FinTech Scotland

By FinTech ScotlandNews Tech News

FinTech Scotland episodes

March 06, 2023 Consumer Duty and fintech innovation
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
22 min
February 17, 2023 Fintech and payroll, disrupting how people get paid
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
24 min
February 03, 2023 Carbon Markets: How can fintech avoid green washing?
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
29 min
January 23, 2023 Mistakes to avoid when scaling a fintech
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
31 min
December 05, 2022 Fintech and space: Innovation examples
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
25 min
November 17, 2022 Fintech and 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
23 min
September 06, 2022 Hiring strategies for fintechs
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
29 min
August 23, 2022 RegTech, why now is the time to start caring
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
27 min
July 06, 2022 A conversation about art and NFT with Trevor Jones
The NFT movement seems to have taken the world by storm. For most people it came out of nowhere and when most people are grappling with the idea of digital currencies, they now have to deal with non-Fungible-tokens.
Digital currencies are changing everything and not just the way we deal with money. However, it’s not just about coins anymore. Today, in the episode we’re speaking about how it’s affecting one of the oldest disciplines in the world. Art. And just like appetite for cryptocurrencies is going up and down (down at the minute) so might NFTs. However, one thing is for sure is that they are here to stay.
On this episode we welcome on of the top 10 NFT artists in the world according to most NFT specialists, Trevor Jones Trevor is Canadian but has chosen bonny Scotland to establish himself and his art. With him we’ll discuss his incredible story and his vision on this new world.
This podcast will also be an opportunity to showcase the Stirling Castle Party.
26 min
June 24, 2022 The role of fintech in fighting the cost-of-living crisis
According to the Office for National Statistics, 87% of adults in the UK reported an increase in their cost of living in April 2022.
The Office for Budget Responsibility expects household incomes after tax and adjusted for inflation to start falling in Q2 2022 and not recover until Q3 2024.Since Russia invaded Ukraine, economic forecasters have raised their expectations for consumer price inflation, not just in the near term but that it will be higher for longer.On 5 May, the Bank of England forecasted inflation to peak “at slightly over 10% in 2022 Q4, which would be the highest rate since 1982”.
In this podcast we ask ourselves what the financial sector can do to help people and businesses. How can collaboration between fintechs, established firms and support organisation can improve outcomes for individuals and companies
This podcast will also be an opportunity to announce the launch of the fintech innovation labs at TSB.
Participants
Sharon MacPherson – CEO at Scotcash
Jason Wilkinson Brown - Head of Partnerships & Open Banking at TSB
Iain Niblock – Head of Product at ClearScore
24 min