and data literacy, it is also about building collaborative relationships, especially in complex ecosystems. So, I was delighted to share my insights on this at the Executive Women’s Leadership Programme last Saturday morning to a probing and talented audience.
This is a fantastic education initiative led by the brilliant Professor Susan Murphy of University of Edinburgh Business School and the inspiring Judy Wagner of FWB Park Brown and it was great to contribute to the session on stakeholder networks and collaboration.
People Collaboration
I’ve been really enthused by fintech collaboration opportunities this last two weeks beyond traditional financial services with people from wider sectors who are embracing the new digital age.
Meeting with Martin Beaton and Evelyn Walker from the Cyber Scotland team on Monday was a great example of this and there is much we will be working on together going forward in this key area where Scotland has terrific expertise.
This was further reinforced when I was invited to join contribute to the Digital Scotland conference on Thursday in Glasgow which was expertly chaired by Alisdair Gunn. Great examples of how the public and private sector can both embrace the digital revolution for economic and social good.
Later that day it was on to collaborating with Polly Purvis and the fabulous team from Scotland IS for their Host in Scotland event with Scottish Futures Trust. A very different audience but delighted by the interest in the role of fintech across all sectors
Then catching up with Amanda Fergusson and Paul Wakefield from Marketing Edinburgh last week to ensure we are capturing all the relevant event opportunities coming to the capital to showcase fintech from Scotland.
Thanks to John Donnelly, the brilliant Marketing Edinburgh CEO, who rewarded me with Sweden in the office World Cup sweepstakes!
Innovation People
The world cup fever did not get in the way of a very engaging open banking meet up on Monday evening which showcased a number of examples of how people are going beyond the new regulations to drive innovation to improve customer outcomes.
Terrific session from Steve Tigar of Money Dashboard which prompted a great conversation that could have gone on all night.
It was great that a long standing friend, the inspiring Sam Seaton, chief executive of Moneyhub, a pioneer in bringing about positive change in financial services, was able to join the meet up with thought provoking contributions. You are welcome in Scotland any time Sam when you can escape from London.
Big thanks to the creative James Varga of The ID Co and for Ross Laurie in driving forward the open banking agenda through these meet ups.
The innovation opportunities with open banking are immense and it has been great to be working with Gavin Littlejohn and Kevin Collins over recent weeks to determine how we can put some strategic foundations down to embrace this opportunity globally.
Thank you to Amy Taylor of University of Edinburgh for arranging for Michael Rovatsos and myself to share the strategic ambitions on open banking with Paul Mason from Innovate UK last week, hoping it can propel us to the next stage of broader engagement. Lots more to do on this though!
The innovation opportunities of academia and industry working together are more than just banking and meeting with an old colleague from Standard Life, Joseph Twigg, highlighted that fintech is a broad church of creativity.
Looking forward to seeing Joseph and the team develop their innovations for the asset management sector
On the theme of creative entrepreneurs, it was great to catch up with Aleks Tomczyk last Friday afternoon in our local Corstorphine coffee house to chat on all things fintech and more.
Aleks is taking a well earned break after leading a successful fintech enterprise over the last decade and is now putting his mind to new opportunities.
One area we discussed was how to connect international talent with the fintech opportunities in Scotland which I hope we can explore further as part of the wider people plans for FinTech Scotland
International People
Excitingly, international fintech people have also very much been on the agenda this last fortnight.
This included a fantastic meeting with Jean Donnelly the amazing executive leader of the Boston FinTech Sandbox where we learned a great deal and see terrific opportunities for the respective fintechs on both sides of the Atlantic.
On a broader global perspective, it was great to be at the quarterly UK Government Department of International Trade FinTech Board meeting last week to consider the various actions to develop global opportunities for fintech enterprises
Then it was good to get into more specifics with the Australian fintech hub, Stone & Chalk this week on how we can build closer engagement on mutual developments, big thanks to Paul Kiernan for setting up this engagement.
Closer to home, it was really great as always to meet up with Julian Wells of Whitecap Consulting who is doing a brilliant job in leading FinTech North.
Sharing experiences about the developing fintech ecosystem and building collaboration actions will help us all succeed. I’ll be connecting Julian up with Jean in Boston in advance of his forthcoming trip to the USA.
Following the Digital Scotland presentation and Scotland IS talk, yesterday finished off with a really engaging session with the Chevening Scholars trade mission team from India.
