FinTech Scotland partners with Deloitte and Sopra Steria

Professional services firms Deloitte and Sopra Steria are among a quartet of entities which have become strategic partners of a FinTech initiative launched by the Scottish Government. The groups will utilise their global resources to help drive interest in FinTech hubs in Scotland and abroad.

In the last decade, FinTech has attracted more than £37 million in investment in Scotland, according to Scottish Government figures published last month. Research has also suggested that FinTech could bring in as many as 30,000 jobs to the UK, and that UK FinTech is expected to employ an additional 100,000 people by 2030. In order to ensure that this growth is not simply monopolised by often London-centric businesses, Fintech Scotland is an organisation which was established by the Scottish Government, in collaboration with the nation’s financial services sector and the University of Edinburgh, to represent the country’s FinTech community. The group aims to encourage data driven innovation and collaboration activity north of Hadrian’s wall, in order to deliver inclusive growth and achieve critical mass in the sector.

Methods which FinTech Scotland supports in order to achieve this include facilitating an integrated and innovative FinTech ecosystem, supporting innovative and entrepreneurial purpose driven FinTech enterprises, and encouraging the development of relevant skills, as well as fostering diversity and inclusion to help the sector survive increasing competition for talent. The group is also committed to developing FinTech community engagement, inclusion and collaboration, and building international FinTech engagement and collaboration. To that end, the organisation has announced four new strategic partners from the professional services space, who will join Scottish Enterprise and Edinburgh University on the board to help deliver a range of initiatives.

Big Four professional services giant Deloitte has been drafted in to provide global expertise on driving FinTech growth in Scotland and international hubs across the world. According to Kent Mackenzie, Director and Head of FinTech at Deloitte in Edinburgh, the firm will leverage its global fintech networks to provide advantages for business and organisations working with Fintech Scotland.

Mackenzie added, “Scotland’s reputation and expertise carry significant global weight and we intend to help to improve this position and accelerate further growth through our work with Fintech Scotland.

Deloitte is joined by IT consultancy Sopra Steria, a major global digital transformation organisation with a proven reputation for software, solutions and delivery. The firm has extensive experience helping public organisations to realise the potential of digital innovation, and was recently employed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to deliver the UK’s largest digital market data processing platform.

International digital media and marketing agency Dentsu Aegis Network, which recently added to its headcount with the purchase of Merkle, is also a new strategic partner, alongside Pinsent Masons – a law firm recognised as a global leader in FinTech and Open Banking. According to FinTech Scotland, the quartet of alliances are just the beginning, with more plans currently in the pipeline. 

Stephen Ingledew, CEO of Fintech Scotland, said, “Following many conversations with a range of large firms over recent months, these strategic partners demonstrated their commitment and market leadership which will support our aspirations and plans. We are currently in discussions with a view to confirming additional strategic partners in the coming weeks.”