Innovating with Data in the Financial Industries
Article written by Ian Allaway, Founder and Product Director at Wallscope
Wallscope has been working with Semantic Web Techniques and Machine Learning tools for several years. Their tools and services have been used to support Digital Transformation projects in the NHS and the Scottish Government. Here they explain how their technology can help manage big data across the financial sector.
“Like any large corporate or public sector organisations, the financial industries now have to come to terms with the ever-increasing growth of digital data. Data is typically stored in disparate sources ranging from legacy Content and Document Management Systems to relational databases and other data silos.
Finding information across these multiple sources can be time-consuming and overwhelming. There is a reliance on those who know where the information is stored, or the use of a traditional search engine to retrieve a linear list of documents.
How can a Knowledge Graph help?
A Knowledge Graph differs fundamentally from traditional search. It identifies entities (such as people, places, organisations or concepts) across vast amounts of data and exposes the relationships between them. This allows a dynamic exploration of resources which would otherwise be extremely time-consuming.
In the financial sector the use of this kind of technology has immediate benefits, particularly when combined with Machine Learning models. In the field of due diligence or know your customer, for example, it has many practical applications, allowing you to uncover related people, organisations or indeed financial transactions across multiple documents or data sources. It also makes it easier to collaborate across internal and external data sources, for example when performing credit checks. This has the potential to massively reduce the time spent on such operations.
Ontologies help us to organise complex information and aid the implementation of Knowledge Graphs. In the financial industries, existing ontologies are rapidly being developed and reaching industrial maturity, for example the Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO) and the STW Thesaurus for Economics.
Dynamic Data Discovery
Wallscope’s unique technology stack combines an Enterprise Knowledge Graph with Natural Language Processing, Named Entity Recognition engines and Machine Learning models to enhance the interoperability of contextual information.
Our Dynamic Data Discovery platform is currently being used within the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland to help unlock the value of their data. For example, we have developed a tool to help GPs work across disparate information sources, in order to better manage the care of patients recently discharged from hospital. This is a versatile application which could be used in any scenario where information sources are divergent. In professional fields where rapid response is a requirement it saves time and avoids unnecessary complexity.
We are now receiving interest from the financial sector which we are looking to expand on in the near future. We are looking forward to taking part in FinTech Scotland’s event on 27 September, exploring opportunities for cross-border collaboration between Scotland and Ireland.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ The Home For FinTech
I’ve always been sure that Scotland is a natural home for fintech growth and innovation and my journeys over the last few weeks has reinforced this belief in so many ways.
The home of fintech really came alive for me during the meeting last Friday to discuss the development of the Fife FinTech Academy with Iain Shirlaw, John Mcfarlane, Krystyna Marett and Ann Salt.
Developing the skills for a bright fintech home of the future is crucial and the Academy initiative with an initial focus on financial payments will ensure the Fife region continues to lead the way globally.
You’ll be hearing more details on this following the launch event as a curtain raiser for FinTech Scotland Fortnight in September.
However, in the meantime the fantastic news from the global fintech player Renovite Technologies to expand further is testament to Fife being a key area of Scotland’s fintech home.
Innovation Home
Meeting new and established fintech firms demonstrated that innovation is alive and well in our home. For example, the credentials and track record of Inside Secure were wonderful to hear about when I caught up with Douglas Kinloch and Neal Michie at their Glasgow office one evening.
I’m excited about connecting the Inside Secure team with the fintech payment firms in Fife to take advantage of collaboration opportunities.
Similarly, from our meeting recently with David Eccles from Wallscope we can see potential to drive innovation in the home by making connections with key stakeholders
The value of an innovation led home was very much in abundance when Mickael and I met up with Mark Doherty, Stephen Pollock and Jason at Avaloq yesterday and then had the chance to join their All Hands’ meeting. Fantastic people with a fabulous working environment.
As initial founding partners of FinTech Scotland, Avaloq play a significant role in Scotland and globally and it is exciting working with them to support their growth and people development plans.
During their session, I was asked whether we can measure the real level of innovation taking place in Scorland.
This gave me the opportunity to highlight the innovation audit’ work we have been progressing with the Scottish Government CanDo team along with a couple of other sectors. I’m looking forward to progressing this work with June Love, Joanna McKenzie and the team.