Fascinating to get their perspective on Scotland’s fintech potential and looking forward to building more collaborations going forward with India
I must also say a big thank you again to my insightful mentor, Promilla Caughey, who always provides such wise counsel on taking Scotland on the international stage and building the fintech profile.
The team at Visit Scotland, through the Scotland is Now initiative, are also doing a wonderful job in amplifying the qualities of Scotland, including fintech, around the world. Good to catch up with Rory Archibald on this and looking forward to supporting going forward with more great fintech case studies.
Social People
Many of you will have heard me talk about fintech being much more than just reinventing financial services as a sector but the opportunity to have a wider positive social impact, for example enabling greater financial inclusion.
I had the opportunity to share some of our great examples with 11FS team for the video programme they are producing for Tech Nation and explain how Scotland’s enterprises are leading the way in this area.
On a bigger scale, I very much valued the opportunity to share this broader social purpose agenda with Gerry Higgins, the inspiring leader of Community Enterprise in Scotland and the person leading the Social Enterprise World Forum.
Gerry and team are doing a wonderful job in bringing the Forum to Scotland in September and this is very much putting Scotland on the international stage of social enterprise progress and I’m very much looking to support this. Thank you to Darah Zahran of Scottish Enterprise for great engagement on this as well
One of the examples I shared with Gerry was Money Matix and the fabulous work by Helene and Tynah in the area of using technology to improve financial literacy. Really excited about their various plans and welcoming their exciting enterprise into the fintech community.
Running People
It was such a wonderful 10km race in Glasgow last weekend and a brilliant atmosphere throughout the City, you very much could see why they say that People Make Glasgow’ as it was so true on Sunday morning.
This Sunday, it is the quieter surroundings of Dechmont Law near Livingston for a trail 10km race which will be part of a longer 13 miles run I have planned to improve my marathon pace.
This will be followed by an evening with Elvis Costello, who I haven’t seen since 1978, yes forty years ago. I hope we’ll be dancing in the aisles to Oliver’s Army’ and other big hits after a good recovery from a morning of running!!
Finally, my apologies to the various people who I’ve not had time to catch up with and where meetings are due. You are not forgotten, Shery is doing an amazing job juggling various commitments and we will meet up soon.
Be a ”˜Young Legend’ with the Visit Scotland Business Events team this year
VisitScotland’s Business Events team, responsible for attracting meetings & conferences into Scotland has recently launched a new award for young people to become one of VisitScotland’s three Young Legends’ part of Scotland’s Year of Young People.
As the first ever digital only Legends’campaign, the call has gone out for talented individuals to get involved.
A reason for fintech entrepreneurs to get involved
The Young Legends’ awards will recognise innovative work in key sectors for Scotland ”“ of which Fintech is key. The Business Events team are looking for young people (aged between 18 -26 years) who are building businesses of their own, growing existing businesses or conducting research & innovation in this sector.
They are looking to reward ideas and innovation which has the potential tobe legendary’ in the widest sense. In this connected world it will no doubt be work which has national and international reach whilst being rooted in Scotland which has a long history of being one of the financial capitals of the world.
Beyond fintech
The Young Legends award will celebrate Scotland’s reputation for invention and innovation by recognising leading-edge work. Of course, it won’t just be the financial world which provides this innovative swell of activity amongst this age group. Being a Young Legend’ could mean you workfrom any of the which country’s key economic and academic research sectors such as Technology, Engineering, Energy and Marine Biology or the creative arts including design or food & drink. Entering the awards also means the shortlisted finalists will be able to network amongst this talented group.
What about the prize?
The three lucky “Young Legends” will win a unique opportunity to see their work championed internationally within the Legends campaign throughout 2019. The Young Legends’ awardsceremony will be held in November 2018.
The awards are part of a larger digital campaign, Legends’ by VisitScotland Business Events which launched last November. The “Legends” digital campaign highlights a specific Scottish economic orsocial theme every two months, sharing original online content, blogs and video podcasts from every region of Scotland.
The sectors featured are: Technology; Education; Life Sciences; Engineering; Digital; Marine; Creative; Energy; Health; Space; Food & Drink and Surgery. The campaign will run for two years in total using the hashtag #ideasbecomelegend and the ultimate aim is to attract to Scotland even more business events (conferences, meetings and congresses) from each sector.
