Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ In The FinTech Community
Being with the fintech community every day, is one of the most enjoyable parts of my role, I just wish there were more hours in the day!
Hearing directly from fintech leaders and teams about the opportunities and challenges in reinventing financial services and more is hugely motivating.
Vibrant Community
For example, last Friday it was great to be amongst the vibrant fintech community in Codebase and catch up with the wonderful team at Wallet Services. So exciting to hear from Peter Ferry, Hannah Rudman and Stuart Fraser on the terrific progress they are making.
The Wallet Services are grasping major opportunities beyond fintech itself and they are very much at the cutting edge of shaping the future though new technology. Absolutely inspring.
More generally, the feedback from Hannah on how we take FinTech Scotland forward in the future was hugely valuable and we’ll be discussing more on this at the forthcoming FinTech Practitioners Community Group meeting on 22ndAugust.
Another fintech enterprise leading the way in their field is Previse and meeting up this week with Paul Christensen, the chief executive, reinforced to me the significant role they are playing in improving supplier payment processes which is having a huge positive impact on the broader economy.
I believe the progress being made by Wallet Services and Previse provides enormous encouragement to the wider fintech community who are at an earlier stage of their journey.
For example, talking with Kirsty Thomson and Ron Smith on their plans for an innovative technology proposition engaging the local communities across Scotland further demonstrated to me that there are some exciting developments coming out of Dundee
This was very much highlighted by the fabulous special supplement on fintech produced by the Dundee Courier last week.
Later that same day, it was terrific to catch up with one of the newer members of the fintech community, Joseph Twigg of Aveni. Fascinating to hear how their artificial intelligence innovations can transform the way financial services engages with customers.
I know both the Aveni and The Circle CityCrowd team are going to be very busy connecting with the wider community to discuss their emerging propositions in the coming months
Connecting Community
One of the key roles of FinTech Scotland is connecting the fintech community with new opportunities and the recent meeting with the team at Baillie Gifford regarding their forthcoming innovation fair is a great example of this.
Similarly, meeting yesterday with a long standing industry colleague Calum Brewster at the fast expanding Julius Baer to share potential connection opportunities in the wealth management space.
There are an increasing number of large financial institutions who are recognising the opportunities of collaborating with the fintech community and I very much appreciate the support of Graeme Jones, Bronwyn Torrie and the SFE team in this respect.
JP Morgan have led the way on this for some time now and I enjoyed catching up with Stephen Flaherty and Sandy Brodie to discuss how we share fintech collaboration at their forthcoming fintech leadership event.
David Macmillan and the team at Prudential are another terrific example of people embracing this new era of innovation and collaboration for the sector
This week I’ve been working with Douglas Graham, Alice Dreano and Edinburgh Innovations team look at running a collaboration event for later this year which will foster more connections between large enterprises and fintech firms alongside the expertise of the University teams
Plans are already in place for the University of Strathclyde S100 event in September connecting fintech firms with those that can provide practical support to enable their progress and growth.
Brilliant to be working with the excellent Tracy Moore, Fiona Ireland and Alan Feighery from the Enterprise Hub at the University on this.
Similarly, very excited to be supported the plans of our community member MoneyMatix and their plans for a fintech fireworks hackathon’. Very much a chance to engage the wider consumer communities in the positive role of fintech. Inspiring work by Tynah Matembe and Helene Rodger.
Beyond specific events, I am thrilled to be working closely with the energetic Vivolution team (Mark Roger, Andrew McGee, Kevin Lonergan) and Proposition Builder team (Carey McEvoy, Mark Thomson), who are making these connections happen on the ground.
A great example of this was the discussion the Vivolution team and I had with Andy Smith of Agenor Iceflo team on working closely with our strategic partners
I am fortunate I have had the opportunity to share the value of this connected community with June Love at the Scottish Government, so we can consider how we amplify across other sectors through the CanDo initiative. More on this strategy to come
Strategic Community
Talking of strategy, this last two weeks has presented me with the opportunity to share the developments in the fintech community at a strategic level with key stakeholders across the Government and civil service as well as the regulator.
