Meet Up

Addressing compliance and supporting risk management with technology and data

EVENT RECAP

We were absolutely delighted to deliver the first event in our Fintech Research & Innovation Roadmap event series, supported by FinTech Scotland and lead sponsor Pinsent Masons.

For this first event the focus was on financial regulation, where we took a deep dive into RegTech to consider how advances in technology and data can create new ways of addressing compliance and managing risk in financial services

Operating in financial services means that businesses need to address high volumes of regulation and it is a struggle to keep up with the constant rate of change – robust solutions are required to address compliance and manage risk.

Our panel of industry experts met to discuss how RegTech can address these challenges.

Some of the key points of discussion included:

-How RegTech can support compliance and risk management
-What are the challenges in deploying RegTech?
-What is the role of Regulators in supporting RegTech?
-What is the future of RegTech innovation?

Some of the key discussion points at the event included:

1) Application of technology in a way, which can simplify compliance, creating an opportunity for better investment and future of financial services here in Scotland.

2) Proactive use of technology and revisiting the processes in place to think about risk environment differently

3) Combining the potential it has, including experience that innovators, financial service industries and what professional and academic circle holds, Scotland has real breadth of opportunity in next 10 years for growth, investment and innovation in RegTech.

For those who were unable to make the event, don’t worry, we have you covered, you can watch the panel discussion again in full here:

Speakers Information

Nicola Anderson, CEO, FinTech Scotland

Nicola has years of experience in financial services regulation where her focus was on conduct regulation and supporting the delivery of good consumer outcomes in retail markets. She worked for the FCA across a range of financial sectors with experience supervising firms such as Retail Banks, Credit Unions, Building Societies and smaller Intermediaries.

Nicola became CEO at FinTech Scotland in January 2021 after a 6 months secondment from the FCA.

Yvonne Dunn, Partner, Pinsent Masons

Yvonne is a Partner who leads the Pinsent Masons financial services technology practice. She specialises in advising on outsourcing, systems development and integration and IT procurement. Yvonne also advises on complex projects which combine technology and the regulatory environment in which financial services clients operate. She is the firm’s board representative with Fintech Scotland.

Devraj Basu, Senior Lecturer Financial Services, Strathclyde Business School and Interim Director at the University of Strathclyde Centre for Financial Regulation & Innovation

Devraj Basu is Senior Lecturer in Finance in the Accounting and Finance department at Strathclyde Business School. His area of academic research is financial markets, covering equity markets, commodity markets and alternative investments. He is actively involved in RegTech having set up the RegTech Forum which brings together industry, academia and government both within Scotland and internationally. The goal of the RegTech Forum is to help understand the fast moving RegTech landscape and how Scotland and the UK can position themselves to become leading global players. He has helped design Strathclyde’s MSc in Financial Technology, the UK’s first master’s program in Fintech.

Gordon McHarg, Chief Executive Officer, Autorek

Gordon co-founded AutoRek in 1994 and has served as CEO since 1998. Gordon has guided the company from its early days as a bespoke software development services provider through to its current position as a leading provider of enterprise financial controls and reconciliation solutions to the global financial service sector.

His client experience is extensive and includes international work for IBM in the US, Renaissance Capital in Russia, and several global clients including Barclays, JP Morgan, and BUPA. He studied Computing Science at West of Scotland University, graduating in 1989.

Mick O’Connor, Founder & Director, Haelo

Mick O’Connor CEng CDir is founder and director of HAELO Consulting LTD, a company specialising in developing emergence sense-making software for complex regulatory environments and currently focused on SM&CR (Senior Manger and Certification Regime) implementation in the finance sector.

He has forty years’ experience in shipbuilding, oil, petrochemical, defence, aerospace, construction, aviation, utilities, and space. He is Programme Director at Prestwick Spaceport, IoD Chartered Director Ambassador, PhD candidate, and Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at Glasgow Caledonian University.