Growing Scotland’s Role as a FinTech Hub
February 25, 2020


Continuing our breakfast series discussing the opportunities and challenges for Scotland’s innovation ecosystem, Scotland House played host to a panel of FinTech experts to discuss the future of the FinTech industry – and Scotland’s role within it.

The event, chaired by Seven Hills co-founder Michael Hayman MBE DL, looked at what it means to be a FinTech cluster, and the future of FinTech in Scotland and the UK more broadly.

Michael was joined by Charlotte Crosswell, CEO of Innovate Finance; Stephen IngledewCEO of FinTech Scotland; and Myles Stephenson, CEO of award-winning Edinburgh-based business payments platform Modulr.

FinTech in Scotland

Reflecting on Scotland’s achievement as the UK’s first FinTech cluster to receive Europe’s ESCA Excellence award - one of only three clusters in Europe to do so - speakers considered successful FinTech clusters as those with the ability to bring together entrepreneurs, government, academia and citizens to drive innovation.

The conversation turned next to the advantages Scotland offer, with speakers complimenting Scotland’s developed FinTech ecosystem. Speakers also argued that Scotland is an attractive proposition for companies that want to experiment before growing into other markets. All speakers agreed that Scotland was on a journey to becoming a leading FinTech nation but that there was still more work to be done to grow the talent pool – particularly talent with existing scale-up experience.

What next?

While the future is positive for Scotland’s FinTech sector, it was agreed that there are still challenges to overcome. The first is to build more bridges between academia and industry. The second is to address questions of big data ethics as FinTech continues to grow. The third is to be more inclusive and better involve the voices of consumers to ensure FinTech companies are meeting their needs.

Next event

Join us at our next debate ‘Funding the Future: Will Investors Keep Rewarding the Risktakers? at Scotland House on Wednesday 25 March 2020.