FinTech West and Moneyhub feature on DiverCity podcast

The latest episode of the DiverCity Podcast focused on FinTech and the emergence of tech talent in the South West of England, and FinTech West was delighted to take part.

Host Julia Streets was joined by Sam Seaton, CEO of Moneyhub and Stuart Harrison, Director of Fintech West. Together they highlighted the unique qualities of the South West region and the differentiation from other areas of the UK. They explained why FinTech will continue to be a game changer by recruiting diverse talent for a better gender and racial diversity balance and set out some of the initiatives they are undertaking to drive and inspire change.

You can listen to the podcast below, and we have also reproduced the transcript further down this page.

Thanks to Julian, Kieron and Cynthia from DiverCity Podcast for the invitation!

Here is the transcript from the session:

Julia: Hello. My name is Julia Streets and welcome to DiverCity podcast, talking about equality, inclusion, and diversity in financial services. On the podcast, we seek to shine a light on positive progress, call out areas are requiring further focus, and offer lots of ideas to help drive change. Before we get started today, I just want to take a moment to thank our friends at City AM for their continued support for DiverCity podcast, with a dedicated page on their website publishing and promoting both our episodes and also the supporting blog series, so their readers can stay right on top of the very current thinking about diversity and inclusion.

You may want to check out their own podcast called The City View for all the latest news and opinion for the city, because we at Divercity podcast are huge fans, but also I’d like to mention that we have a new newsletter that it might be worth subscribing to. It’s called DE&I That Caught Our Eye. It’s a collection of news articles in the press and also opinions around the industry that you may find useful. So do sign up to the website, divercitypodcast.com, to find out more.

Let’s get straight into the episode, and today I am delighted to be joined by Stuart Harrison and Samantha Seaton. Let me tell you a little bit about each of our guests. Stuart Harrison has more than 30 years of working in the high tech sector, helping businesses with their growth ambitions, strategy, and their operations. Although his career spans business and locations right the way across the United Kingdom, in recent years, his focus has been in the west of England.

Indeed, Stuart helped to establish Bristol Fintech, an organisation that was founded by a group of businesses operating in the city and in the region. He went on to found FinTech West, which he now co-runs with Whitecap Consulting. In his day to day work, he works with Fintech’s entrepreneurs, authorities, academia, and of course the world of financial and professional services. Stuart, it’s great to have you on the show. Welcome.

Stuart: Thanks Julia. Delighted to be here.

Julia:  I’m really looking forward to this conversation because there’s some amazing work happening at Fintech West and joining Stuart today is our second guest, Samantha Seaton. Samantha, Sam has worked across a diverse mix of organisations from global advisory firms to innovative financial forecasting businesses. At the heart of everything, she has an unwavering ambition to make financial advice and information accessible to all. She is the CEO of Money Hub, an award-winning digital financial tool for customer-centric organisations, and it is a leading player in the field of open banking.

Most recently, she has been appointed to the panel of the money and pension service, working on their pensions dashboard steering group, and her work there is focused on supporting the technological development of the dashboard, ultimately to transform the way that people understand and engage with their pensions. Sam, it’s wonderful you could be with us, welcome to the show.

Sam: Thanks Julia, and lovely to be here with Stuart as well.

Julia:  I’m so intrigued what you are both up to. I mean, I hope I’ve given you some credit in the opening biographies, but I know you’re both exceptionally busy. Stuart, let me come to you first of all, tell me what you’re focused on right now.

Stuart: One of the areas I’ve been looking at in particular over the last few months is the access to talent issue that exists within fintech. It’s a common complaint, alongside access to funding that many well, not just fintechs, but technology businesses have within the marketplace. I think that’s an area that I’d really like to look at this year, and something I’ve been interested in for several years is how can we unlock talent in diverse communities, particularly those of poorer communities that haven’t had the chance in the past to get access to some of the highly skilled jobs and positions that in many ways appear limited to a certain group of people that’ve come out of the university rather than necessarily through other routes.