Sharing the exciting innovation happening in our Scotland fintech home is always a privilege and on Wednesday there was the opportunity to do so with Scottish Government Minister Kate Forbes and UK Treasury Minister John Glenn.
Wonderful to hear the broad range of fintech leaders share how they are reinvesting financial services as well as candidly expressed the challenges in driving forward innovation in financial services.
Thank you to all who joined me for the Ministerial visit to Fintech Scotland, you all did the fintech community proud. Big thanks also to Shery, Fiona and Niamh for making everything run so smoothly.
Later that day I ran over Glasgow to join the MBN Solutions and DataLab fabulous event for data scientists to share thoughts on why fintech is a wonderful home to develop a career path in Scotland.
Many thanks to Paul Forrest, Mickael Young, Rob Huggins and their super team, sorry I had to rush off at the end to get back for my daughters 18th birthday!
In a slightly different part of the fintech home, catching up with Suhail Ahmed of Advisory Direct and then later that day with Eleanor Tucker of GangHut at the Product Tank event highlighted to me the power of new collaborations in the fintech home.
Collaboration Home
The subject of collaboration opportunities was very much on the agenda with my catch up with Nucleus Financial chief executive David Fergusson, and of course, chair of FinTech Scotland
David rightly challenged me on whether larger enterprises were genuinely innovating and embracing collaboration opportunities in the market with fintech firms.
There are some terrific examples happening such The ID.Co work with CYBG and the Castlight Financial team with HSBC.
Meeting up with Philip Grant of Lloyds Bank Group and then separately also with Sarah Barry of Sainsbury Bank highlighted that the banking sector is seeing the value in fintech collaboration to strengthen our collective home.
Meeting Colin Carmichael from our strategic partner Sopra Steria allowed us to develop plans to progress this and, furthermore, identify new emerging collaboration opportunities.
For example, my meeting with the Hymans Robertson team John Taylor, Scott Finnie and Barry Smart made it clear that there are fintech collaboration opportunities very much in the pensions and employee benefits space going forward.
Fintech collaboration can go beyond the various financial services sectors and so it was good to meet up last week with Christian Beveridge and Derek Toal of Virgin Media explore cross sector opportunities. Great to hear about their role at the FinTech Summit in September.
For me one of the exemplars of collaboration is JP Morgan, reinforced in my conversation with Douglas of Inside Secure.
So it was a privilege to plays a role in last weeks JP Morgan FinTech Roundtable with a broad spectrum of guests from the asset management sector. Thank you to Stephen Flaherty, Sandy Brodie and the team, much to take on board on how to unlock the collaboration potential in our home.
In this respect, I am delighted to have worked with Scottish Enterprise to welcome the Vivolution team as the FinTech Scotland Network Integrator and into our home to foster the collaboration and support fintech firms in Scotland with growth.
Home of Excellence
Building a home of excellence for fintech firms is a key objective and the expertise of the Vivolution team will support fintech firms with funding and commercial development.
It was good to talk this all through at the FinTech Practitioners Group Meeting recently and it was terrific to have such a great attendance from the community, even if it was a bit of a squeeze!
Thank you to everyone who came along and your valuable contributions and feedback, next main meetings in October will focus on funding sources and options plus a fintech home social’.
Our appreciation to Anneli Ritari-Stewart and the team from our strategic partner Dentsu Aegis for hosting and making us all feel so much at home in Scotland’s epicentre of digital and marketing. And of course, wonderful to see the Whitespace team now part of the Dentsu Aegis family and in the fintech home.
A few days before the Practitioners Forum, we had the latest Open Banking Excellence meet up, great conversation and super to see even more new faces. Thanks again to James Varga for hosting.
Developing the Open Banking Centre of Excellence continues to be a key priority working with the inspiring Gavin Littlejohn plus a core team from the University of Edinburgh. Thanks again Damien, Douglas, Kevin and Triinu Hansen
Really useful meeting with Colin Garland, director of the Competition and Markets Authority on the subject of the centre of excellence strategy and plans, thanks Colin very much appreciated your enthusiasm for this initiative and great to hear about your expansion plans in Scotland.
