Want to join Scotland’s £17bn data revolution? November 16, 2016 | City Talk Picture the scenario: you're located in a leading UK technology centre such as Scotland with a data sector worth a healthy £17bn. You need skilled and qualified data professionals – but where do you find 'em? The good news is that Scottish data innovation centre, Data Lab, is offering 90 MSc places for 2016/17 across seven Scottish universities, [...]
Why haven’t you invested in Scotland’s blockchain sector yet? November 16, 2016 | City Talk Can you hear it? That's the sound of the guys working on the chain. Blockchain to be precise. It's no longer a silent revolution in the UK financial world. It's moving fast. Really fast. In fact an amazing £634 per second fast. Or £70,000 by the time you've read this article. Scotland's rapidly-growing blockchain business is making a big noise in [...]
LendingCrowd thinks outside the bank using the power of the crowd November 16, 2016 | City Talk Peer-to-peer firm LendingCrowd was quick to attract investment to grow in Scotland's niche crowdfunding sector. The company also had the vision to appreciate the vast fintech potential here, which thrives on over 1,000 tech firms, together with 600 financial and business companies. It’s not hard to see why peer-to-peer lending has established such a strong foothold in just a handful of [...]
Metro Bank, Deloitte and Setl are testing a blockchain-based contactless card November 15, 2016 Metro Bank, Deloitte and blockchain startup Setl have created a card for making simple contactless payments such as buying a morning coffee, using the distributed ledger technology (DLT) in a trial that's understood to be the first of its kind. The card has been tested by 100 people as part of the City watchdog's fintech sandbox [...]
Nutmeg raises £30m in latest funding round, the largest of its kind for fintech since Brexit vote November 14, 2016 Nutmeg announced today it has drummed up £30m in its latest round of funding, the largest raise in the fintech sector since the Brexit vote. The fintech pioneer will use the money from the funding round, which was lead by Hong Kong based independent financial advisory firm Convoy, to expand its product offering and rapidly grow [...]
The new bridge to China heralds the start of a golden age for UK fintech November 11, 2016 Over the past few years I’ve witnessed first-hand the UK’s fintech sector emerge as the world’s dominant hub – over traditional technology centres such as Silicon Valley, New York, Israel, Singapore, and Hong Kong. There is no question that more technology innovation and value creation in financial services comes from the UK than anywhere else [...]
Fintech brokerage startup set up by footballer Ryan Bertrand announces £1m seed funding November 10, 2016 It’s a big week for England footballer Ryan Bertrand. Not only will he be fighting for his place in the Scotland match on Friday, his brokerage startup is also announcing it has raised £1m in seed funding. Pacific & Orient Berhad, a Malaysian-listed company with a UK subsidiary, led the funding round, supplemented by angel [...]
The Bank of England has revealed the startups in its fintech accelerator November 9, 2016 The Bank of England has lifted the lid on its groundbreaking fintech accelerator which launched back in June. Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon on Wednesday, the central bank's chief operating officer Charlotte Hogg said it had been focused on three key areas: "data analytics, information security, and some work exploring distributed ledgers." "Just over [...]
Meet the 18 companies joining the FCA’s regulatory sandbox November 7, 2016 The UK's foward-thinking financial regulator has chosen 18 companies to participate in its so-called regulatory sandbox, where they will be able to test out new technologies without breaching rules. Launched over the summer, the sandbox is designed to foster fintech innovation while remaining under the supervisory eye of the City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority. Read more: [...]
IG Group boss joins fintech startup board November 7, 2016 A top boss at spreadbetter IG Group has joined the board of a startup opening up high level investments to individual private investors. Ian Peacock, head of UK and Ireland at the FTSE 250 firm, will join the advisory board of CoInvestor, an alternative investment platform which lets investors put their cash into assets usually reserved for institutional investors. The six [...]