FinTech Scotland

In this episode, we explore the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in streamlining compliance within the financial sector, showcasing the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab. We discuss the future of financial compliance, enriched by AI's capability to automate and innovate. This episode is for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, finance, and regulation, offering insights into the collaborative efforts shaping a more compliant and efficient financial landscape. Guests:

Episode recording with Fintech Australia. Fintech has emerged as a transformative force in the financial sector, offering innovative solutions that not only enhance financial services but also address broader societal issues, including environmental sustainability, customer vulnerability, and overall financial well-being. Those objectives are heavily featured in the Research & Innovation Roadmap that we published 2 years ago. In Scotland, we have an important number of fintechs addressing those challenges. In fact, the majority of Scottish fintechs are fintech for good. Today we’ll take some time to consider how those organisations are driving positive changes. Guests: Ren Hooi, Founder and CEO at Lightning Reach Robin Peters, Co-founder and CEO at Snugg Sheila Hogan, Founder and CEO at Biscuit Tin

In the ever-evolving landscape of fintech, securing Series A investment is a crucial milestone. Raising investment is much more than just about the money and we’re going to explore what that means in this episode. We will delve into the crucial stage of Series A fundraising for fintech companies and speak about investor mindset, pitching, challenges and pitfalls. This episode is for fintech entrepreneurs gearing up for Series A, investors keen on the latest trends, and anyone curious about the intersection of finance and technology. Participants Guests: Jason Cohen – Associate Director - Corporate Finance at PwC UK Royston Hoggarth - Chair at Stellar Omada Limited

During this special episode of Fintech Scotland's Podcast we recorded live from the Fintech Summit, the opening event of Scotland Fintech Festival that took place between the 21st of September and the 12th of October 2023. In this episode we spoke to Bryn Coulthard, Chief Product and Technology officer at Smart Data Foundry. We discussed the role of data as an enabler for collaboration between fintech firms and established financial firms. More specifically we looked at synthetic data to innovate in a safe and efficient way.

In this special fintech festival episode Fintech Scotland and Findr spoke with Rebecca Midgley, Innovation Manager, at the Phoenix Group. We spoke about their innovation forum, how they partner with fintechs and how they are looking to tackle societal issues such as the gender saving gap.

In this special 2023 Scotland Fintech Festival episode we spoke with Mike Teall, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Scottish fintech Snugg and Adam Betteridge, Partnerships and Open Banking Lead at TSB. We discussed TSB Innovation Labs that saw Snugg secure a partnership with TSB, helping the bank's customer make their homes greener. We focus specifically on what makes for a good collaboration between established financial firms and fintechs.

Scotland Fintech Festival took place between the 21st of September and the 12th of October. With over 50 events the festival was a real success this time again. During the launch event, the Fintech Summit, we recorded special episodes in collaboration with collaboration platform Findr. In this episode we speak with Nicola Anderson, CEO at Fintech Scotland about the festival itself as well as initiatives that are underway, delivering the recommendations of the UK Research & Innovation Roadmap.

Lending money is a process that has long been around and for many years it was left undisrupted. People are very familiar now with credit scores and the idea that to get credit you need credit. New solutions and technologies are coming to disrupt this market to make financial products more accessible to a greater number of people. In this episode we’ll look at how Open Finance is changing the status quo and look at some fantastic examples of fintech innovation. We’ll also look at how credit bureaus are adapting and partnering with fintechs to evolve their own models. Guests: Robert McKechnie – Head of Products at Equifax Crawford Taylor – CEO and Founder at Nude

By Now Pay Later is not something new. Offline, it’s a process that goes back several decades. Online we’ve started to see offers develop in the last 10 years with a real acceleration powered by fintech innovation in the last 5 years. In the UK this market represents $27Bn and is expected to reach $55Bn by 2028 according to Payments Cards and Mobile. Recently we’ve started to witness the appearance of what’s called BNPL 2.0. According to CU today 61% of BNPL users would rather use a BNPL service offered directly from the merchant they’re buying from than go through a third party. In this episode we’ll be speaking about BNPL2.0 and wonder if this is in fact the future, its advantages and pitfalls Guests: Geordie Laing – Head of Partnerships at Zing Cover Thomas Bull – Partner at EY and Head of Fintech Growth

