Scotsman fintech event: what has fintech ever done for us?

Fintech has made a huge impact on the financial services sector and the wider economy of Scotland ”“ but what did it ever do for us?

That’s the subject of a quick-fire panel discussion at Strathclyde Business School in Glasgow on Wednesday, 5 June, with experts from across the fintech field, including Nicola Anderson of Fintech Scotland, Professor Eleanor Shaw of the University of Strathclyde and Louise Smith, Head of Intelligent Automation at RBS.

The panel is completed by young entrepreneur Daniel Sloan of BankPal, Chris Brown of Deloitte and Callum Sinclair of Burness Paull.

If you are a member of the fintech community, or interested in the sector in any way, we would love to see you there for the rapid-fire discussion around seven key topics, each representing a letter of fintech:

FINANCIAL INCLUSION

Last year’s discussion asked if fintech could be an agent of positive social change. How are we doing in terms of financial inclusion and does fintech in Scotland still have that social purpose?

INNOVATION

How is the sector coming together in a collaborative way to deliver genuine innovation, through initiatives like the Glasgow City Innovation District? Are we seeing any tangible outputs?

NEXT GENERATION ENTREPRENEURS

How is Scotland doing at creating a generation of fintech entrepreneurs who can provide the economic powerhouses of tomorrow?

TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY

What are Scottish fintech businesses doing to build customer trust ”“ and are they being fully transparent about their use of data? Can Scotland use trust and transparency as its fintech USP?

EMPLOYMENT

Last year, Fintech Scotland’s company map had 40 businesses on it. This has now doubled to 80-plus. Scotland is also attracting fintech jobs in large financial institutions. Is fintech starting to drive significant employment growth?

CONSUMER DATA

As consumers become more aware of the importance of their data to large tech companies, how can fintech help them to realise value from that data?

HOME-BUYING JOURNEY

How can fintech have a positive impact on the way we buy and sell homes? Does it have the power to bring together the whole home-buying journey in a simpler, more seamless way? And can this approach be rolled over into other aspects of our lives, such as travel and tourism?

To book your free place to this event click here: https://www.scotsmanconferences.com/

Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ The Energy Fueling FinTech!

There has been a frenzy of energetic fintech activity over the last few weeks even with the interruption of a sunny Easter break.

I’ve seen this energy fuel innovation and collaboration across a diverse range of engaged fintech participants and it is really exciting to be in amongst the activity.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I had the privilege to judge to the fintech innovation pitches by the University of Edinburgh entrepreneurship students along with David McLeay from Scottish Widows.

I was blown away by the students creative and imaginative new business models to reinvent financial services, many of which could complement propositions being developed by Scottish fintech firms.

Congratulations to Ben Spigel, the Chancellor’s Fellow at the Business School, for leading such a talented group of students. Many of whom I am sure we will hear about in the fintech community in the future.

Energetic Talent

Another example of this energetic fintech talent was catching up with Elisabetta Trasatti and Andrea, the very inspiring President and Vice President of the University of Glasgow Student FinTech Society

Absolutely fantastic to hear about their plans for the year for the Society, recognized as one of the largest student fintech student groups in Europe, and how they are engaging with the fintech sector.

Excited about working with the team, especially looking forward to an energy charged evening with Jazz band and more at the Society’s pitch final competition later this year!

My meetings with the brilliant team at University of Strathclyde have further demonstrated how much terrific energy is going in to develop the fintech talent for the future.

I am very excited to be working with the fabulous Martin Hughes, Daniel Broby, Devraj Basu and Tim Bedford in shaping the emerging fintech cluster in Glasgow and connecting with the financial services sector.

Similarly, working with Ksenia Siedlecka and the University of Edinburgh team on the development of the newly launched European FinTech Digital Office focused on new research areas and investing in new enterprises.

There’s a huge amount of interest in the fintech collaboration event being planned for June and it is great to be working with our European colleagues and fintech firms such as on this initiative.

On Tuesday it was great to catch up with the fabulous Michael Young whose energetic MBN Solutions team do so much in supporting development of talent for the sector.

Michael and the team bring a huge amount of energy to the collaboration initiatives across Scotland, especially through their very successful meet up programme.

Energetic City Collaboration

Later that evening on Tuesday, Michael as well as Elisabetta joined me at the Glasgow Economic Leadership meeting where skills development and collaboration were a key part of the discussion.

I very much appreciated the engagement of the group on how we further develop fintech collaboration across the City and thank you to Mark Napier, and JP Morgan for hosting the session.

This energetic city collaboration was also very much in evident when I was invited to present at the FinTech North conference in Manchester a couple of weeks ago.

A wonderful atmosphere generated by a diverse audience and terrific fintech entrepreneurs sharing their innovative propositions to a very engaged audience.

For me it was also special to meet up with some great entrepreneurs such as Adam Bickell of Jamtoday and David Smith a wonderful colleague from 20 years ago, who gave an awesome presentation explaining the Uinsure proposition

The FinTech North conference captured everything that is so special and energetic about the fintech movement and it was a real privilege to be part of it.

Huge thanks to the inspiring leaders Chris Sier and Julian Wells along with the whole FinTech North and Whitecap Consulting team for delivering such an innovative community driven occasion.

I was given the opportunity in Manchester to share the stage as well as catch up with the terrific Charlotte Crosswell, chief executive of Innovate Finance

It was a recognition of our shared values for the ambition for the fintech movement and the mutual opportunities that prompted us to agree to more formally collaborate going forward.

