TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE
Peter Ranscombe finds out how online gadgets and gizmos invented in Scotland are helping consumers and businesses to stay on top of their finances
Peter Ranscombe looks at the latest financial technology to help us manage our pennies
Scotland has never been shy when it comes to financial innovation. The Bank of Scotland was the first lender in Europe to successfully issue banknotes in 1696, with the Royal Bank of Scotland granting the world’s first overdraft in 1728. As if that’s not enough, the Rev Henry Duncan opened the first savings bank at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire in 1810, with James Goodfellow patenting his design for the cash machine and accompanying personal identification number (PIN) in 1966.
That prowess in both commerce and innovation has been brought together today in the form of financial technology – or ‘fintech’ to its friends. The movement builds on Scotland’s strength in both financial services and digital technology to make it easier for individuals and businesses to manage their money.
Staying on top of our finances has never been more important. The pandemic and ensuing recession have shone a spotlight on the worries that so many of us have about money – and Scottish companies have been stepping in with ways to help.
One of the driving forces behind fintech is ‘open banking’, a change in the way banks handle information. Account holders can now choose to share their data with apps to help manage their finances.
Edinburgh-based Money Dashboard has been at the forefront of open banking since the company was founded in 2010, picking up prizes as the ‘best personal finance app’ at the British Bank Awards in 2017, 2018 and 2020 along the way. Neon, the company’s latest platform, allows users to see all their bank accounts and credit cards in the same place, and can analyse spending patterns to give them a balance once all their regular bills have been paid, as well as allowing instant transfers between accounts, even if they’re held at different banks.
FreeAgent can do similar tricks for entrepreneurs and other small business owners. Its online accounting software allows business owners or their accountants to manage their finances over the internet.
Conquering the fear that comes from dealing with money and building up good financial habits is at the heart of MoneyMatiX, a business that was founded by Tynah Matembe and Helene Rodger. MoneyMatiX operates a holistic programme called ‘Kuza’, which means nurture and grow, and includes KuzaKash, a finance management app that helps families with goal setting, and KuzaLearn, a financial wellbeing programme delivered in schools, workplaces and to community groups.
One of the biggest worries people have when it comes to spending or managing their money online is the fear of being scammed, but Scottish fintechs have a solution for that too. Rachel Jones – who created the Totseat fabric baby seat and SnapDragon, which helps
small businesses tackle copycat products – has come up with BogusBuster.
If individuals or companies are worried a website might be a scam then all they have to do is copy its address into BogusBuster’s search engine to find out. Its site also contains a list of all the latest scams, from fraudsters pretending to be everyone from Netflix and online dating sites all the way through to the taxman and the People’s Postcode Lottery.
Other Scottish fintech companies have also been
Scottish fintech companies have been stepping up to help
stepping up to help consumers and businesses during the pandemic. LendingCrowd, a peerto-peer crowd lending platform, was authorised by the British Business Bank to distribute cash to companies under the UK Government’s coronavirus business interruption loan scheme.
LendingCrowd’s platform also lets individuals lend cash to companies and then receive interest on top of the repayments. It even offers an individual savings account or ISA.
Cashback app Swipii nailed its colours to the mast right at the start of lockdown. The Glasgowbased company swung into action to help both the consumers who use its technology and the local businesses that work with it.
Swipii suspended all its invoices to local businesses – many of which had been forced to close during the lockdown – and it paid out all the cashback due to its consumers immediately.
The company even went a step further and gave its users the option of donating their pending cashback to Social Bite, the sandwich shop chain, which creates food packs for homeless people, for families that rely on free school meals, and for people who had been made redundant.
It has now also launched a referral programme to encourage consumers to shop locally. Users get an extra £5 bonus for each friend they refer.
Shopping locally has also been at the forefront of John Robertson’s mind. He launched Drinkly, his one-hour drinks delivery service, back in 2016, with the orders fulfilled by local retailers.
During lockdown, he accelerated the switch to handling groceries too, with Drinkly morphing into Shoply. It has given a boost to local convenience stores and helped consumers who were unable to go out shopping during lockdown, demonstrating how fintech companies running online platforms can help bricks-andmortar shops on the high street.
Mallzee, the fashion shopping app, had its sights set on a global issue during lockdown. One of the consequences of clothing shops being shut was that retailers cancelled orders for £1.6 billion worth of stock.
That had a ripple affect throughout the supply chain and meant garment makers in Bangladesh were left without any income. Mallzee set up Lost Stock, a website selling boxes of clothes that would otherwise have gone to the tip.
Each box sold raised enough money to pay the factories for the items and support a worker and their family in Bangladesh for a week – the scheme has now sold more than 116,000 boxes.
While the founding fathers of Scotland’s banking and wider finance industries may be left scratching their heads at some of the digital technology available today, I’m sure they’d be proud to know that thrifty Scots are following in their footsteps.
They’d certainly recognise the desire demonstrated by so many fintech brands to not only help customers manage their money but also protect them from whatever financial storm may come next.