Similarly, it was tremendously useful to catch up with Simon Thompson, chief executive of the Chartered Bankers Institute who have a key role to play in the emergence of a global open banking centre of excellence. Very much appreciate your insight and engagement Simon, looking forward to collaborating further on a local and international level.
International Home
Another of our key objectives is to embrace the global fintech opportunities for our home here in Scotland and sharing the story to gain interest in what we are doing is something we always grasp.
So, it was brilliant to be given the opportunity to present to some significant Middle east and Far East sovereign fund and institutional fund investors who were being hosted by the University of Edinburgh
Thank you to The ID.Co, Money Dashboard and Sustainably for supporting me with the conversations as well as George Baxter, chief executive of Edinburgh Innovations for including us in the opportunity.
The recent late Friday afternoon meeting with Kent Mackenzie and Chris Brown from our global professional services partner Deloitte got me excited on how we can develop the fintech home on a international stage going forward.
Reinforced this last two weeks with international conversations on our fintech home stretching from as far away as Rhode Island, USA and as near as Ireland. Thank you Paul Snape and David Clarke I look forward to seeing you both during our Fintech Fortnight with your colleagues.
We are delighted that Scottish International Week led by global leader Russell Dalgleish starting 17th September coincides with Fintech Fortnight and we look forward to welcoming many global guests to our fintech home during this time.
A huge thank you to everyone across the community who is contributing to making FinTech Fortnight happen in a few weeks time and the great support from our friends at Visit Scotland.
On the subject of international themes, many congratulations to my global mentor Promilla Caughey on taking up a new role with the Scottish Government, a fantastic career move and so well deserved.
Running for Homes
I’ll be running for homes on Sunday as I take part in the 15 mile urban rush race from South Queensferry to Holyrood for the charity Shelter Scotland.
The Shelter Scotland fight to address the impact of homelessness has always meant a great deal to me and this is my small way of contributing to their great work. Everyone deserves a home that is safe and secure.
This will be a great practice race ahead of my marathon in two weeks time just prior to the official start of FinTech Fortnight on 17thSeptember. Until then!
Fintech and Gamification
This article was written by Phil Smy from Pocket Sized Hands. Pocket Sized Hands is a software company who have developed games using gamification techniques for St. Andrews University and for other clients.
There’s a consistent theme in the challenges that financial companies face when interacting with existing and new customers, engagement and education. Customers find interacting with financial services to be unengaging due to lack of understanding, complexity and jargon.
Many fintech companies are utilising new ways to tackle this problem, namely gamification. Gamification is the application of game concepts, features and game design principles for non-gaming applications. In practice these techniques come in the form of rewarding good behaviour, implementing interactivity to engage customers or visualising data.
The purpose of this is to engage and inform individuals through novel means. In the past, gamification techniques have been used within various sectors. Education have benefited from gamification to inform and engage students. Fitness companies have used gamification to encourage a healthy lifestyle. For many businesses, gamification has been found to be a cost-effective method of training in comparison to traditional training techniques.
Education
Gamification within education is a growing trend. The basis of using gamification within a teaching context is that if users are engaged with games that communicate lessons through gameplay mechanics or objectives, users can learn without even realizing it. If you give a young person the option to play a mobile game, doing their homework or attending a lecture, most young people will want to play the game.
Applying this to the fintech industry and you can see how young people (or people of all ages) could play gamified applications with rewards and interactions to better engage with their financial future. Through feedback loops, customers can learn to make good choices with their money and stop spending their money recklessly. By utilising these techniques, fintech companies can reward and condition good financial behaviour.
Rewards
Gamification rewards can be divided into two different sections, extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. An example of an extrinsic reward within gamification is the accumulation of points, achievements, places on a high score table etc. For fintech, instead of earning points, the user can be saving money.
For example, if a user saves some money through their pension pot or financial plan, the application would be able to visualise and summarise how much they have saved and reward the user for saving a certain amount, this can also work with real word rewards.
Companies in the past have experimented with real life rewards such as vouchers and money off products and services. In terms of intrinsic rewards, educating users of financial plans and other elements of finance can help financial companies engage and inform their customers.
Conclusion
The overall goal of gamification applications is to change the behaviour of consumers on a wide scale. Gamification does this by educating users of potential bad habits and rewarding users for their good habits. Dr. Iain Donald of Abertay University, the leading games design university in Europe summarises it perfectly.