Hence the announcement on Monday this week of a new Fintech National Network to provide collective support for FinTech Scotland, FinTech North and Innovate Finance fintech communities.

Our aim is to see our collaboration activities and engagements provide more support and we are looking forward also to FinTech Wales and FinTech Wales joining with us in the coming months.

The new Network was announced at the Innovate Finance Global Summit in London which a number of the Scottish fintech community attended.

Including Professor Jane Lewis from Womens Coin, a newer member of the Scottish community, who was invited to share how the exciting developments were taking shape in Scotland. Big thanks to Jane.

The week before was another global event, EIE 2019, with many Scottish fintech firms taking centre stage to share their propositions to an international investor audience. A huge accolade must go to Steve Ewing and the team for a fabulous occasion

Big congratulations to everyone who participated, and a special mention to Callum Murray of Amiqus for winning pitch presentation of the day.

Global Energy

Scotland’s fintech activity is certainly attracting global energy, for example it was terrific to welcome the delegation of Hong King and Singapore fintech innovators to Edinburgh on Thursday.

It was great to share the Scottish fintech developments with a diverse range of firms in the morning with Graham Hatton from Scottish Development International.

Then in the afternoon, to have an engaging session in the afternoon with our friends from the Far East with a fantastic mix of people from Scotland’s fintech community, considering collaboration opportunities.

Great to meet Bettina Wong and Charles Lam of Cybersport and Avere Hill of Cynopsis, Ivy Tse of FreightAmigo as well see Joel Ko, again who has exciting fintech plans for Edinburgh

All brilliantly hosted by the fabulous Kent Mackenzie, Chris Brown and the Deloitte team who are doing so much to develop the global fintech collaboration and energy.

The event with a global diversity was wonderful to be part and embodies everything that Scotland’s fintech is all about. All fantastically organized by Karen Craib and Mandy Cooper from Scottish Enterprise.

Sandwiched in between the two events I was given the opportunity to talk about embracing diversity through fintech at the Women in Banking and Finance conference on Thursday.

An absolute privilege to be on the stage in front of a big audience with the inspiring Sue Liburd, Wincie Wong of RBS and Maggie Craig of FCA.

All expertly hosted by the fabulous Andy Nicol, chief executive of Abstract, who do terrific people leadership work in this space.

Many thanks to Niamh Sims and Nomi Puri for inviting me to join you and for a terrific event and energetic atmosphere.

Scotland is certainly contributing to the positive global energy, for example, it was great to catch up with Chris Tait and Omar Shaikh to discuss the fintech participation in their Global Ethical Finance conference

Delighted we are working together on this global exciting event in October which very much reinforces Scotland’s leadership role in sustainable finance as well as fintech.

Also, on the global energy theme it was a pleasure to catch up this week with Gurjit Singh Lalli, the curator of TEDx for Glasgow, about the amazing event planned for June and future role for the fintech community.

I am hugely excited about the global energy being generated by the planned fintech festival for Scotland in September which Mickael is working hard on.

Excellent strategy meeting with the terrific Rory Archibald of Visit Scotland and Karen Craib of Scottish Enterprise who are doing such fantastic work to help us prepare for the festival later this year.

Talking about how we build on this global energy with developing the strategic international opportunities for Scottish fintechs was the key part of the valuable discussion with Lorraine Mallon and Andrea McLeish from SDI this week.

Strategic Energy

Sharing the strategic energy behind the fintech developments in Scotland is always a key role and there have been so many interactions over this last few weeks to do this

For example, we very much valued the opportunity to present to the team at the Financial Conduct Authority and great to meet the teams shaping the regulatory landscape for future fintech progress and good consumer outcomes.

Thank you to Ed Smith and the team for arranging with Nicola for this. We followed this up with a great conversation with Tom Kegode and the innovation team at Lloyds Bank who are leading some terrific strategic fintech collaboration initiatives

Over this last few weeks I have also had the opportunity to discuss the strategic developments with other major financial groups

For example, very enjoyable and constructive conversations with Ali Law of Royal London, Peter Bole of CYBG and Bob Hair of Cazenove.

Along with exploring strategic fintech collaboration opportunities with Jim McCumesty of SAS, Neil Delany of Contis and Kirsty Irvine of JCCA. Brilliant to have their engagement win working with the Scottish fintech community.

On Monday, I had the opportunity to share FinTech Scotland future plans with a broader engaged audience at the FiSAB (Financial Services Advisory Board) quarterly meeting chaired by the First Minister and Jim Pettigrew of CYBG.

It was great to have fintech on the agenda along with the terrific work being led by Barry Connolly of RBS on skills and Helen Page of CYBG on the social impact of financial services.

Both significant pieces of work align with the fintech developments on skills and inclusion and it was great to continue the conversation on these at the Scottish Financial Enterprise AGM on Thursday evening all expertly organized by the magnificent SFE team.

Thank you, Graeme Jones for the FinTech Scotland progress shout out great to be there with the SFE members. Many congratulations to the awesome Sue Dawe for being elected to the SFE Board

Energetic Running

After an eight week injury lay off, I am back out running energetically and what a really amazing feeling in so many ways.

This included a return to the race circuit with the Stirling half marathon last Sunday which was just wonderful.

Coming up are races in Coatbridge, Dalkeith and Balerno as well as a few Saturday morning Park Runs, all before the Edinburgh marathon at the end of May.