On November 10th, 2022, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) was approved by the EU. It is designed to standardise IT risk requirements in the financial sector to ensure that all participants of the financial system are subject to a common set of. Amongst other things it introduces an oversight framework for critical third-party providers. In this podcast we will discuss how this new EU regulation can impact fintech firms that are very often providing 3rd party services to established financial firms. Guests: Yvonne Dunn, Partner at Pinsent Masons Wayne Scott, Regulatory Compliance Solutions Lead at NCC Jamie Graves, technical advisor on the TrueDeploy project

In this special episode with speak with David Tracy, Head of Data Science, at Smart Data Foundry on the week they presented their new Aisle proposition at Innovate Finance Global Summit. What is synthetic data is? How is it different from real-world data? We'll explore how it will speed up innovation and collaboration in the fintech world, what the risks and benefits are and much more. David will also speak to us about the work they've done with the FCA and the PSR to tackle APP fraud using Agent Based Simulation.

Scaling up a fintech business is a crucial part of a company’s life, moving from launching and validating a proposition to growing, onboarding clients and driving revenue. At that stage companies will focus on marketing, sales, recruitment which are all important considerations. It is however paramount to also look at resilience to protect customers/clients, adhere to new regulation, be investor ready and navigate procurement better and faster. In this podcast we will explore what being resilient mean. We’ll cover cyber resilience of course but will go much wider and look at how to build a solid and future proof business. Guests: Wayne Scott – Regulatory Compliance Solutions Lead David Lanc – Founder and CEO at Ionburst

In July 2022, the FCA published its Consumer Duty. Regulated firms need to implement the new rules by the end of July 2023 for open products and July 2024 for closed books of business. Firms will need to review their products, communications and customer journey. It will impact most areas in those organisations such as governance, reporting, product design, pricing, distribution, servicing and staff training. In this podcast we will review the key principles, ask ourselves what the impact on both established firms and fintechs is as well as exploring innovative technologies that can help adhere to those new rules. Guests: Venetia Jackson – Senior Associate at Pinsent Masons Joseph Twigg – Founder and CEO at Aveni Chris Ansara – Founder and CEO at docStribute

When thinking about payroll generally most people would assume that it is something that works well. You work, you get paid. However, payroll is being disrupted like never before. According to software company Intuit, one in four workers say they have had paycheque errors. And cloud company Kronos found almost half of workers who have had two or more paycheque errors will look for a new job. Society is changing fast (even more so after COVID). In this podcast we’ll explore how those changes are impacting the way people work, get paid, pay taxes and how new fintech solutions are developing to make this possible. Guests: Ian Hogg – Chairman of The Work Tech Group that owns fastPAYE Hayley Strachan - Director - Global Employer Services at Deloitte Richard Tooth - Tax & Legal consultant at Deloitte LLP Eira Hammond - Executive Director Global Payroll at Hi55 Ventures

The FinTech Scotland Research and Innovation Roadmap highlighted the growing focus on climate considerations for the financial services sector. Whilst this is in part driven by consumers, demanding better transparency for the products they invest in, this is the launch of new regulations that is accelerating the move to a more sustainable financial sector. Financial services providers are facing growing challenges around ESG reporting due to the difficulties around the availability of trustworthy data. This has led to mounting concerns around greenwashing. In a bid to clamp down on greenwashing, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is proposing a package of new measures including investment product sustainability labels and restrictions on how terms like ‘ESG’, ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ can be used. In this podcast we discuss how to best avoid greenwashing moving forward. Guests: Colin Carmichael – Sustainability Director at PwC Jules Salmond – Founder at Ciendos Matthew Brander - Senior Lecturer in Carbon Accounting at The University of Edinburgh Business School