This has included making plans to welcome Government Ministers from Scotland and the UK to Fintech Scotland to hear about the progress and key challenges in driving forward innovation. Thank you to Karen Rodger, Tom Price and Oz Bas for the team work on this.
In addition, I’ve been hugely encouraged by my joint discussions with Maggie Craig of the FCA, Douglas Graham of the University of Edinburgh and Adrian Gillespie and Tim Bedford of the University of Strathclyde over this last fortnight on how we support the fintech community going forward.
This will progress further in various ways in the coming months and one example where it is already gaining momentum is in developing the open banking centre of excellence. Here I’ve valued the team work with Gavin Littlejohn, Kevin Collins and the rest of the project team.
Come along to the Open Banking Meet Up on 20th August where I’ll be sharing more on this and why it has been an absorbing month on this subject!
Sharing Community
Talking of sharing, it was brilliant to catch up with the energetic Hamish Miller, Kevin O’Sullivan and Will Peakin of FutureScot on how we can work together to share more widely the awesome fintech developments happening in Scotland. Thanks guys.
There is going to a huge amount of activity in September and you’ll start to hear details of the Fintech Scotland Fortnight in our newsletter today!
A massive thanks to Rory Archibald from Visit Scotland for enormous support in preparing the fintech Scotland is Now’ plans as well as the numerous people organising specific conferences and meet ups.
A key event will be FinTech Summit on 19th and 20th September run by leading tech commentators Ray Bugg and Pete Swift from Digit where they tell me I will be put in the fintech hot’ seat!!
Very much enjoyed the meeting with Polly Purvis to hear how the impressive ScotSoft 2018 conference plans are coming along which we will be participating in along with members of the fintech community.
I’m really excited about Fintech Scotland closer collaboration with Polly and the team at Scotland IS and this was reinforced to me when meeting with Graeme Smith of Amazon to consider mutual innovation opportunities with the fintech community.
Great chats last week with Glasgow fintech fanatics Bobby King and Sergei Pomphrey as well as Rob Huggins of MBN Solutions about their forthcoming fintech events
With Rob the focus of our discussion soon moved onto how we encourage greater diversity across the community, an important mission for us both.
I know Eva Schuekel at Spotcap through the Fintech Fellowship programme has the aim of inclusion at its core and this is why I have been delighted to be involved
Similarly, working with David Nisbet of University of Glasgow in developing the fintech talent for the future to support academic and industry collaboration.
I’m also excited about the fintech collaboration opportunities with Edinburgh Napier University after meeting with their dean of the business school Gail Boag, thank you Gary Kildare of IBM for making this connection.
The subject of sharing the great diverse talent in Scotland with the fintech community was also a key talking point with Graham Burns and Michael Dickson of FWB Park Brown this week. Looking forward to giving this people factor greater prominence in the fintech community in the coming months.
Community Running
The meeting with Graham Burns on Tuesday got slightly side tracked as we shared our stories of doing the Aberdour Donkey Brae 7 mile race a couple of weekends ago. Always a fabulous race to do despite the challenging community hill’!
The running chat with Peter Ferry last Friday was also fun as we shared our love of pounding the streets. This was just before I completed a beautiful half marathon race at Dunoon the following day and achieved a seasonal PB!
Next up are two more half marathons at each end of the Lothian running community. Starting in the east with the Haddington half marathon race on Saturday and followed by the West Lothian 13.1 mile race at Bathgate next weekend.
Maybe we should start a fintech running community! Until next time.
100,000 signatures for the Pension Dashboard petition
38 Degrees recently launched a petition in response to media reports that the Pensions Dashboard might not go ahead.
The report suggested that MP Esther McVey, the work and pensions secretary, was thinking of ditching the pensions dashboard due to more pressing priorities.
100,000 signatures
The petition has now reached 100,000 signatures, showing the depth of feeling and the support that the initiative has in the country. It also means that it can now be considered for debate in Parliament.