Although I’m having to control my running energy at the moment, so I don’t pick up another injury but despite this I have fallen in love with running event more!! Until next time

How AI helped Interactive Investor with Customer engagement

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Blog by Michael Mauchline, Industry Leader, Marketing Automation & Personalisation at Watson Marketing

Very often when AI and investment are mentioned together it is about Robo Advice or high frequency trading. However, in the case of Interactive Investor AI proved useful for customer engagement.

IBM Watson Marketing works with Fintech clients to improve customer engagement as well as boost digital revenues. Interactive Investor deployed the technology in 2018 and have since been able to inspire thousands of customers to actively engage in their portfolios:

increased newsletter open rates by over 80% through personalising content based on a customer’s segment
improved clickthrough rates more than 70% by sending emails to customers at optimal times based on an individual’s behavior

Those results were achieved by the personalization of investment content based on customers’ segments. Going beyond segment, personalization was achieved for each individual.

Personalisation isn’t all to do with the content itself but also about send time. By learning about people’s habits IBM Watson was able to send email at the most appropriate time for each individual.

Head of CRM at Interactive Investor, Phil Ireland explains how this happened:

“IBM Watson has been an integral tool over the last six months in helping my team achieve specific objectives set by our business. The platform has allowed us to dynamically target our customers with personalised information. For example, the platform has allowed us to target customers who hold any of the top 20 stocks within our business dynamically with news relating to that stock and provide updates on the performance of each stock.”

“The platform has allowed us to automate our new customer welcome journeys and provide trigger based campaigns dependent upon customer behavioural actions. We’ve seen considerable uplifts in our KPI’s due to the impact of the IBM Watson platform.”

Read the full story at:

https://www.ibm.com/case-studies/interactive-investor

About Watson Campaign Automation

Watson Campaign Automation is a SaaS-based digital marketing automation platform that puts the power of data insights in the hands of the marketer to design smarter campaigns that exceed your customer expectations. Use behavioural data from any source to create consistent campaigns across email, web, mobile push, SMS, social, group messaging and more. Marketers can work smarter with an AI powered Watson Assistant for Marketing’.

Improve Customer Engagement
- Boost customer engagement and conversion with personalised experiences and offers that connect with your customers, when and where they expect it.
Increase Customer Loyalty
- Leverage AI-powered insights and capabilities to deliver the right message and offer at the right time in the right channel to grow customer loyalty and, ultimately, revenue.

Any questions? Contact Michael Mauchline 07764 666 813 mauchline@uk.ibm.com

Can fintech help employees engage with their work pensions?

Manuel Peleteiro, CEO of Scottish fintech Inbest.ai, Ed Owens from Pension Wise and Gavin Marshal, Senior Financial Wellbeing Consultant at HSBC will be on a panel discussing how technology, amongst other things, can help with engagement when it comes to workplace pension.

This panel will be part of a series of event organised around the latest behavioural research into employee engagement with workplace pensions schemes by Dr. Robertson-Rose of the University of Edinburgh. Her research shows how HR practices influence employee behaviour and explains what employers can do to help increase pension scheme engagement.

Each seminar will last approximately one hour and will be followed by refreshments and an opportunity to network.

These free seminars will be of interest to employers seeking to improve the financial well-being of their employees

Book your tickets

Locations	Dates	Venues	Tickets
Edinburgh	15 May, 17:00 ”“ 19:00	University of Edinburgh	Book here
Dundee	16 May, 16:00 ”“ 18:00	Gallery of Contemporary Arts	Book here
Glasgow	21 May, 16:00 ”“ 18:00	University of Strathclyde	Book here
Aberdeen	23 May, 16:00 ”“ 18:00	Society of Advocates Library	Book here

Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Embracing our role in the European FinTech Team!

My travels and meetings over this last few weeks have again reinforced to me that Scotland’s fintech developments are very much embracing being much part of a wider European team.

With our shared values and ambitions, there are enormous opportunities to work with our European team partners in reinventing financial services through fintech innovation.

This was certainly brought alive on Wednesday evening in Edinburgh with the launch of the ground breaking European Innovation and Technology (EIT) Digital Office with its focus on fintech.

European Collaboration

The new fintech digital office based at the Bayes Centre will deepen relationships between Scotland and Europe, increase innovation and investment in new fintech initiatives, grow knowledge exchange across the continent and attract inward investment.

Working with the EIT team along with Scottish Enterprise, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Funding Council and Highland & Islands Enterprise, it has been terrific to see this initiative international come alive.

It was a privilege to share the platform with Willem Jonker and Morgan Gillies at the launch along with Scottish Government Minister Ivan McKee and Charlie Jeffrey from the University of Edinburgh to explain how the collaboration will boost innovation and investment in fintech.

The atmosphere for the launch was made special by having a packed diverse audience with us representing all corners of the Scottish ecosystem.

Including some of the exciting fintech enterprises such as Tynah and Helene from MoneyMatix, James from Xpand, Loral from Sustainably, Rab from Wallet Services, Daniel from Listings Ledger as well as Kevin from Hylomorph.

The event was a great opportunity to catch up with some of the inspiring people making things happen across Scotland driving innovation such as Poonam Malik, Jude McCorry, David Robertson, Jasmina Lazic, Martin Hughes, Amanda Fergusson and Daniel Broby, Terry Murden.

Thank you to Courtney Garner from SciTech Europa for making the long journey to be with us and to the terrific EIT and Edinburgh Innovation teams for making it all happen on the night.

The European collaboration opportunities were also very much in evident for my recent visit to Brussels with Graeme Jones and Clare Carswell of Scottish Financial Enterprise for a range of very constructive meetings at the EU.

