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
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ 100 Days and Counting”¦
Well, that’s nearly one hundred days in the role heading up FinTech Scotland since the start of the year.
Infact, it is a bit more than one hundred if you include the weekend days that have been necessary to keep on top of the high level of engagement email and social media traffic!
This first four months can best be summed up as being positively inspiring and diverse and the last fourteen days have continued along these lines with a broad range of engagements focused on taking forward Scotland’s fintech opportunities.
Innovation Days
Our roundtable meeting in Fife with the local fintech community on Tuesday was a great example of how the innovation heritage in Scotland provides a valuable foundation for future fintech developments.
It was an insightful and engaging session for Mickael and myself in the Glenrothes Enterprise Hub with a good part of the discussion focused on the need to improve skills and talent development in the sector if we are to embrace the payment fintech opportunities ahead.
A big thank you to Iain Shirlaw for his fantastic leadership and energy in making the event happen and it was great to session from the Glenrothes local Ian Cunningham on the brilliant LendingCrowd business.
The previous day it was an opportunity to catch up with Professor Chris Speed and the Edinburgh College of Arts team on how we could work together to help the sector innovate and reimagine a new financial services world. So much potential around using data to drive innovation with a strong social purpose.
Embracing the open banking opportunity is one example of this and I am very excited about our emerging plans for the Centre of Excellence we’ve been developing with Ross Laurie and Gavin Littlejohn. Scotland’s innovative fintech firms are very much embracing this and looking forward to sharing more on this strategy at the Meet Up in a couple of weeks.
Strategic Days
Wednesday was my opportunity to share the open banking and the broader FinTech Scotland strategic plans with the quarterly Financial Services Advisory Board jointly chaired by Scotland’s First Minister and Jim Pettigrew, the chair of SFE and CYBG.
As we reach 100 days since launch, this meeting was an important milestone for FinTech Scotland in sharing the two year strategic plans with Government Ministers and senior figures from across financial services sector.
I came away hugely encouraged by the enthusiastic and collaborative support from all in attendance at the Board, especially for the confirmation of the inaugural chair and strategic partners for FinTech Scotland (See here for more)
There was certainly a commitment to making fintech a major success in Scotland and achieving a top five global status with a focus on data driven innovation combined with strong social purpose and outcomes.
This valuable Scottish Government and industry support was also mirrored in conversations during this last fortnight with very insightful Councilor Lezley Cameron as well as Paul Lawrence at Edinburgh City Council.
Hearing the exciting strategic plans for the City along with the ambition of the University of Edinburgh from Hugh Edmiston and Gordon Donald further demonstrated to me the opportunity for fintech to contribute to a broader thriving economy.
It further highlighted to me that the joint team efforts of the public sector, academia and private sector can really make a difference in making a strategy come alive for all to benefit and a shared focus on inclusive growth initiatives.
Collaboration Days
Of course, this requires everybody being focused on how we improve collaboration, and, in this respect, it was great to host the team from Blenheim Chalcott on how we could work together to create the right innovation environments for fintechs to scale and grow.
Very much looking forward to taking forward the ideas and initiatives that Mark Sanders and the team have to help exciting businesses such as Myles Stephenson’s Modulr continue to expand in Scotland.
This reinforces that collaboration needs to go beyond the financial services sector itself and it was great to catch up last week with Liz McAreavey, Chief Executive at the Edinburgh Chambers of Commerce.
Looking forward to further working with Liz on bringing alive the data driven innovation opportunities across the region through fintech with a diverse range of participants.
During this first one hundred days of FinTech Scotland, the collaborative support from the Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International teams has been immensely valuable.
I’ve very much appreciated the ongoing day to day collaboration from Sharon Hamilton, Graeme Rennsion and wider SE team as we consider the practical steps to improve fintech opportunities, for example, by making the network of services more integrated and creating good physical environments for collaboration.
Days talking about collaboration also require a global perspective and so it was wonderful to meet up with David Clarke to talk through the exciting Scottish-Irish Finance Initiative event in June.
Certainly looking forward to this and discussing how it will reinforce the mutual opportunities across the Irish Sea collaboration bridge for fintechs and the wider economy.