The benefits of the Pensions Dashboard are easily seen and have clearly struck a chord with people.
Anthony Rafferty, Managing Director at Origo said: “We at Origo have been passionate supporters of the Pensions Dashboard since the initiative was launched, believing it is essential to help individuals engage with their retirement planning, particularly in the new pensions environment which was ushered in with the pensions freedoms.”
The technology is ready
The technology was recently successfully tested on 15 million users. It is now ready to be implemented and used by customers and financial planners. It is seen as a vital tool with people working on average 11 jobs in their lifetime and struggling to keep on top of their various pension pots.
Anthony Rafferty added “We believe the Pension Dashboard is a superb opportunity for Government and the industry to provide a simple way for UK pension holders in the country to track their pensions, understand their value and what that means for their future and where appropriate, to act on their data in their best interests.
“The DWP Feasibility Study into the Pension Dashboard is expected to be published later this year which we hope will reflect the strong support the initiative has both within the industry and with consumers.”
DemoFest 2018: Bringing Research to Life
This blog was written by Steven Kendrick, Executive Officer for the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA), which represents all 14 Scottish HE Computing Schools/Departments. Steven is responsible for all aspects of the management of the Research Pool.
As the warm summer continues, we are already looking ahead to our main knowledge exchange event of the year “DemoFest: Bringing Research to Life”, which takes place at Our Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh, on the evening of 6th November.
The event is aimed at showcasing some of the leading Computing and technology research taking place within universities in Scotland; and it is aimed principally at businesses and the public sector.
DemoFest brings together research talent, businesses, the public sector and Government for an evening of avant-garde technology demo’s; engaging talks and networking. This year we expect over 250 industry delegates; with over 50 research and tech’ exhibits and two great keynote talks (Dr Jamie Graves, CEO of Zonefox and Ali Shah, Head of Technology Direction at the BBC.
Because of the breadth of research and technology under the roof, DemoFest is aimed at businesses of any size, operating in many sectors ”“ including but not limited to Finance, Telecommunications, Cybersecurity, Big Data, Robotics and AI, Space Technology, Gaming, Energy, and Health & Wellbeing.
The event is now in its 11th year and the benefits of attending are far-reaching. It can be an opportunity to sow the seeds for innovative collaboration between universities and businesses. It can spark the commercialisation of a brilliant idea and begin the path to establishing a successful business. It also puts employers into contact with some of the brightest people working in technology in the country and vice-versa. For researchers and academics it provides a platform to discuss their research and demonstrate technology working in real-time.
Fortnightly Fintech Fuse – Fintech Fever Pitch!
Fintech fever has certainly ranked alongside the football world cup excitement and the beautiful summer over the last few weeks, with a huge amount of activity on Scotland’s fintech pitch’.
The combination of fintech firms, the world cup and a lovely sunny afternoon were brought together a couple of weeks ago when we had an informal fintech practitioners meet up to watch the Brazil verses Costa Rica match at the Peartree.
Great to see many of the community join us, with the conversation more focused around fintech opportunities rather than the action on the big screen!
Ray Bugg, the terrific leader of Digit, and I agreed that it was more exciting to hear our diverse range of fintech friends, such as Orca Money, Money Matix and Agrud, share their stories with each other rather than the action on the big screen.
We were of course cheering for the Brazilian team because, as many of you know, they are twinned with the Scottish Brazil in Blue team’ Cowdenbeath FC, from the Kingdom of Fife!
Fife FinTech
Of course, I would argue that Fife is more famous for fintech than football and it was fantastic to see the growth in region noted by the recent City UK report, highlighting it as one of Scotland’s key fintech clusters along with Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Looking forward, this growth has every prospect of continuing with firms such as Revovite Technologies expanding and the economic leadership in the region by people such as Iain Shirlaw with the focus on developing the talent pipeline through a fintech academy.
Developing fintech skills is a key priority and it was valuable to catch up with Gbenga Ibikunle from University of Edinburgh to help with the plans for a new unique degree in Fintech leadership to be launched soon.