Neil Brownlee, Head of Business Visits & Events at VisitScotland, said:
“Scotland’s reputation for innovation stretches back hundreds of years and continues to this day. We think it’s time toshowcase the breadth and depth of the country’s young talent who are heirs to the many famous Scottish inventions and innovations that are known throughout the world. I encourage all young people working in Scotland to apply for the Awards ”“ we know there are some unsung heroes outthere who deserve to be recognised for their amazing work and pioneering spirit.”
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ FinTech Community from Aberdeen to Amsterdam via Dublin!
One of the really enjoyable aspects of my role is the sense of community around fintech, a community that stretches well beyond the traditional boundaries of financial services and technology.
The way that Scotland embraces diverse and dynamic communities is a going to be a key ingredient to our fintech success and the reason why inclusion sits alongside innovation and collaboration as a core value of FinTech Scotland.
This community ethos was very much in evident during our action packed visit to Aberdeen last week
Aberdeen Community
It was wonderful to meet up with the Aberdeen community for the “Exploring Aberdeen’s FinTech Ambition’ event organized by Elevator and their charismatic leader Jules Lancastle.
The exploring came alive hearing from entrepreneur Chris Herd and how his enterprise Nexves can play a role in transforming how people engage with money was enthralling and very exciting.
Similarly, when Duncan Hart explained how his DeepMiner business is enabling more personal engagement with consumers.
Then it was brilliant to catch up with Ike Ibekwe to learn about his innovative MyPropoertyPlus’ enterprise is applying fintech in the property sector
Earlier in the day I had the opportunity to share Scotland’s fintech opportunities at the Digital Cities event organsied by FutureScot sharing the platform with Jackie Doyle of Opportunity North East. Community wide innovation is certainly very much alive in Aberdeen.
This was further brought alive when we visited the amazing Oil and Gas Technology Centre and Luca Corradi shared with us how creating the right environment and a blend of people can lead to new innovations. There is much fintech can learn from the oil and gas sector in driving innovation through community hubs.
Big thanks to Steve Harrison for organising our action packed engagement with the Aberdeen community where fintech certainly has an important role to play in the future.
The community theme was also very much part of the conversation when I shared the fintech opportunities with the Glasgow Economic Leadership team on Monday evening and how these could be developed in collaboration across the financial services sector, universities and public sector.
Thanks to Mark Napier of JP Morgan for this opportunity and I look forward to supporting the Glasgow community further demonstrate its fintech innovation and deliver great economic results.
Social Community
The focus on community ensures that social as well as economic benefits from fintech are developed in tandem for all and this is a powerful strength of Scotland’s fintech ethos
This was the focus of the “How can fintech be a positive agent for social change’ event at Strathclyde University Business School on Thursday.
It was wonderful to have such a dynamic and diverse full house audience for the fabulous event organised by the Scotsman and brilliantly chaired by David Lee.
It was a privilege to be on the platform along with fintech pioneers Alison McHugh of Gigly and Loral Quinn of Sustainably along with the inspiring Louise Smith of RBS discussing how fintech can be, and is, a real force for good.
Thank you to Daniel Broby and Tim Bedford from Strathclyde University for their deep thought provoking insight on the fintech opportunities along with Andrew Berry and David Goodbrand for making it an engaging conversation
The discussions afterwards with people from all generations and backgrounds brought to life for me even more what a fabulous community with a strong social purpose is being created through fintech.
Many of you know that the social community aspect from reinventing financial services through technology has been the big motivating force throughout my 35 plus years career.
And at a very emotional level, the importance of fintech in driving good social outcomes really came to the fore when I met two amazing people, Tynah Matembe and Helene Rodger, to learn about the wonderful work by their enterprise MoneyMatiX.
Hearing how Tynah and Helene are using technology to create financially literate communities through innovative programmes for young people in Edinburgh and the Lothian region, filled me with absolute joy.
Especially when I began to understand how their work is focused on communities which historically have been overlooked by traditional financial services. This is how fintech innovation is such a powerful enabler for financial inclusion. Wow!
Innovation Community
Fintech innovation will be such a positive force when it is based around communities and this is very much the case when you create the right environment for a diverse set of people to come together.
This is exactly how Prudential M&G are establishing their new environment in Edinburgh, a people focused place focused on creativity, empowerment, progressive thinking and openness.
Going along to the official opening of this new innovation space last week and seeing as well as feeling the buzz was something very special. It was also really good to see some old friends enjoying the new Prudential community (Dave, Michael). This was a traditional financial business, with very much a community heritage, embracing and leading in the new fintech age.