People Days
Of course, collaboration is all about people and an exciting part of the role is meeting a diversity of people all with a common bond of wanting to make fintech a success in Scotland and on the global stage.
For example, my regular catch up last Friday with the inspiring David Ferguson, chief executive of Nucleus Financial was as valuable as ever from which I gain a great deal from.
I am absolutely delighted that David has agreed to become the inaugural chair of Fintech Scotland and very much looking forward to his ongoing wide counsel and strategic insights as we execute out plans. See Here for more details
Earlier in the week I had the opportunity to see another of my role models, Judy Wagner of FWB Park Brown who is always so focused on making a difference through inclusive people engagement.
It was really wonderful to see Judy again along with hearing from Susan Murphy, Maeve Gillies and Jacqui Gale to discuss our sessions for the Emerging Women Leader Programme at the University of Edinburgh in June.
This focus on people development was also top of the conversation last week when seeing Maggie Morrison of CGI to share thoughts on initiatives to embrace the breadth and diversity of people skills across Scotland
A point which was also top of mind when talking with Eva Schueckel on my involvement with the Fintech Fellowship programme sponsored by Spotcap, such a critically important initiative in supporting young people in the fintech sector.
The people focus was also very topical at the iMultiply event on the role of humans with artificial intelligence last Thursday.
Very much enjoyed sharing the platform with the innovative Colin Hewitt of Float, the dynamic Melinda Matthews of CodeClan, all expertly hosted by Kirsty Mackenzie and Heather Corcoran. Great engagement from the audience and I think we could have carried on all night!
Running Days
I must admit I’m trying to avoid days that turn into late nights at moment as my running days intensify leading up to the Edinburgh marathon at the end of the May.
Before then, this weekend it is a warm up half marathon race at beautiful Loch Leven to test how much speed I have in my legs at the moment
This means another short trip to the Kingdom of Fife, a lovely place to run and, of course, the original home where fintech all started forty years ago as Bill Tennant from the excellent fintech firm Payment Centric rightly pointed out on Tuesday at the Glenrothes Enterprise roundtable.
Until next time.
Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Purpose Driven FinTech
One thing that has really struck me since taking on the role at the start of the year to lead FinTech Scotland is the real sense of purpose behind the vibrant fintech innovation activity in Scotland
A purpose that goes beyond being commercially successful and creating job opportunities in Scotland but is driven by bigger overarching drive to improve people’s experience of financial services.
A brilliant example of this more significant motivating purpose was very much in evident when I met with the inspiring Phil Grady and the excellent team at Castlight Financial last week in Glasgow.
I was very much struck by Phil’s bold purpose of a “safer financial world for all’ and how this had a powerful meaning for the team members. It is no wonder Castlight Financial is successfully attracting attention in the financial world in Scotland and globally with its bigger purpose.
The same is true of Previse and my meeting with David Brown this week once again reinforced to me how their ambitious purpose of transforming trade finance to improve the well being of small enterprises is so important to all of us.
Collective Purpose
This purpose driven fintech becomes even more powerful when the collective forces of our ecosystem come together in Scotland to make a difference.
This was very much the case on Monday evening at the inaugural Open Banking Centre of Excellence meet up hosted at The ID.Co in Edinburgh with over 80 people from across the ecosystem. Listening to the stories of Colin Hewitt of Float, James Varga of The ID Co, Steve Tigar of Money Dashboard, Manu Peleteiro of InBest and Phil of Castlight showed to me we have the collective purpose in Scotland to make a progressive difference.
Especially when we have globally recognised leaders in the inspiring Gavin Littlejohn and Brian Costello of Yodlee championing how open banking fintech can make a positive contribution to citizens across the land.
Big thanks to Ross Laurie for making this inaugural meeting happen and be something we can build on going forward, more to follow soon.
Thank you also to Mickael, who stepped in for me to share Scotland’s existing fintech activity with the London community along with Paul Christensen of Previse, Kirsten Bennie of RBS and Graham Hatton of Scottish Development International last week. Great feedback on this.
A fabulous example of collaboration around a common purpose in action.
This was also the case at the SFE FinTech Group meeting a couple of weeks ago, thank you to Graeme Jones for the continuing valuable support in getting behind the collective purpose of Fintech Scotland.