Very excited about this development along with the launch by Napier University of their postgraduate fintech degree course
Together with the fantastic leadership by David Steinburg at various universities in ensuring we bring through the human dimension of fintech skills development, I am really optimistic we can work towards building the knowledge and skills for a successful global fintech centre.
Melrose FinTech
The various fintech skill development programmes will ensure we are well placed to support the growth across all parts of the country.
The importance of this was highlighted when I met up with the fantastic Andy Smith and Jason Forsyth of Melrose based fintech Agenor Iceflo to hear about how they have successfully taken their fintech proposition to the Middle East.
Hugely excited about supporting the team develop take their proposition in other parts of the financial services sector and global markets working with strategic partners IBM, Deloitte and Sopra Steria.
I’m very much looking forward to my trip down to the Borders to meet the whole Agenor Iceflo team in Melrose and developing the collaboration opportunities with the team at Vivolution, FinTech Scotland’s commercial partner in supporting fintech enterprise growth.
Working with specialist business consultants such as Vivolution is critical to supporting fintech firms maximise their opportunities in Scotland and internationally.
I do believe this will be a key strength going forward especially when I hear about the great work by people such as Alisdair Gunn at Framewire, Carey and Mark at Proposition Builder, Eddie Curran at CBS Consulting and David Reid at Because Brand Matter all supporting young developing firms to get to the next stage of growth.
This week I’ve also really enjoyed catching up with Sharon Ritchie and Lorraine Politi of Catax who very much complement the range of business consultants supporting fintech growth.
Furthermore, my recent catch ups with Susan Staiao and Pam Reid of Ekosgen on their research into the need for specific fintech environment has certainly emphasized the need find more effective ways to connect up fintechs with the right support
Leith and Linlithgow FinTech
This all reinforces the key role of Fintech Scotland in connecting up the various players in the fintech ecosystem so collaboration becomes a big driver of growth and innovation.
To this point, it was really motivating to meet with Catherine Bell, Managing Director of Leith based Mearns & Co to hear about their terrific ground breaking fintech innovation called Lightbox and discuss the various collaboration opportunities
As a further example, I had a fabulous catch up with the inspiring Stephen Marshall to talk about the exciting developments with his fintech business Insure Apps and connecting into the vibrant ecosystem.
I’m delighted I was able to connect Stephen with fellow Linlithgow residents Neil Cunningham and Robert McKechnie from our strategic partner Equifax to explore the mutual opportunities.
Bringing alive these collaboration examples is an exciting part of what we do and so it is super to be working with the brilliant Rory Archibald of Visit Scotland for the Innovate the Nation event in Stirling for September where we can share more.
Over this last couple of weeks I’ve also had great conversations with Paul Mosson of the Law Society of Scotland as well as Firas Khnaisser and Rachel Aldigheri of the Marketing Association on how we develop lateral collaboration to bring the fintech opportunities to wider communities.
Greenside and Gogarburn Fintech
A couple of weeks ago there was an opportunity to take a step back from the fever pitch of fintech activity and take stock on how far we had progressed since the start of the year at the first ever FinTech Scotland board meeting.
Hosted by the wonderful Nucleus Financial people at their Greenside offices and chaired masterfully by David Fergusson we had a very constructive Board discussion on what had been achieved to date and the priorities going forward.
I must admit I was a little bit nervous beforehand in bringing together such a diverse set of very successful leaders around the Board table, all with strong views on the potential for fintech in Scotland.
However, everybody gelled and after couple of hours of terrific engagement I was certainly enthused about realizing our ambition of becoming a leading global fintech centre. Thank you to the Board members for the collective endorsement and support.
This was then translated a few days later through the SFE Fintech Development Group meeting held at the RBS Gogarburn conference centre.
This meeting really got focused on how we execute the details of the FinTech Scotland plan over the coming months and was hosted chaired by Graeme Jones and Louise Smith.