“The application of game design and technology to engage new audiences has proven to be extremely beneficial, both in the education and entertainment sectors. Increasingly that potential is being harnessed in other industries from medicine through to finance.“
Open Banking: Bringing Product Diversification & Consumer Choice
In a major vote of confidence in the future of Open Banking, Clydesdale Bank has integrated the DirectID Open Banking Platform from The ID Co. into its B mobile banking app. B analyses user data to make informed suggestions about spending and saving habits. Use of the platform will allow customers to see their account details and balances from all major banks and building societies in one location.
PSD2
Following the passage of the second Payment Services Directive in January, the nine biggest UK banks have been opening their data to approved FCA companies such as The ID Co. and other Payment Initiation Services Providers (PISP).
We have been extremely vocal in our support for Open Banking, bringing about, as it does, a tremendous opportunity for banks and customers. In the case of Clydesdale Bank customers, they can now import banking data from a range of UK banks including: Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Group, Santander, RBS and Nationwide, as well as digital banks such as Starling and Monzo.
Future Developments
This is an excellent start for legislation that has only been in place for eight months. For both the industry, and consumers, the future is even more exciting.
The introduction of Open Banking and PSD2 are set to revolutionise the banking sector, as new players and smaller disruptor banks can level the playing field and compete with the established players. This in turn will lead to an upsurge in the volume of innovative products that are on offer to banking consumers, which will ultimately transform the sector.
Tech Innovation
Through the use of APIs, we expect to see further innovation and growth amongst new businesses in the financial technology space, as well as within banks directly. This is in part being driven by customer expectation. Consumers in the main continue to bank with the five largest banks (Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays, RBS & Santander), but due to their size and scope and lack of direct competition, services have not matured in line with technological innovation. Savvy consumers demanding innovative products are being offered more opportunity than ever to tailor the services that they are offered by financial providers.
“Clydesdale’s adoption of Open Banking is an exciting step forward in how Open Banking enabled propositions are helping customers securely move, manage and make more of their money.”
Imran Gulamhuseinwala OBE, Trustee of the Open Banking Implementation Entity.
Moving forward, we are confident that account integration will be viewed as the starting point for Open Banking. Companies, including the ID Co., are building products and services that will address such diverse issues as income verification, affordability, credit risk, and Know Your Customer (KYC).
These, individually and collectively, will impact upon major issues across the globe such as financial inclusion and servicing the unbanked, allow access to credit for those with thin credit histories, and drive down the cost of lending for consumers.
Digital Banks
The view amongst industry experts is that there is now a defined movement away from viewing banks as focusing solely on money, and towards banks becoming connected spaces for digital services. How banks react and take up this mantle could be key to their success in this new era of Open Banking. We have already witnessed banks such as Starling, Monzo and Atom Bank that have developed their proposition based on the ability to provide a “marketplace” of additional features to their customers ”“ albeit not based on Open Banking – and it is now up to the larger banks to respond.
Closing Thoughts
Open Banking has ultimately been brought about through the will of Government in order to offer consumers more choice and range in their financial products. Now that Open Banking is here and is happening, the response of the major banks will be closely monitored.
We are delighted that Clydesdale & Yorkshire Bank have understood the need to explore and implement functionality brought about through Open Banking, and we look forward to working closely with them. As more services and products are brought to market through fintech companies, challenger banks and the established players, we look forward to understanding their impact upon the industry, and ultimately the consumer.
Author
James Varga, CEO, The ID Co.
James founded The ID Co. in 2011 with a mission to create convenience””to allow us to sign up to new products and services in seconds.
The ID Co. builds products based on (open) bank data that helps businesses like online lenders to onboard their customers efficiently by solving pains such as affordability and credit risk.
Our DirectID business products help lenders to onboard their customers by removing friction caused during the application process by the current challenges of risk, compliance, fraud, and regulation.
The products we provide solve business pains such as assessing a customer’s affordability, verifying their account information, and thereby offsetting credit risk.
James is active in a number of local and global efforts to help people do more online, including the Fintech Delivery Panel (FDP), FDATA, Open Banking Excellence | Edinburgh, and Trust In Digital Life (TDL), whose mission is to create a trusted ecosystem that protects the data and assets of citizens and enterprises across Europe.