The insightful and progressive leadership of David Macmillan and Richard Caldicott along with the rest of the terrific team means that one of the world’s oldest financial services companies is very much a driving force in Scotland’s fintech community. Watch this space for more.
The time at Prudential M&G reinforced to me that even in this digital age, collaborative physical spaces have a really big role to play in generating innovation throughout the fintech community.
So, it was great to meet with Susan and Richard from Ekosgen a few days ago who will be carrying an analysis on behalf of Scottish Enterprise and ourselves on how we can build on the existing great accelerator and incubator spaces going forward across Scotland
Of course, innovation communities are not just about spaces alone and connecting people to help fintech enterprises grow is fundamental to making businesses sustainable.
In this respect delighted that we will be working closely with the hugely experienced and excellent Mark Roger, Andrew McGee and team at Vivolution to help fintech enterprises connect to the right relationships to support their innovations and growth, whether that be for funding or support services. More on this exciting new partnership in the community to come soon.
Banks have an important role in our communities and radically transforming an established financial business, CYBG, to focus on customers evolving financial needs was the focus of the talk at the terrific FWB Park Brown dinner last Thursday evening, Great to hear from Helen Page on leading the CYBG fintech journey.
The dinner was a great opportunity for me to share Scotland’s innovation ambitions to an audience beyond financial services, from the renewable energy sector to the accountancy profession. Reaching out to wider communities provides more opportunities to drive new innovations.
With this in mind it was terrific to catch up with the insightful Amanda Fergusson and Paul Wakefield from the Marketing Edinburgh team on connecting into the wider community activity around Edinburgh to spread the fintech innovation message as well as on the global stage.
Global Community
Being very much part of a global fintech community is key to our international ambitions and, therefore, it was great to hear about the new European relationships Mickael developed at the Amsterdam FinTech Festival this week.
We are looking forward to working with the Money 2020 team to bring this global fintech festival activity to Scotland in the near future. Thank you to the Dutch hosts for their wonderful hospitality
In the meantime, this week, I am here in very sunny Scotland to develop global collaboration opportunities through the Scottish and Irish Finance Initiative event on Wednesday night, expertly organized by the engaging David Clarke.
Fabulous event to share the respective Scotland and Ireland fintech developments and it was great to be alongside Pete rock star’ Townsend, Andreas Hoepner and Government Minister Derek Mackay.
Massive thanks to Andy O’Callaghan, Allan McGrath and Cathorina Finlay of PWC for hosting such an excellent “North Atlantic fintech’ corridor’ event.
Working with our strategic partners Pinsent Mason and Dentsu Aegis we are already developing those mutual Scotland and Ireland fintech opportunities and looking forward to the return in Dublin later in the year.
Running Community
I’m hoping the return event in Ireland may coincide with a bit of community running such as the Dublin marathon!
After a really enjoyable Edinburgh marathon a week last Sunday with a time of 3.25, I now feel ready to push on and work towards the sub three hour time that I still dream about!!
So, focus is on building up running speed over these Summer months and the next race is the Glasgow 10km a week on Sunday finishing in George Square.
I’ll be wearing my fintech community colours’ so please give me a cheer if you out on the Glasgow streets and see me aim for a seasonal PB! Until next time
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Collaboration, the Fintech Fuel”¦
This last two weeks has further shown me how collaboration across a range of people and organisations is helping to fuel a vibrant and growing fintech environment in Scotland
Excitingly, this collaboration goes well beyond the traditional boundaries of financial services and embraces a diversity of people who share a common purpose in driving progressive change.
For example, the opportunity to share my thoughts at the recent Digital Cities event, expertly organised by FutureScot, was ideal in highlighting how fintech innovation can support public sector digital objectives.
This conversation continued when I met up with the brilliant Alexander Holt to talk about the very successful CivTech initiative, with stage three of the programme about to be announced in early June.
We both share a strong view that collaboration provides a real opportunity for fintech enterprises to further develop financial services and public sector innovation by working in unison focused on good social outcomes.
City Collaboration
Innovative collaboration also requires active engagement with a broad range of stakeholders across our cities and it was good to talk through data driven innovation ideas with Liz Mcareavey at the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce a few days ago.