Thank you to everyone who came along from the broad range of players across the ecosystem as well as to Janine Stewart and Murdo Connochie for making things happen on the day.
The early follow up conversations are very encouraging on progressing the various fintech opportunities, for example, meeting with Anurag Agrawi of Baillie Gifford at their Greenside offices and talking with Adam Pollock from RBS.
Dundee and Dunoon Running
I had the opportunity to reflect on the fever pitch of fintech activity when I was interviewed by Rob McLaren of the Dundee Courier, sometimes it is only when you take a step back and explain to someone what is going on that the scale of exciting activity becomes clear.
The opportunity to step back is one of the reasons I love my running to reflect on everything that is happening in the fintech community although my participation in the Dundee half marathon last Sunday was of less interest to Rob than the world of fintech!!
For me you can’t separate the important links between the two, I’m sure people like David Steinburg and many others will testify to this!
For example, my next race is a trip to the birthplace of fintech, the Kingdom of Fife for the famous Aberdour Donkey Brae seven mile race a week on Sunday.
This will be followed six days later by the Dunoon half marathon where I am hoping to come across some signs of fintech fever in this beautiful part of West Scotland! More on this next time.
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.
Scaling up to meet Pension Dashboard demand
This blog has been written by Anthony Rafferty, Managing Director at Origo.
As the fintech tasked with improving the financial services industry’s operating efficiencies, Origo has been involved in Pensions Dashboard developments since 2014. During this time, as well as developing prototypes, we have also been working on delivering a systems architecture that is scalable to meet the anticipated launch and future usage levels by consumers.
The Pensions Dashboard will be both a brand new and free service pertinent to millions of people in the UK, which means there is a high likelihood that it will receive significant volumes of requests when it goes live.
Indeed, our analysis* shows that Pensions Dashboard must be ready to support at least 15 million consumers accessing their pensions data. This figure of 15 million is also closely aligned with discussions that we have held with providers/banks who operate consumer-facing platforms.
Therefore, the infrastructure underpinning the Pensions Dashboard must be built from the outset to support significant volumes of consumers from day one, cope with peaks and troughs in usage, and scale to the target of 15 million consumers.
Not surprisingly, one of the main concerns of those responsible for delivery of this critical project has been the sheer complexity in scaling up the central IT infrastructure to deal with this anticipated volume of consumers. It is vital that this is achieved securely, efficiently and at acceptable cost to Government and industry stakeholders.
So, a vital part of the work we have been doing in developing the find’ service ”“ the process of the Dashboard which, with consumer consent, orchestrates the calls to all pension providers to check if they have a matching policy for the consumer ”“ has been to successfully scale test for that anticipated usage by 15 million active consumers all wanting to find their pensions.
We have benchmarked our solution against example test scenarios and factors, including:
â— A 15 million user population;
â— 80% of these users active onPensions Dashboard(s) on a given day;
â— Invoking an additional find’ request every 30 days;
â— 200 pension provider systems (or end points’) in the ecosystem.
As Kenneth May, Chief Architect at Origo, explains this required analysis of the performance and stability of the ‘find’ process at high volume. “Averaged out over a day, this testing requires a throughput of just over 1,000 transactions per second to deal with incoming traffic from the Dashboard(s) and to collate responses from pension providers.
“We have tested at more than double this rate to ensure that we can cope with typical usage patterns which have significant peaks during the working day. Our test results give us confidence that we can reliably achieve, exceed and sustain the required throughput and provide a robust low-latency service.”
Needless to say, we are delighted with the progress we’re making on behalf of consumers, with our recent testing proving that the solution scales.
The offering also provides centralised authorisation services to enable Dashboard access to the pensions which are found and includes advanced features such as Delegated Authority (access) for advisers, guidance bodies and other trusted parties
We have not achieved this alone. It has been done working in collaboration with providers and industry bodies over the years, as well as with the support from our strategic technology partners ”“ MuleSoft and ForgeRock. But now, having successfully tested the plumbing of the Pensions Dashboard, for us the technology is ready for 15 million consumers.