Thrive in the Digital Age 2018: Focus on future Leadership and skillset
Shifting from an age where humans had to adapt to machine interfaces, to a new era in which machines adapt to human interface. How will the paradigm shift to natural AI affect the way we work and how we interact with technology? The changes in digital space are affecting us as customers but what about us as employees and our career paths? There are many unanswered questions in todays fast changing technology landscape but with changes and uncertainties often comes opportunities and innovation.
Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. “Thrive in the Digital Age” brings together Keynote speakers from Google, Accenture Digital, Fintech Scotland, RBS and DLA Piper. Keynotes will share latest news of their fields, from new discoveries to new applications. They will also focus on career outlook based on their vision of the changing landscape in their disciplines as well as how they are working to influence the future.
Why Attend
Get inspired
Industry pioneers will share their vision on digital era, future leadership and how to accelerate your career.
Drive a discussion
Ask and discuss all your burning questions with industry experts during our panel and networking sessions.
Networking
Meeting like-minded people in a lively and friendly environment with food and drinks.
Supercharge your Career
Make this Thursday a day to recharge and refocus your career.
Contribute to a great cause
All earnings from the conference will go towards the Prince’s Trust. While developing yourself, you are supporting young people’s growth.
What’s included in your ticket
✓Access to all speeches
✓Take part in our panel session
✓Access to our booths
✓Energetic brain food, including, refreshments throughout the day
✓Access to post-conference drinks reception
Driving fintech growth in Scotland
FinTech Scotland, in partnership with Scottish Enterprise, has announced today the appointment of corporate innovation firm Vivolution to support the drive of fintech growth in Scotland.
One of FinTech Scotland’s strategic priorities is to support fintech firms’ growth and innovation by enabling access to funding and professional support services.
To deliver this, Vivolution has been appointed to lead a new Fintech Network Integrator service providing take to market and Investment sourcing services to fintech start-ups and scale-ups.
Specifically, Vivolution will be helping fintech firms from across Scotland to accelerate their potential in domestic and international markets as well as encouraging collaborations between financial services, start-ups, investors, regulators, industry and academia.
Commenting on this announcement, Stephen Ingledew said: “Scotland has got everything it takes to be one of the leading fintech hubs in the world and the appointment of Vivolution will further support the collaboration across the sector. We are looking forward to working closely with the team.”
Fintech director at Scottish Enterprise, Danny Cusick, added: “Our Network Integrator is a tried and tested model aimed at supporting the development of emerging or niche sectors. Through innovation and collaboration, Vivolution will work with Scottish Enterprise to help companies to maximise their growth ambitions and position Scotland as the location of choice for future Fintech investment.”
Mark Roger at Vivolution, said: “We are delighted to be working with Fintech Scotland and Scottish Enterprise to help develop the eco system here in Scotland. Through their ongoing work to encourage and support emerging innovation and investment potential, there is a real opportunity to position Scotland as one of the leading centres for Fintech innovation, collaboration and growth ”“ and we’re delighted to be playing a part in this.”
What FinTechs really need”¦ And why it helps to ask them
Fintech”¦the realm of Open Banking, Data Sets, IOT, VR & AR Platforms, Data science, WCDI, sandboxes, Secure IT”¦..
All very Tech orientated, as the name suggests! So, when global Digital Transformation and IT service providers Sopra Steria teamed up with sector growth enabler FinTech Scotland to support the FinTech community, they made a fair assumption that the most valuable help they could offer would be access to UK banking systems as a development and testing environment.
Seemed logical, so the project to prepare this infrastructure entered the planning phase. However, before moving into build, the team took a step back and decided to present the initial concepts to a selection of Fintech MDs and CEOs.
Good job they did.
25% of Scotland’s FinTechs were interviewed, with only two of them giving the idea the thumbs up, and only one saying it was something they’d value enough to pay for. (note: it wasn’t necessarily going to charged for, but the question was a great indicator of value)
So, the main assumption had been wrong”¦.a discovery that has saved a lot of time and money being invested in something that wasn’t necessarily needed by the customer. Not that it can’t be offered at some point, it’s just not the priority or part of the MVP.