This citywide collaboration was also very much in evident in the discussions at the University of Glasgow and Chamber of Commerce event on Wednesday on the ambitious plans for the Innovation District’ over the next few years.
Such collaborative partnership between public, private and the academic sector will provide further impetus for the City being a major innovation hub and I look forward to exploring further how fintech enterprises can participate in this significant development.
Last week, I enjoyed the conversation with Mark Napier of JP Morgan on how City wide fintech collaboration can drive innovation as well as progress our mutual inclusion and diversity objectives. I’m looking forward to sharing more at the Glasgow Economic Leadership financial services meeting next month.
The collaboration fuel’ was also very much in evident when I caught up with Professor Jim Macdonald, Adrian Gillespie and Tim Bedford of Strathclyde University as we explored how fintech could embrace opportunities of working within their world leading Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow City centre.
Very excited about the opportunity of fintech playing a key role in enabling this citywide collaboration with Scotland’s world leading universities playing a central role and working with international thought leaders such as Danial Broby, who shared with me the latest thoughts on blockchain.
Talking with Maggie Craig and Alan Drainer at the Financial Conduct Authority this week, the opportunity to build even closer collaboration with the regulator as we develop the university led citywide initiatives will further enhance the innovation environments we can create in Scotland.
Creative Collaboration
Making collaboration work in practice requires creative and courageous interaction and this was certainly brought alive to me when meeting with John McHugh and `Alison McHugh of Gigly at the end of the day in Glasgow on Wednesday.
Their businesses Gigly and Adlantic are such amazing enterprises, focused on creatively addressing people’s financial needs through proactive collaboration and it was a privilege to hear the wisdom and passion of two such inspiring leadership role models.
Hugely motivating, massive thank you John and Alison for bringing alive how fintech is making a difference (and for the tips on being a better swimmer!)
My meeting last week at Codebase in Edinburgh with the engaging Trish McClay, Simon Lewis, Graham Cambridge, the Barclays team working with fintech people, was all about creative collaboration in action with great new firms such as Mark for Market. Thanks Andy Cunningham for arranging such a super session.
The role of creative collaboration in a highly regulated sector such as financial services is key to unlocking the opportunities going forward and I shared some thoughts on this with the annual gathering of the Group Internal Audit team at RBS.
Very much appreciated the engagement from the session and thanks to Martin Ambrose for inviting me to share how risk management, audit and fintech innovation can positively work together in a collaborative environment.
Creative collaboration also very much applies to the subject of cyber security and it was valuable to have distinguished guests at the joint Cyber Scotland and FinTech Scotland dinner on Thursday evening.
Cyber and fintech are areas where Scotland has the potential to excel and it a terrific roundtable conversation with Minister Derek MacKay and a cross section of investor community on how we can maximize the opportunity. Thank you to the fabulous Evelyn Walker and Martin Beaton as well as BTO for organising a splendid evening with an abundance of collaboration spirit and ambition.
Working with our recently announced strategic partners, Deloitte, Pinsent Masons, Dentsu Aegis and Sopra Steria, we are looking forward to progressing a number of other strategic fintech themes that Scotland can showcase around the world through global collaboration.
In this respect, I am very fortunate to be mentored by Promilla Caughey, who provides such fresh insightful counsel on navigating the international opportunities and global contacts in this changing world. Great to see you again this week Promilla and thank you for joining me on my meeting engagements in Glasgow.
Global Collaboration
Global collaboration has always been a key objective of FinTech Scotland and so it was great to be invited by SDI colleagues Racquel Largo Martinez and Laurent Melin to join a presentation in Barcleona for senior people from the banking community.
There was much interest in how we are developing Scotland’s fintech ecosystem. albeit, my participation was via Skype as much as I would have loved a visit to the beautiful European city at this time of year!
The presentation highlighted to me once again how the fintech community in Scotland is very much taking a leadership role when it comes to Scotland wide and global collaboration.
Further reinforced by Mickael and Graham Hatton of SDI, who did a fabulous job along with the engaging Myles Stephenson of fintech firm Modulr in sharing with a big London audience at Scotland House on how we are making a mark in the global fintech scene.
This is also very much the thinking behind the Open Banking Centre of Excellence developments and it was good to agree some constructive steps on how to progress with Gavin Littlejohn and Kevin Collins, from the University of Edinburgh Data Innovation Programme last week.