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
Scotland, Ireland and fintech ”“ the importance of working together
This blog has been written by David Clarke, Policy Director and Founder at Scottish-Irish Finance Initiative.
Fintech is a strategically important industry and can contribute hugely to the development of our native industrial and business environment. Most promising is the development of new companies and most importantly new high value jobs. It is also vital to remember that fintech can be a disrupter and can, and should, create efficiencies that may make some existing roles redundant. With this in mind it’s very important to create the right public policy for the development of the sector.
In order to ensure that the balance of new roles and specialisations works in our favour we need to be certain that we have first mover advantage and scale. The Scottish Government has quite rightly taken a proactive step in encouraging the growth of fintech, most notably with the establishment of Fintech Scotland, to coordinate the activities of the policy makers and the industry to ensure we take maximum advantage at this pivotal growth time for the sector.
But why stop at Scotland’s borders? Those of us that support the Scottish Irish Finance Initiative (our raison d’être couldn’t be more clear ”“ to encourage job and industry growth through cooperation) believe there are huge advantages from sharing expertise and effectively doubling the industry hinterland by encouraging the fintech sectors in both locations to work more closely together.
The combination of expertise, which can be led by both universities and businesses, can of itself helps spawn the development of new technologies and new solutions. We are also strongly of the opinion that by businesses looking further afield (but not that far ”“ a 40 minute flight that’s shorter and easier than any trip down to London!) they can tap potential clients and resources that otherwise would not be available.
Ireland’s existing expertise as one of Europe’s top two fund administration and servicing centres, home to many of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions, offers a wealth of opportunity for Scottish fintech companies. Likewise the significant fund management and administration in Scotland extends the potential for Irish businesses.
And at a time when others are putting up trade borders, we reckon that this kind of cooperation sends out a very positive message to the rest of the world and to the large financial institutions that we need to engage with in order to grow our domestic industries.
Artificial Intelligence and Professional Expertise
Accountancy, law, insurance”¦ these professions usually conjure images of spreadsheets, glass and steel offices, jargon-filled sentences, square eyes and grey suits. Perhaps this is part of the reason why we willingly pay high fees for such services: passing the burden to highly intelligent individuals who will perform those laborious tasks for us. But all this might be about to change.
It’s not about replacement
Machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions are already better at performing many tasks than the professionals: beating human lawyers in reviewing contracts and predicting the outcomes of legal cases[1].
But it is not about replacing lawyers, accountants and insurance managers with machines. Instead, it is about building data solutions that enrich their practice: automating repetitive tasks to free up time for strategic thinking and managing the client relationship; lowering costs to offer services to a wider audience, including legal help for those who most need it; improving detection of insurance fraud to lower premiums for all; accessing and using data to deliver a better more personalised service.
The potential for AI in professional services is clearly considerable: for those who use and depend upon them, and those working in these industries.
The UK in a great position
Furthermore, the UK is in the perfect position to make it happen. With its world-leading centres of AI research, it has been described as first in the world for AI readiness’[2]. It also has a justifiably renowned heritage in providing professional services, with the biggest legal and insurance sectors in Europe, and ranked as the leading exporter of financial and related professional services across the world in 2017.
Those working in the industry must play a central role in the development of these new technologies for them to succeed. They are the knowledge domain experts who are indispensable in designing the machines of the future: framing the challenges, producing data requirements, identifying potential risks and articulating the social and ethical issues.
As Professor Richard Susskind, author of the Future of the Professions says:
“Professionals should become directly involved in the development of the systems that handle and deliver practical expertise.”
A need for increased collaboration
A collaborative approach between professionals, academic researchers and technologists across the professional services industry will ensure that the solutions are best in class from a technical, user and social perspective.
It is such an approach that is being encouraged by the forthcoming £20m Next Generation Services Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF). The challenge is set to support the development of data and AI solutions in the sectors of accountancy, legal and insurance services. It will include an initial CR&D call of up to £12m and an initial Research Programme call of up to £3m.
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.