There is so much mutual common ground in developing fintech collaboration opportunities and a huge thank you to the magnificent team at Scotland Europa, Sarah English and Marija Ivoninaite and Fraser Clark from SDI.

It was great to have the opportunity to present on Scotland’s fintech progress with an engaged European audience on the Tuesday evening along with Graeme and John Maciver from Pinsent Masons.

We made a number of great connections and I’m sure there will be many more visits to our European friends in the near future as we commit to work even closer.

I flew back from Beautiful Brussels directly to Glorious Glasgow to present at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries to speak at their knowledge sharing session.

It was wonderful to have a very engaging full house with so many of the profession interested in the role of fintech in shaping the future of financial services.

Thank you, John Taylor and Barry Shannon for inviting me to present as well as to Ji-Hyang Lee and Alan Watson for being terrific hosts for the session. I look forward to repeating in Edinburgh in June!

European Innovation

Europe was very much part of the discussion at the asset management dinner on Tuesday evening with Ministers Derek Mackay and Kate Forbes along with senior members of the investment world.

It was good opportunity to share the examples of how the Scottish fintech community is progressing innovation with the major financial institutions in these uncertain times and highlight the growing global interest in Scotland’s fintech sector.

Thank you to Graham Laybourn and the Baillie Gifford team for hosting the engaging evening as well as for the ongoing support from Anurag Agrawal in exploring new ways to develop fintech innovation in asset management.

There are a growing number of global fintech with a focus on asset management looking at setting up in Scotland due to the depth of Scotland’s investment sector.

Talking last week with Hamish Croll of Singapore based fintech BlueFireAi, there is no doubt the potential in Scotland is very much getting recognized.

The opportunities for fintech enterprises are also rapidly evolving in banking and it was great to catch up with Gary McLellan of CYBG this week to develop how we progress the collaboration opportunities

Thanks also Gary for allowing me to be one of your guinea pigs’ for your innovative approaches to online fintech innovations for personal data security, great to experience at first hand.

The RBS fintech accelerator demo day a week or so ago was another fantastic example of a large institution supporting new fintech innovators.

Inspiring pitches on the day including by Adrian James from Monily, Chris Herd from Nexves, James from Xpand.

It was great to be on the stage with Matt Perkins from FreeAgent and Karen Bird of RBS in sharing insights on developing fintech innovation through collaboration

Fantastic leadership by the RBS team Steve Chown and Janice Cunningham for running such a constructive event.

Unfortunately, I could not stay for all the fintech demos as Nicola and I had to dash off to Glasgow for the University of Strathclyde Enterprise Network event.

Another amazing evening listening to the budding entrepreneurs. I was particularly struck by the innovations coming from the Fing & Pay and Hotei fintech teams, both expertly mentored by our friend and fintech guru Nick Cousins.

Many congratulations to the always inspiring Eleanor Mackay, it is no surprise that Strathclyde has an enviable reputation across Europe when it comes to fintech innovation.

This is invaluable in developing the collaborative innovation opportunities for fintech entrepreneurs across Europe and the world.

European Entrepreneurs

It was super to catch up with entrepreneur Derick James, the founder and CEO of Symphonic, to hear about the brilliant progress his team has been making in Europe and wider alongside the move into the new office in Edinburgh.

Very much looking forward to sharing the Symphonic international innovation story with the fintech community in the coming months.

Similarly looking forward to working with experienced expert innovator George Kelsey with what he is brewing up for the fintech world! Reflecting on my catch up coffee with George this week, I must introduce to Derick James.

I’m thinking it could be another example of one plus one equals five in creating even more fintech innovation in collaboration and what a story that would be!

Last week we shared the awesome entrepreneurship story of FNZ who are a fabulous example of a Scottish based fintech expanding in Europe and worldwide in helping consumers manage their long term savings.

Another inspiring innovation example I learnt about in this last fortnight was Cortex Worldwide.

Terrific conversation with founder and chief executive Peter Proud and such a truly inspiring journey in scaling a market leading technology enterprise. Peter’s experience is invaluable, and I am keen to share to many budding entrepreneurs.

The European and global innovation can come in various forms and I really enjoyed meeting Jordan Stewart of AlbaFX in Glasgow recently and hear how his proposition can help small firms gain the most from international trade.

Very much looking forward to connecting Jordan with the growing fintech community to develop mutual valuable connections.

I had the opportunity to meet Craig Anderson of venture capital firm Pentech in this last fortnight as well and talk through how the fintech community was evolving and the emerging investment opportunities.

In this respect, I also had a very constructive conversation with Andrew Wilson of Charlotte Street Partners on how we could do more to help fintech firms present themselves to potential investors.

I’m hoping that talking about the how the Scottish fintech community of firms is developing will encourage more of the entrepreneurial activity across the country.

So, it was good to be interviewed on Monday by Kim McAllister for a new BBC Radio show which will give live in May on the exciting fintech developments and the impact on people’s lives.

Meeting the engaging media professional David Lee on the same day, who is writing the Scotsman supplement on fintech for May, was a good time to reflect the whirlwind of activity over this last twelve months.

I shared with David that a major strength of Scotland’s fintech progress is our diverse range of people.

Whether this is the data analytic expertise being developed by DataLab and the MBN Solutions team, something which was showcased at Aviva a couple of weeks ago in growing their data centre of excellence.