However, the in-depth interviews also unearthed some even more surprising information. When asked about the main issues and challenges facing their businesses, the feedback had a lot in common with start-ups and innovators in other sectors:
Finding the right people, especially IT specialists
Lacking a support network, experienced Execs and mentors who had “been there and done that”
Knowing how to scale operationally
Funding
The verdict”¦?
FinTechs are just like any other business and they face the same challenges. They are founded by entrepreneurs, not necessarily “Tech” experts.
The conclusion”¦.?
Genuine, unbiased customer insight and feedback is vital at the very start of any innovation process, whether it’s starting a new business or developing a new product or service. Under-rated and rarely done properly, it doesn’t have to be an expensive or lengthy process.
In today’s agile world it can done in a matter of weeks, but can save months of wasted time and resource, and £000’s of investment.
https://propositionb.com/proposition-Development
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ In The FinTech Community
Being with the fintech community every day, is one of the most enjoyable parts of my role, I just wish there were more hours in the day!
Hearing directly from fintech leaders and teams about the opportunities and challenges in reinventing financial services and more is hugely motivating.
Vibrant Community
For example, last Friday it was great to be amongst the vibrant fintech community in Codebase and catch up with the wonderful team at Wallet Services. So exciting to hear from Peter Ferry, Hannah Rudman and Stuart Fraser on the terrific progress they are making.
The Wallet Services are grasping major opportunities beyond fintech itself and they are very much at the cutting edge of shaping the future though new technology. Absolutely inspring.
More generally, the feedback from Hannah on how we take FinTech Scotland forward in the future was hugely valuable and we’ll be discussing more on this at the forthcoming FinTech Practitioners Community Group meeting on 22ndAugust.
Another fintech enterprise leading the way in their field is Previse and meeting up this week with Paul Christensen, the chief executive, reinforced to me the significant role they are playing in improving supplier payment processes which is having a huge positive impact on the broader economy.
I believe the progress being made by Wallet Services and Previse provides enormous encouragement to the wider fintech community who are at an earlier stage of their journey.
For example, talking with Kirsty Thomson and Ron Smith on their plans for an innovative technology proposition engaging the local communities across Scotland further demonstrated to me that there are some exciting developments coming out of Dundee
This was very much highlighted by the fabulous special supplement on fintech produced by the Dundee Courier last week.
Later that same day, it was terrific to catch up with one of the newer members of the fintech community, Joseph Twigg of Aveni. Fascinating to hear how their artificial intelligence innovations can transform the way financial services engages with customers.
I know both the Aveni and The Circle CityCrowd team are going to be very busy connecting with the wider community to discuss their emerging propositions in the coming months
Connecting Community
One of the key roles of FinTech Scotland is connecting the fintech community with new opportunities and the recent meeting with the team at Baillie Gifford regarding their forthcoming innovation fair is a great example of this.
Similarly, meeting yesterday with a long standing industry colleague Calum Brewster at the fast expanding Julius Baer to share potential connection opportunities in the wealth management space.
There are an increasing number of large financial institutions who are recognising the opportunities of collaborating with the fintech community and I very much appreciate the support of Graeme Jones, Bronwyn Torrie and the SFE team in this respect.
JP Morgan have led the way on this for some time now and I enjoyed catching up with Stephen Flaherty and Sandy Brodie to discuss how we share fintech collaboration at their forthcoming fintech leadership event.
David Macmillan and the team at Prudential are another terrific example of people embracing this new era of innovation and collaboration for the sector
This week I’ve been working with Douglas Graham, Alice Dreano and Edinburgh Innovations team look at running a collaboration event for later this year which will foster more connections between large enterprises and fintech firms alongside the expertise of the University teams
Plans are already in place for the University of Strathclyde S100 event in September connecting fintech firms with those that can provide practical support to enable their progress and growth.
Brilliant to be working with the excellent Tracy Moore, Fiona Ireland and Alan Feighery from the Enterprise Hub at the University on this.
Similarly, very excited to be supported the plans of our community member MoneyMatix and their plans for a fintech fireworks hackathon’. Very much a chance to engage the wider consumer communities in the positive role of fintech. Inspiring work by Tynah Matembe and Helene Rodger.
