The Roadmap was a document which laid out a plan to accelerate the development of fintech in Scotland. One year later, the number of Scottish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increased by 13% year-over-year.

The growth is thanks to new homegrown fintech startups in the region as well as international firms setting up in Scotland. This led to Scottish FinTech drawing in over £305 million in funding last year.

“We can see how the FinTech Research and Innovation Roadmap is already making a real difference – helping businesses to build economic growth, create jobs, work through climate finance to enable a future net zero economy, and helping to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis,” said FinTech Scotland CEO Nicola Anderson.

The central focus of the Roadmap was on four strategic innovation themes: climate finance, open finance data payments and transactions, and financial regulation.

After a year, FinTech Scotland has seen a 100% increase in climate finance fintech enterprises, a 26% increase in enterprises developing solutions using open banking, a 19% increase in fintech enterprises developing payment solutions, and a 13% increase in enterprises specialising in regulation innovation.

“Fintech innovation can’t afford to slow down. Technologies advance fast, customer expectations faster and the need for a fairer, more inclusive and more sustainable financial sector is still to be fulfilled,” said Pardeep Cassells, Head of Securities and Claims at AccessFintech.

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Additionally, payments and transaction, and regulation enterprises have landed £94m and £83m in funding respectively in the last 12 months. Similarly, all sectors have embarked in creating grassroots infrastructure to accelerate growth, such as starting courses in cryptofinance and blockchain at Scottish universities, creating innovation labs, and teaming up with partners such as Space Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, and more.

“Strong, effective and purposeful collaboration between industry, academia and the public sector is key to delivering much needed innovation and growth for Scotland. The FinTech Research and Innovation Roadmap is a demonstration of how collaborative action through purposeful strategic action can drive good economic outcomes and accelerate future growth,” said Jane Martin, Managing Director of Innovation and Investment at Scottish Enterprise.