The recent announcement by Phil Grady and Martin Leonard at the brilliant Castlight Financial on their collaboration with global banking player HSBC is a really great example of the valuable work being driven forward by Scotland’s fintech enterprises and leaders. Fantastic news.
Of course, the global collaboration goes beyond open banking and a terrific example last week was the University of Edinburgh Business School event on Social Finance and Finance Technology.
I was delighted to share thoughts on how fintech in Scotland can contribute to the broader social finance agenda along with some excellent speakers from around the world.
Well done to Marcel Lukas, Augosto Rocha and Arman Eshraghi for a very innovative and collaborative event, possibly the first of its kind in the world, again Scotland leading the way.
Of course, my fortnightly blog can only skim the surface of the scale of fintech activity taking place across Scotland. Therefore, I delighted to see the comprehensive fintech supplement from Scotsman newspaper appear this week bringing alive the unique opportunity we have to make a difference in Scotland and globally
Very much appreciate the work by David Lee and Ian Davey in bringing alive Scotland’s fintech opportunities and community. Another brilliant example of the value in engaging collaboration.
Marathon Collaboration
As my mind turns to my marathon in Edinburgh this weekend, it strikes me how my running success is also dependent upon great community collaboration.
Yes, running is very much an individual sporting activity focused on physical and mental endurance but the ability to successfully complete the 26.2 miles also relies on the extensive collaboration of the race organisers, fabulous volunteers, sponsors, cheering supporters, fellow runners and, of course, family
For me, a marathon is as much about an inclusive community and collective collaboration as it is about personal endeavour and performance. This is also so true of what we are trying to achieve with fintech in Scotland.
Give me a fintech cheer’ if you are out and about on Sunday morning and see me as I join the many thousands of runners enjoying every minute of this super Edinburgh marathon race, it may just be the extra bit of encouragement I need at that point!
Until next time.
Help for FinTech SMEs to attract more women and address the skills gap
The FinTech sector in Scotland and across the world is growing rapidly as is the demand for new staff to fuel this growth. In the wider digital technologies sector in Scotland, 12,800 vacancies arise every year and many businesses struggle to fill these roles.
Despite this evident skills gap, the proportion of women in digitally focused roles is only 18% as opposed to 48% in the workforce as a whole and 39% in other skilled occupations. There is an enormous opportunity to meet many of the industry’s skills needs by closing the technology gender gap.
The need for diversity
In addition to addressing the growing skills gap, there are robust business, legal and moral cases for improving gender diversity in companies. We know that where there are greater levels of diversity, companies experience greater returns on investment, equity and sales. Women’s equal participation in STEM is estimated to be worth £170 million to the Scottish economy annually.
Over the last few years, an increasing number of companies have started taking action and working in partnership with education institutions and the skills agencies to attract and retain more women to the digital technologies sector. This is reflected in the results of the recent Scottish Technology Industry Survey 2018, conducted by ScotlandIS, which showed that more than 68% of respondents have already taken action to address the technology gender gap.
A new workplace
The most commonly taken step to attract more women is to offer flexible working patterns that are compatible with child care commitments. 55% have tried this measure and found that it helps and only 6% of respondents are unlikely to try it.
Around a quarter of responding companies provide female role models for engagement with schools and universities and/or support initiatives like Scotland Women in Technology (SWiT) or Girl Geeks.
The least used measure is the provision of return-to-work training for women after a career break (15%) even though 71% of respondents would consider this step.
A question of size?
However, the figures also reveal that large businesses (more than 500 employees) were more likely than small and medium companies to have successfully implemented any of the measures mentioned above.
SMEs often report that they struggle to develop more inclusive workplaces policies and practices due to a lack of time, resources, access to expertise and awareness of effective practices.
The engendering STEM project
The ENGENDERING STEM project has been set up to help SMEs in FinTech and other sectors that recruit for technical/STEM roles to overcome these barriers. City of Glasgow College, Equate Scotland and partners from the Netherlands and the Basque Country in Spain are working together to develop an evidence based self-assessment toolkit, best practice guides and blended learning training solutions. The project is funded by the Erasmus+ programme.
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Get Advice and Support – We will work with you to provide tailored recommendations and support to improve the gender balance in your business ”“ all you have to do is complete our free online self-assessment tool.
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Give Your Views – What are your views on getting more women into Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM)? Fill in our anonymous survey here
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Share Best Practice – Do you have a success story to share? ENGENDERING STEM can promote this to a European audience in our series of best practice guides. Share your case study with us here