Then there is the fintech entrepreneurial expertise being developed in our universities

In this respect it was wonderful to share joint plans with Claudia Cavalluzzo and Georgia Goodall of Converge Challenge who do amazing with new entrepreneurs from our universities

The enterprise spirit was very much demonstrated to Nicola and me recently when we were asked to present to the University of Stirling fintech postgraduate students.

A terrific group of people and thank you Andrea Bracciali for arranging the session, really enjoyable and insightful as was the visit to Newbattle Community Campus to see first hand the wonderful progress of this new digital’ school environment

Newbattle is very progressive educational role model for the future and it was absolutely fantastic to spend time with Gib McMillan and leadership team and the inspiring students, in their hands we have a very bright future.

The conversation with David Lee also gave me the opportunity to reaffirm the ambition to be a top five global fintech centre one year into the journey and the importance of working with European and global partners to achieve this goal

European Partners

One such group of partners are of good friends in Ireland and it was just absolutely wonderful to spend a few days in Dublin as part of Scottish Irish Finance Initiative (SIFI) conference on fintech.

Such a warm and welcoming reception from our European partners and the mutual relationships being developed though the SIFI team are going to be invaluable going forward.

Massive thank you to magnificent SIFI trio David Clarke, Pete Townsend and Terry Quinn for organising as well as to the brilliant Dublin Business School team, Andrew Quinn, Andrew Conlan-Trant and Rory Mo-ran.

It was great to hear from so many new friends such as the inspiring Hesus Inoma and the amazing Susan Sweeney as well as Scotland’s leading fintech guru Daniel Broby of University of Strathclyde.

The trip to Ireland also gave the me the opportunity to meet up with Peter Oakes, the highly respected global fintech leader and founder of FinTech Ireland. Thanks Emma Shiel from SDI for arranging and joining us.

It was fantastic to hear first hand the story behind FinTech Ireland and the significant presence Peter has established in Europe and across the globe. Peter’s next trip was to help with the formation of FinTech Cyprus, another European partner for is to collaborate with.

It was poignant that we met Peter in the Hibernian Club and sat in the very chair that FinTech Scotland was conceived five years ago.

Looking forward to developing closer collaboration with Peter and the FinTech Ireland team as European partners.

My return from Dublin was via Hampshire (and Reading to see my mum) as I had the opportunity to meet up with Mark Hanson, Managing Director of Simply Health who provide valuable health insurance plans for millions of consumers.

The worlds of fintech, insurtech, healthtech all overlap, and we had a super conversation on some emerging innovations in this space and the potential to work in partnership with University of Edinburgh and entrepreneurs to explore further.

Collaborative partnership is also very much at the core in developing a Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence in Scotland and we are delighted the joint FinTech Scotland, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Enterprise and FDATA proposal has been shortlisted for funding.

A huge amount of credit for this must go to our very own European and Global Open Finance presidential’ leader, Gavin Littlejohn who is instrumental in the strategic development.

I’m looking forward to seeing Gavin next week when he returns from formidable open finance mission trip to Hong Kong, Australia and India.

The Open Finance initiative is facilitating further collaboration with partners and this is also true of the Ethical Finance Hub team based at Heriot Watt University

It was valuable to catch up with Chris Tait recently and talk through the fintech contribution to the Global Ethical Finance Forum which will take place in Edinburgh in October with many distinguished international partners.

Barry Wingate it would be super to work in partner with you on this following our chat a week or so ago!

International partnerships were the focus of the conversation with James Bernard of the Dubai DMMC, the enterprise agency, when we met in Edinburgh last week, thank you Russell Dalgleish for making the connection.

Encouraging a European and global innovation and growth mindset with the Scottish entrepreneurial community as a key focus of the conversation for the executive dinner of fintech organized by FWB Park Brown last Wednesday evening.

I very much valued the challenge and constructive feedback from the diverse group of successful business leaders from sectors outside of financial services and fintech and thank you to those who have reached out to follow up.

Big thanks to Graham Burns and Michael Dickson for expertly arranging and professionally hosting the engaging evening, I look forward to the next one, maybe in Aberdeen or even another European city?

Running Europe

Unfortunately, and to much frustration, my toe injury has not cleared up which means my running opportunities in Europe have been somewhat curtailed.

Whilst the buzz of the exciting fintech activity with so many fabulous people has kept me occupied, I am a bit of a bear with a sore head’ as I have not been able to get out and run.

I have tried swimming, but my limited breaststroke ability does not replace the three hour runs I so much enjoy!!

I know I will need to be patient in recovering but if I look angst when you see me you will know why!

Let’s hope I am going to be ready for the Stirling, Livingston and Lock Leven half marathons in the run up to Edinburgh marathon in May!! Until next time.

How Can Space Technologies Benefit the Development of Blockchain?

A new funding opportunity has recently become available to drive innovation in the development of blockchain through space technology.

The blockchain kick start activity scheme is searching for companies and organisations developing new technology to benefit blockchain in various sectors.

What’s So Important About Blockchain?

The development of blockchain technologies and applications has the potential to revolutionise wide-ranging sectors which affect our everyday lives.

The internet is being transformed into an internet of value, allowing people to exchange digital information and assets without the need for centralised structures such as banks and government agencies.

Digital assets include things as varied as currencies, identity information and property titles. Through blockchain technologies, these can all be stored securely, in a far more transparent way than ever before. This could help prevent against fraud or hacks across all business transactions in the future.