Beyond specific events, I am thrilled to be working closely with the energetic Vivolution team (Mark Roger, Andrew McGee, Kevin Lonergan) and Proposition Builder team (Carey McEvoy, Mark Thomson), who are making these connections happen on the ground.
A great example of this was the discussion the Vivolution team and I had with Andy Smith of Agenor Iceflo team on working closely with our strategic partners
I am fortunate I have had the opportunity to share the value of this connected community with June Love at the Scottish Government, so we can consider how we amplify across other sectors through the CanDo initiative. More on this strategy to come
Strategic Community
Talking of strategy, this last two weeks has presented me with the opportunity to share the developments in the fintech community at a strategic level with key stakeholders across the Government and civil service as well as the regulator.
This has included making plans to welcome Government Ministers from Scotland and the UK to Fintech Scotland to hear about the progress and key challenges in driving forward innovation. Thank you to Karen Rodger, Tom Price and Oz Bas for the team work on this.
In addition, I’ve been hugely encouraged by my joint discussions with Maggie Craig of the FCA, Douglas Graham of the University of Edinburgh and Adrian Gillespie and Tim Bedford of the University of Strathclyde over this last fortnight on how we support the fintech community going forward.
This will progress further in various ways in the coming months and one example where it is already gaining momentum is in developing the open banking centre of excellence. Here I’ve valued the team work with Gavin Littlejohn, Kevin Collins and the rest of the project team.
Come along to the Open Banking Meet Up on 20th August where I’ll be sharing more on this and why it has been an absorbing month on this subject!
Sharing Community
Talking of sharing, it was brilliant to catch up with the energetic Hamish Miller, Kevin O’Sullivan and Will Peakin of FutureScot on how we can work together to share more widely the awesome fintech developments happening in Scotland. Thanks guys.
There is going to a huge amount of activity in September and you’ll start to hear details of the Fintech Scotland Fortnight in our newsletter today!
A massive thanks to Rory Archibald from Visit Scotland for enormous support in preparing the fintech Scotland is Now’ plans as well as the numerous people organising specific conferences and meet ups.
A key event will be FinTech Summit on 19th and 20th September run by leading tech commentators Ray Bugg and Pete Swift from Digit where they tell me I will be put in the fintech hot’ seat!!
Very much enjoyed the meeting with Polly Purvis to hear how the impressive ScotSoft 2018 conference plans are coming along which we will be participating in along with members of the fintech community.
I’m really excited about Fintech Scotland closer collaboration with Polly and the team at Scotland IS and this was reinforced to me when meeting with Graeme Smith of Amazon to consider mutual innovation opportunities with the fintech community.
Great chats last week with Glasgow fintech fanatics Bobby King and Sergei Pomphrey as well as Rob Huggins of MBN Solutions about their forthcoming fintech events
With Rob the focus of our discussion soon moved onto how we encourage greater diversity across the community, an important mission for us both.
I know Eva Schuekel at Spotcap through the Fintech Fellowship programme has the aim of inclusion at its core and this is why I have been delighted to be involved
Similarly, working with David Nisbet of University of Glasgow in developing the fintech talent for the future to support academic and industry collaboration.
I’m also excited about the fintech collaboration opportunities with Edinburgh Napier University after meeting with their dean of the business school Gail Boag, thank you Gary Kildare of IBM for making this connection.
The subject of sharing the great diverse talent in Scotland with the fintech community was also a key talking point with Graham Burns and Michael Dickson of FWB Park Brown this week. Looking forward to giving this people factor greater prominence in the fintech community in the coming months.
Community Running
The meeting with Graham Burns on Tuesday got slightly side tracked as we shared our stories of doing the Aberdour Donkey Brae 7 mile race a couple of weekends ago. Always a fabulous race to do despite the challenging community hill’!
The running chat with Peter Ferry last Friday was also fun as we shared our love of pounding the streets. This was just before I completed a beautiful half marathon race at Dunoon the following day and achieved a seasonal PB!
Next up are two more half marathons at each end of the Lothian running community. Starting in the east with the Haddington half marathon race on Saturday and followed by the West Lothian 13.1 mile race at Bathgate next weekend.
Maybe we should start a fintech running community! Until next time.
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.