ESG: Investor expectations and the opportunity for FinTech to support ESG

Date

April 25 2023

TIME

5:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Panel Discussion

ESG: Investor expectations and the opportunity for FinTech to support ESG

Event Summary

Finance, technology and data can play a fundamental role in addressing the climate change crisis and in powering a more sustainable future. The challenge ahead is huge and the financial services industry must make the right choices and focus research and innovation in key areas in order to deliver maximum impact across the climate transition.

To support investment choices and finance in the market, investors and consumers are looking for better information and credible data and have new expectations of the companies they invest in.
Financial regulators are also aiming to influence positive climate outcomes and opportunities through a range of rules, expectations and guidelines.

At the same time equity and debt providers themselves subject to increasing pressure to fold ESG factors into their investment / lending decisions are increasing looking to the ESG credentials of investee companies / borrowers. Increasingly FinTech companies need to be able to demonstrate their own ESG credentials in order to attract investment.

Join us as we hear from a panel of industry leaders as they consider the opportunity to build collaborative climate action across financial services, FinTech and investment communities.

Speakers

Andrew Davidson, Investment Director, Scottish Equity Partners

Andrew is an Investment Director at Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) responsible for the delivery, execution and management of new investments. SEP is one of Europe’s leading growth equity firms and over the last twenty years has helped founder-led teams to build their businesses and achieve their global ambitions. Providing investment, alongside expertise and access to an international network, the SEP team works closely with management to maximise business growth and value. Technology focused, with particular expertise in enterprise and consumer-focused software and internet companies, SEP has been a supportive investor to some of Europe’s most successful businesses. SEP invests responsibly and is a signatory to the UNPRI, the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment.

Yvonne Dunn, Partner, Pinsent Masons

Yvonne leads the Pinsent Masons financial services technology practice. She specialises in advising on outsourcing, systems development and integration and IT procurement. Yvonne also leads our FinTech practice and advises on complex projects which combine technology and the regulatory environment in which financial services clients operate. She leads several TMT and outsourcing relationships with major banking and insurance clients and regularly speaks and writes on TMT and outsourcing issues specific to the financial services sector. She is the firm’s board representative on Fintech Scotland.

Euan McVicar, Senior Climate Advisor, Pinsent Masons

Euan is Senior Climate Adviser, part of the Climate and Sustainability Advisory team supporting clients to address the impact and effects of climate change and in developing and implementing their ESG strategies and addressing associated risks. A former energy and

projects lawyer at Pinsent Masons, he has subsequent experience as a general counsel both within government and in private sector sustainable investment roles.

Julia Salmond, CEO & Co-Founder, Ciendos

Jules is CEO and co-founder of CienDos – a climate-tech business, focussed on tracking, analysing and sharing corporate emissions data. Alongside the day-to-day management and strategic direction of the business, Jules has a core focus on shaping the go to market proposition and engaging with corporate consumers of the CienDos dataset to understand their environmental and wider sustainability data needs.

Prior to founding CienDos in 2021, Jules co-founded Cerico, a world-leading SaaS Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) business. Cerico was acquired by NewsCorp’s Dow Jones in 2018 where she led TPRM globally, overseeing 10x revenue growth and complex engagements with many of the world’s largest brands. She is a seasoned keynote speaker and published thought-leader on Climate- Tech & TPRM.

Hayden Morgan, Partner & Head of Sustainable Finance Consultancy, Pinsent Masons

Hayden joined Pinsent Masons in January 2023. He has 25 years’ experience of providing ESG advice for financial and corporate clients. In December 2020 he founded Morgan Green Advisory, with a mission to ‘enable a sustainable, lower carbon future’. Hayden was instrumental at the setup of the UK Green Investment Bank (later Group) where he designed, implemented and maintained the green impact / ESG framework as former Director (2013- 2020) and worked closely with Pinsent Masons’, Euan McVicar. Hayden has experience with debt capital markets, corporate finance, private equity, project finance, energy and infra projects, plus corporate sustainability, (e.g. management systems, reporting and assurance)

Supporters:

Pinsent Masons

Pinsent Masons looks at your business needs differently. This means we don’t just apply lawyers to solve clients’ problems; we deploy a wider range of professional disciplines, enabled by people, process and technology, to deliver a global professional service with law at its core. As one of our five key sectors and with more than 300 sector specialist lawyers – the financial services sector is at the heart of our business. Our experts work with the world’s leading banks, payments providers, FinTechs, insurers and asset and wealth managers on a wide range of multi-jurisdictional matters and strategic projects. Known for combining market leading financial regulatory and technology expertise with innovative solutions, we are ideally placed to help our clients navigate the opportunities and challenges of an increasingly dynamic and competitive industry

FinTech Scotland

FinTech Scotland’s purpose is to make a better world for all through financial innovation, collaboration and inclusion. We exist to create an integrated FinTech ecosystem through strategic coordination, the provision of funding, support, infrastructure and talent, and respond to the needs of all stakeholders within the Scottish Fintech cluster. We believe that making Scotland a fintech capital will lead to business creation and growth, a stronger economy and more jobs. In addition, our aim is to strengthen the societal benefits from fintech developments, believing in the opportunity for retail consumers to benefit. The organisation recently published the FinTech Scotland Research & Innovation Roadmap 2022-33 which will provide strategic direction for the development and growth of the Fintech sector in Scotland for the next 10 years, with the aim of driving a threefold increase in economic growth and job creation.

Media Partner – The Scotsman

The Scotsman – Scotland’s national newspaper – has been telling your stories since 1817.

We’ve been with readers through the events which have shaped modern Scotland: the Highland Clearances, the industrial revolution, two world wars, devolution, the independence referendum and everything in between.

The Scotsman and scotsman.com delivers incisive, thought-provoking and stimulating content to reflect the vibrancy of Scotland today, and offers a range of insightful opinions, new perspectives and lively debates about everything that matters to Scotland

RECAP

On the 12 May 2022 we were joined by guests from across the FinTech ecosystem in Scotland to discuss “Growing FinTech in Scotland”.

The event was kindly hosted by Data Talent Specialists, MBN Solutions, and we were joined by speakers from Fintech Scotland, Access Fitech, and Soar to hear from industry leaders about the challenges and opportunities for building and scaling a FinTech business in Scotland.

The main takeaways from the event included:

-The FinTech Scotland Research and Innovation Roadmap will form the industry strategy for the FinTech sector here for the next 10 years, with a focus on 4 key areas; Financial Regulation, Payments & Transactions, Open Finance Data, Climate Finance.

-There is no room for complacency from the cluster – Scotland must continue to push forward with more research, collaboration and innovation to continue the growth of the sector and to make Scotland the first choice destination for anyone who wants to scale up a Fintech business.

-There are still many challenges facing the industry, none more so than attracting and retaining talent. Small FinTech firms need to give consideration to how they can compete with larger financial institutions who are now starting to hire inhouse teams for their technology projects.