The industries in which blockchain could have the biggest potential include:

Insurance: The digital storage of assets could eliminate the need for paperwork and make processes more streamlined.
Financial services: Blockchain has the potential to cut out middlemen and banks from transaction processes through satellite technologies. It could even become a platform in itself for the trade of goods and services.
Utilities: Distributed power grids run by IoT networks could decentralize the energy industry.
Supply Chain Management: Blockchain could enhance asset tracking for better security and trust between stakeholders.
Government institutions: Digitizing health records, tax systems and other documents could greatly improve efficiency within government institutions.

What’s Space Technology Got to Offer?

Space enabled technologies such as Satellite Communications, Satellite Navigation, Earth Observation and Human Space Flight Technology have a lot to offer the development of blockchain;

Satellite Communications (SatComs) can expand coverage for blockchain users in remote areas or areas lacking in terrestrial communication infrastructure.
Satellite Earth Observation (EO) could benefit the insurance sector through satellite imagery. For example, in the case of damage caused by flooding, satellite images could provide the evidence needed to speed up claims. It could also aid the supply chain management sector by providing detailed information on the location of valuable assets in real time.
Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are essential for any blockchain application that relies on geographical referencing.

Keen to Apply?

Any business or organisation wishing to apply for the KickStart activity funding need to follow these steps:

Complete an online questionnaire found on the ESA-BA website
Download the invitation to tender from the site and set up a Bidder Restricted Area’
Produce a written proposal
Submit your proposal and supporting documents by 8^thApril 2019

Successful applicants could receive up to â‚¬60,000 in funding to complete their project.

Funding Blockchain Innovation

This funding initiative is being driven by ESA business apps, providing expert support to businesses looking to utilise space enabled technology in the development of new commercial services.

To find out more about the types of funding and project management support available, visit the ESA-BA funding page.

Interview with Stephen Ingledew on why fintech matters

Our CEO Stephen Ingledew was interviewed by the Enterprise Pathway Programme team from Strathclyde university.

He gave his view on why fintech matters, the impact it can have on society and why it provides exciting new jobs for the future.

What is Fintech?

Fintech is the blend of new technologies, digital including data, with the world of financial services. Now that’s important because every one of us, in our personal and our working lives are impacted by the role of financial services. So Fintech is actually the opportunity to reinvent the way that those financial services are delivered through to all of us as individuals but also through to businesses as well

Why is it important to innovate in Fintech?

There’s real importance behind Fintech, the opportunity here to innovate. One is because of our needs as consumers are changing, in terms of our expectation, the need to access good quality products, the need to understand our money in a far better way.

And secondly the opportunity to innovate comes from the new technologies. Of course the digital world whether it’s the mobile phone, but the access to data, the use of artificial intelligence all provide new ways in which financial services can be delivered to us all.

What opportunities are there to innovate in fintech?

So there are a significant number of areas where there’s an opportunity to innovate. The key is to start off with the human need, and so think of yourself as individuals, think of the communities you live in, think of those around you and how actually, if they had better access to financial products a better understanding the way that financial world works, the better use of financial data, and how that could improve accessibility and all the other benefits that come from that. And then work back to think, well actually, the new technologies can actually improve that engagement, can improve that experience

So the key with fintech is not to start with the fin tech is that you start with the human being and work back from that and then think about how new technologies can be applied in the future.

The big opportunity here, that students have, is that you can come at it with a fresh pair of eyes, fresh thinking and more diverse thinking. So rather than think: “how do we actually in a small way slightly improve some of the financial products?”, actually, go back to the real need of why those products are in place, the way they’re delivered, whether it’s through a mobile phone or even through some other ways in a community.

So it’s that fresh thinking, diverse thinking, you don’t have to be a financial expert to be involved in fintech. In fact, sometimes, it’s an advantage not to be a financial expert.

What support is available for fintech businesses?

Fintech in Scotland is particularly exciting because there is a an environment that’s encouraging innovative new businesses such as Strathclyde University. Alongside that you’ve got an established financial services market, very big organisations, the big banks whether it’s RBS, HSBC. the international banks, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are all here in Scotland and they all want to innovate.

If you blend that together with the opportunity of bringing together new enterprises with established enterprises and that University sort of pedigree you’ve got a real blend of all the key ingredients to generate a new innovative environment.

What examples are there in terms of existing fintech businesses?

So let’s just take an example of an increasing number of people working in the gig economy. The gig economy is where your your working day your working week is up and down and therefore your pay is up and down and therefore how do you make sure the financial products relate to a much more variable way in which you earn money and want to earn money.

And when you work and when you don’t work rather than the traditional approach expecting you’re in a 9 to 5 job for 40 years. Those days have gone. Much more flexible working means much more flexible way in which people earn and their financial products need to relate to that.

What advice would you give to those considering a career in Fintech?

What I would really emphasise to the teams is the importance of focusing on the human need. The opportunity about meeting that need in a very different way, to deliver financial services in a better way. I wouldn’t focus really on the technicalities of how the products have worked in the past or how the taxes work or even how some of the technologies are being applied.

Don’t get into the nuts and bolts of blockchain and artificial intelligence. There’s enough out there really for that to be addressed at the right sort time. What’s important with fintech is actually the focus around the need and the different ways that need can be met with a different type of thinking, diverse thinking again going forward that allows us to really make a real shift in the way that financial services is provided through to individuals and to businesses.

Actually fintech provides a real significant opportunity. Yet clearly from an economic point of view the opportunity for economic growth in financial services, very crucial to the Scottish economy. But also in terms of employment the new jobs of the future. But alongside that is the economic with the social benefits as one of the social outcomes greater inclusion more diversity a richer way in which more communities are engaging in financial services rather than being left out or excluded. So this is an opportunity to combine those economic and social benefits alongside each other to the benefit of everybody.

Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ Falling in Love with FinTech!

It is just so wonderful to see so many people falling in love with fintech and how it is fueling the opportunity to innovate through collaboration and inclusion.

This was very much the case on Wednesday morning when I joined the Lloyds Bank and Google teams for a Falling in Love with FinTech’ breakfast meet up.

The diverse audience from the fintech community, academia, large financial enterprises and many other organisations made a terrific atmosphere.

Big thanks to Misha Cunningham and Google Digital team for their fabulous hospitality

This meet up was brilliantly led by the inspiring Sarah Kenrick along with Tom, Kegode, Lisa Caldwell and Lloyds Bank team.

Lloyds, one of the initial founders of FinTech Scotland, are developing impressive innovations and collaborations by engaging the fintech community.

Community Love

The community love continued the next evening as we held FinTech Scotland Fusion’ gathering where we had a fantastic buzz and atmosphere. I know some carried it on into the very late hours!

The Fusion’ was expertly organized by our entrepreneurial friend Aleks Tomczyk with great collaboration and generosity from Kirsty Irvine and Johnston Carmichael.

Wonderful mini spotlight talks from Myles Stephenson of Modulr, Hannah Rudman of Wallet Services, Loral Quinn of Sustainably and Stuart Lunn of LendingCrowd as well as our fintech grandfather’ Gavin Littlejohn.

They all brought alive the evening by sharing their experiences and latest news and reaffirmed to a very diverse and engaged audience why falling in love with fintech was so easy.

We all decided that Fusion’ meet up will be a regular event in addition to our frequent fintech practitioner forums across Scotland so more on this to come

The community plays such an important role in welcoming new fintech enterprises working in Scotland and it was terrific to see firms new to the community with us on Thursday such as SageCity, Listings Ledger and Miconex.

The role of the community is something I shared with Stuart Harvey of Datatics and Graham Paterson a couple of weeks ago and we look forward to seeing them both at future events.

Supporting the growth of new fintech enterprises will see the community expand across Scotland and it is fantastic to be working with the Craig Wilson, Colin Carmichael of Sopra Steria and Gordon Donald and John Lonsdale of University of Edinburgh with a new accelerator programme.

Supporting the love of fintech innovation was very much in evidence when Mickael and I spent some time last week at Codebase with the Barclays Eagle Lab team.

Always wonderful to catch up with Trish McClay and talk about their terrific engagement along with the magical fintech entrepreneur Suhail Ahmad of AdviserDirect and the awesome Colin Hewitt of Float, who have now expanded into twenty plus nations.

We had been in Codebase the previous week for two fantastic sessions of massive significance in bringing more love into fintech, both of which will spread the fintech love far and wide.

Downstairs we had a FinTech consumer inclusion workshop with the Karen Rodger, Andrew McConnell from Scottish Government and along with Yvonne Macdermid, David Hilferty from Money Advice Scotland, Allison Barnes from Money Advice Service and other consumer groups.

The session was led by the inspiring duo Barbara Mills from CivTech and Nicola Anderson in developing a roadmap on how fintech can play a significant role in addressing financial inclusion challenges. This was all about the building new demand for fintech

Then, in parallel, upstairs, we had the Scottish Government session with entrepreneurs on how the engagement with small enterprises could be developed to improve the supply of innovation. This was a fantastic session led by Clare Mills, Carron McNab and colleagues.

It is a privilege to be part of this valuable work being led by Trish Quinn and hugely exciting to have the fintech community being involved in the opportunity to really impact big innovation with Government.

We shared these mutually aligned initiatives with the Digital Minister Kate Forbes and the FiSAB sub group with Graeme Jones the following day and it was great to get the endorsement to build on this big love’ opportunity for fintech.

Big Love

The broader love of fintech on a big scale is going to provide exciting opportunities to scale up the innovation in Scotland.

For example, in working with the rapidly changing M&G Prudential business engage with the fintech community and it was valuable to catch up with Mark Simpson and the Managing Director, David Macmillan a couple of times over this last fortnight

Then on Wednesday it was terrific to meet up with Sam Bedford, Gary McLellan and innovative team at CYBG in Glasgow.

Fantastic to see the leading edge examples from Jennifer and Jack of how they are innovating to improve customers financial engagement and the opportunities to engage with the fintech community in Scotland.

Really looking forward to progressing with the Sam and the team and combine our mutual love of fintech with real purpose.

The combination of big and small coming together to love fintech was one of the key themes for the discussion with Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce members on Thursday morning.

Thank you to everyone for the engagement and support, especially Liz Mcareavey and Rebecca Meish for inviting me to discuss how Scotland can develop the fintech love on a bigger scale.

This is something we were very much putting into action with senior executives Frank Tong and KC Tsui from HSBC Global who flew from Hong King to meet with us and firms from the fintech community.

Thank you to Ahmed El-Ryias from the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh for setting up the meeting, it was a terrific session late into the last Wednesday evening and onto the Thursday as well.

Thank you also to Colin Halpin who led HSBC to be one of Fintech Scotland initial founding partners and has played an important supporting role in our progress in the first year.

It was the fantastic presentations and engagement from the Scottish fintech firms which very much illustrated the innovative developments in Scotland and the significant opportunities to collaborate with the HSBC Global team.