The fintech sector is growing at pace with more and more entrepreneurs launching their own innovative firm. Whilst starting a new company can be difficult, scaling one to the next stage isn’t any easier and comes with its own challenges. What makes a start-up different is its size, allowing it to be more nimble, faster and more agile which in turns allows for faster innovation. As it grows, employs more people, develops new operating models and uses more technologies, the danger is slowing down, increasing costs to deliver and less innovation. In this podcast we learn amount those mistakes and pitfalls scaling fintechs can avoid. What are things to think about and when should you start planning? Guests: James Varga – CEO and Founder at DirectID David Spencer - Head of Analytics Sales, Merkle UK

Fintech innovation is powered by data. New solutions appear every day, always consuming new data to develop new services to help people and organisations deal with money. Innovators are constantly in search for new data sources. The Scottish space sector has developed to be one of the largest in Europe. This industry, thanks to technology advances, can generate an incredible amount of data, from climate data to supply chain data, and much more., The fintech sector in Scotland is developing rapidly alongside an already very well-established financial sector. As new innovative solutions require more and more data, we’ve turned to the sky to understand how earth observation type data can help leverage the fintech opportunity. Guests: Christophe Christiaen - the Data, Innovation and Impact Lead within the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group Robin Sampson – CEO and founder at Trade In Space

As we transition to a more sustainable future, data, technology and innovation will help to drive and accelerate the insights, products and services to enable the changes needed. Earth Observation Data can enable new innovations that can help to advance financial inclusion, incentivise better climate related behaviours, and support the net zero agenda. Scotland has built significant experience in Space Tech and Space Data. Combined with the strength in FinTech innovation, this offers a substantial opportunity for future FinTech innovation and research. We can accelerate change through greater collaboration across Space and FinTech. This starts with building an understanding of current capabilities, in both space and fintech innovation. FinTech Scotland and Space Scotland are working closely together to bring our ecosystems together to share learnings & explore the challenges in the financial services sector that innovation could address, shaping more sustainable finance, and building confidence in future investments Participants Host: Mickael Paris – Marketing Director at FinTech Scotland Guests: Peter Young - CEO at Global Surface Intelligence & co-founder of the Scottish Space Leadership Council Kirsty McKenna – Innovation programme Manager at FinTech Scotland

Fintech firms around the world are becoming more and more vocal about how difficult they find it to hire new colleagues. Whether it is the skills gap or the increase in salary levels, start-ups and scales-ups are not always best equipped to compete in a global and highly competitive market. At the same time, many fintechs from around the world have and are still choosing Scotland to expand, finding it easier and sometime cheaper to recruit. So, is Scotland still attractive from a job market perspective? In this podcast episode we’ll discuss how Scotland is positioned now the job market is really global in a post-pandemic world. We’ll also try to understand how Scotland is getting ready to face the growing tech talent demand. Finally, we’ll discuss strategies fintech companies can put in place to become attractive and retain talent. Guests: Pardeep Cassells – Head of Securities and Claims Products at Access Fintech Justin Black – Business Director at Hays Technology Scotland Killian McAlesse - Marketing Director at CodeClan Marina Brizar - UK & Europe Director at Talent Beyond Boundaries

Financial Regulation Innovation (RegTech) was highlighted in the FinTech Scotland Research and Innovation roadmap published in March 2022 as an essential area of focus for the financial sector. Understanding and managing regulatory requirements costs financial institutions millions of pounds every year. As regulation evolves all the time to protect consumers, so do new tools and technologies. In recent years new solutions have emerged to help companies reduce cost, better understand requirements, and meet their reporting obligations. Open Banking, AI, Machine Learning and many more technologies have led to increased innovation. In this podcast we will discuss what RegTech means, adoption within the financial sector and why now is the time for financial firms to consider and explore innovation around financial regulation. This podcast will also be an opportunity to promote the upcoming fintech table event during Scotland FinTech festival. Guests: Yvonne Dunn – Partner at Pinsent masons Callum Murray – Founder and CEO at Amiqus