Collaborative Purpose
Attending the Can Do Business Innovation Forum chaired by Government Minister Paul Wheelhouse on Tuesday was another example of the power of collective purpose through collaboration. Representatives from all sectors of the economy sharing how innovation can really drive inclusive growth and deliver positive outcomes for people and enterprises. I was particularly inspired when talking to entrepreneur Reemah Shanab and learning about her business Lucidly.
The Can Do meeting reiterated to me the benefits of cross sector collaboration to drive innovation and growth and this was further demonstrated when I met up with Alexander Holt to hear how CivTech is making such a huge difference in the public sector.
I’m sure Alexander won’t mind me saying but for me he is very much role model in driving real practical change with a strong sense of purpose. Alexander and his team have already been working with fintechs such as Wallet Services and there is much we can build on especially in the area of payments. Talking with Colin, Director of Digital at the Scottish Government further showed me we have a huge common purpose around this.
The broader collaborative purpose was very much in evident in my discussions with Maggie Craig at the FCA this last few weeks which is really valuable as the fintech ecosystem develops in Scotland
On Thursday, there was the opportunity to get together with Scotland’s many exciting fintechs enterprises from across the ecosystem at the Practitioners Forum.
The key areas of discussion were growing talent in Scotland and getting the right quality of investment in place and committed investors on board to help scale and grow. Terrific insights (again) from Stuart Lunn of LendingCrowd
My conversation with the impressive Steven Morris of ESM Investments this week was really insightful on how we could take some steps to address some of the funding issues in the fintech ecosystem at the moment.I am hoping to take forward a couple of ideas and they will certainly be forming a key part of the FinTech Scotland strategic plan and will be key if we are to achieve our ambitious goals for fintech in Scotland.
Another aspect I have on our strategic agenda is how to help fintech enterprises navigate the range of funding solutions available to them at present ranging from public funding through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Funds, to the University Innovations Funds to the mix of R&D relief allowances available.
In this respect, very appreciative of the guidance on public funding opportunities by Steve Harrison from Scottish Enterprise a positive change agent who is helping good ideas flourish in across the ecosystem.
Going forward, the focus hear will be to make sure we are much better at connecting the funds available to the innovators and entrepreneurs. In this respect, I’m delighted that Matt Smith, Kent Mackenzie and the Deloitte team will be playing a valuable role in helping us in these areas.
The other hot subject over the last fortnight and from fintech practitioners is finding talented people to support business growth and this is a subject I know Scotland can further excel in.
The visit to the Technology and Innovation Centre of Strathclyde University was a fantastic testament to the strength of the skills development taking place in Scotland at the moment. Wow!
Having a terrific working session with academic leaders from all part of the Strathclyde University highlighted how to me the new opportunities in fintech can be embraced and I am very excited on how we progress on a number of fronts together.
Big thanks to Adrian Gillespie and Team Strathclyde.
The bringing together of academia and industry was further brought alive on Thursday evening when I was given the opportunity to join a distinguished speaking panel at the University of Edinburgh Business School event.The subject was Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin!” Captivating words from amazing Professor Chris Speed of Edinburgh College of Arts and insightful Tim Jones of Tibado meant I only needed to play a small bit part thankfully! Brilliantly chair Bill McCall of Chartered Bankers Institute.
The fintech people skills agenda also presents the opportunity to bring alive our purpose of being more inclusive and I was delighted to catch up with the inspiring leader Promilla Caughey of EY Foundation.
Promilla’s work in creating opportunities for young people from less advantaged background is something we will very much embrace and part of the fintech bigger purpose.
My favourite music has always given me a strong sense of purpose beyond fintech and last Friday I had chance to see live one of my musical hero’s Swill at the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh along with the legendary Bobby Valentino.
What a wonderful evening and I can’t wait to see Swill with the rest of the awesome band, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, back together again for the gig in Glasgow at King Tut’s in December, anyone want to join me for probably one of the best bands in the world!This weekend I’ll be running with purpose in a half marathon race, enjoying the beautiful city of Stirling as I prepare for the big Edinburgh marathon in four weeks! Until next time