In fact, Frank mentioned that the activities in Scotland were world leading and certainly made Scotland stand out as a global fintech centre, especially with date driven innovation.

Global Love

The global love continues to be an important part of work and this has been increasing even more over this last few weeks.

For example, absolutely I loved catching up with our good friend Thorsten Terweiden, who leads on fintech developments at Hong Kong Invest, on his visit to Scotland.

Great engagement with Thorsten and his team as we work with Graham Hatton and the SDI team in developing he Hong Kong Scotland bridge for our respective fintech communities.

This opportunity to share the mutual love of fintech opportunities was very much on the agenda when I met up on Tuesday with the fabulous Dan Roselli who is the founder of the impressive FinTech Accelerator Hub in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Dan took time out of his vacation to share the amazing story of what the team has achieved and there were so many parallels with the what we are building in Scotland.

I thanked Dan with one of the great Scottish beers and we agreed to take forward a joint number of areas to develop the mutual love of fintech both sides of the Atlantic.

The collaboration opportunities with USA was also the focus of my conversation with Jennifer Ericson, a Global Scot based in Minnesota and I very much value the connections Jennifer is helping us build for our fintech community.

Exporting is an important part of the fintech agenda, and it was valuable to catch up Suzanne Henderson from the Scottish Government team who is leading on the work to identify global market priorities for all sectors.

Very much looking forward to progress this work with Suzanne, Lesley Ward, Scott Strain along with Lorraine Mallon from SDI and build on the progress being made by a number of firms.

A great example of this is hearing last week about The ID Co, who are part of the DIT fintech trade mission to New York in a couple of weeks and Craig Buchan, the founder of QPal, who are progressing amazing innovations in the Middle east and Africa.

Last Monday, I was delighted to be invited by Graeme Jones of SFE to join him and SFE members for the dinner with the City of London Mayor Peter Estlin for an engaging conversation on the global role for Scotland in financial services and fintech.

I had met with Peter Estlin the previous week at the latest Department of International Trade Fintech Board meeting which considered a number of areas in developing the international reach of fintech.

In particular, it was great to hear from the very engaging Laura Royle from the FCA who outlined the valuable work in developing the Global Financial Innovation Network.

Laura recently led a fantastic FCA Project Innovate event for the Scottish fintech community and we are looking to do this again to cover some of the global regulation opportunities for fintech firms.

Collaborative Love

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to share this global opportunity for fintech at the City Deal Conference and the importance of collaboration to deliver data driven innovation success for the country.

I very much enjoyed the chance to share the stage with Digital Minister Kate Forbes as well as Professor Mark Parsons and Professor Charlie Jeffrey along with the distinguished panels.

To highlight the importance of collaborative love I was given the challenge by Andy Nichol form Edinburgh City Council to finish with the words from a song by The Men They Couldn’t Hang!!

This I duly did with the very apt words from their song Great Expectations’!

Huge thanks to Hamish Miller, Will Peakin and the Future Scot team for putting on such an important collaboration conference. Looking forward to the next one in Glasgow in May.

I’m also looking forward to speaking at the FinTech North events in April and May and always valuable to catch up with Julian Wells on Monday to talk through sharing the fintech collaboration love both sides of the border.

There are some great expectations from the data driven innovation programme and with the momentum growing now behind building the Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence then Scotland’s fintech enterprises will play a central role.

It was hugely exciting to be part of the collaboration bringing alive the Centre of Excellence working with various partners including Damien at University of Edinburgh and Gavin with his FDATA team.

You’ll hear more on that in the coming weeks although if you were with us on Thursday night at Fusion then Gavin gave you some of the exciting snippets of news!

Another wonderful collaborative initiative for Scotland is the forthcoming launch of The European FinTech Digital Satellite Office in Edinburgh next month

This is a first for Scotland and for Europe and it is brilliant to be collaborating with our friends in the EU to make this significant investment happen with the University of Edinburgh and Scottish Enterprise.

This Digital Office will invest in academic research in fintech as well as new start up fintech enterprises. Watch this space for more.

The collaboration with Scotland’s world leading universities is a hugely important and it was a real pleasure to be invited to speak to Heriot Watt students on career opportunities in fintech by the inspiring David Steinberg.

The talent from all disciplines is becoming an even stronger pull with international fintech enterprises, Datafest is a fantastic two weeks of sharing this with the world.

Terrific to work with MBN Solutions and Deloitte with excellent fringe meet up events as part of DataFest.

I shared this and the wider talent and diversity attraction of Scotland with long standing innovator and friend Nish Kotak of Talecco on his recent visit to Edinburgh.

Very much looking forward to working with Nish to encourage some large enterprises to come to Scotland.

The week finished off with the quarterly FinTech Scotland board meeting expertly chaired and hosted by David Fergusson at the impressive Nucleus Financial offices.

A very valuable and constructive conversation on the longer term future strategy for FinTech Scotland as we look to the next stage of our journey.

It was great to have Digital Minister Kate Forbes join us for the discussion and I am looking forward to progressing over the coming months.

Running Love

My running love has been hugely strained over this last two weeks as illness and unusual toe injury have meant I have not run for a fortnight!

Going from running 55+ miles a week to none is really tough in so many ways although the intensity of the fintech engagement and presentations has taken my mind of this a little bit.

However, it has even more reinforced my passion and love for running and I hope to be back on the road and the Spring races in the next week.

With trips to the EU in Brussels and Dublin to build Scotland fintech collaboration over the next two weeks I am hoping to take my love of running and fintech to Europe! Until next time.