That’s a particular area that I’m keen on, and certainly something I want to explore during 2022, building on some of the work I’ve done in the past. I think there’s a lot of people that are pigeonholed in particular categories and feel like they’ve got to stay in poverty, and you get drummed into a mindset that perhaps it’s difficult to start dreaming big. Perhaps it’s something that’s lasted many generations, and I’d like to see what we can do to help both alleviate those pressures in those communities, and unlock some of the potential, particularly for fintech businesses across the southwest.

Julia:  And of course, with a backdrop of financial inclusion and social inclusion, this couldn’t be a more timely debate, actually. We’ll certainly get into a lot of this in this discussion for sure. I don’t doubt for a second. Sam, can I ask you the same question? What will you particularly focus on in 2022?

Sam: This podcast actually is so appropriate for where my head’s at, at the moment, because in December last year, we really started as a business to look beyond what you would call the normal diversity and inclusive behaviours and trends. Because it became really apparent to me just how off the pace leaders in business, and I include myself in that, are. I say that because I don’t think until you take a little bit of time out to start to think about how much people need to be treated as individuals. It shouldn’t be a surprise to me because I work with data, my business is open data, open banking, and what that enables is the power of personalisation. And there’s a massive shift happening there, but equally we need to treat people as individuals, and what I mean by that is it’s not just about wanting to look after people better.

It’s about how we speak, and that’s quite tricky. Language, I think, is letting us down as leaders, and I think I have become aware of it. And as a result in December, we did some leadership training on diversity inclusion, which was amazing. I would say to anyone listening to this, that one of the things that anyone can do is they can go to the Harvard Implicit Association Test, it’s called IAT.

Go to the Harvard site, I’m sure I’ll give you the links or share it so you can go on it. But what is fascinating is there’s a number of different tests you can take, which actually inform you about where your biases lie. It’s not just on gender, it’s on anything. You can do as many or as little as you like, and they are fascinating. So that was part of what we had to do as leaders for our training, and I think what I would like to say is that we need to focus on language. We need to focus on individuals and servicing people as people, and they are definitely unique.

Julia:  Of course in the world of fintech, we talk about identity an extraordinary amount. When we think, I mean, I mentioned in my opening remarks about being customer centric in the services that you provide to customer centric organisations, and the identity of the customers, the identity of your prospects really, really matters when it comes to building business, and the identity of the individuals who walk physically or virtually in your organisation as well. Really interesting. Again, I suspect we’ll unpick a lot of this as we go through the conversation.

I am really interested, if I may, I’ve referred to the work you’re doing, Stuart, in Fintech West, also I understand Sam that you’re based in the west of England as well. I’m fascinated to just hear your thoughts about the characteristics, if you like, of the southwest of the UK, and in terms of diverse talent, what do you feel you’re particularly getting right in terms of DE&I? Stuart, let me come to you for a confident view from Fintech West.

Stuart: One of the things I’ve always been proud of about the southwest is how cosmopolitan it is, how international it is. There’s an awful lot of people that have come into the region from the outside, whether that’s like myself, originally from the southeast many, many years ago, or whether it’s from other parts of the UK or internationally. There’s a lot of international students and so on, but the southwest and in particular Bristol has a bit of a reputation about being a rebel city, about having a high degree of doing what’s right, and doing the good things that perhaps aren’t necessarily, well, actually a perfect example is the toppling of the Colston statue, which there’s been so many people supporting that happening down here, and being really pleased it happened. It’s been a cause for many years, but I was proud when it happened down here.

I think that sort of represents a bit of the attitude of the region. So it’s got a very professional mixed makeup, certainly Bristol is perfect size, a Goldilocks size in the sense it’s not too big, not too small. So that many people know many other people, and it just creates the right environment to get things done, to have common knowledge on a lot of things that are happening. For instance, there’s a new social enterprise incubator being started by the Black Southwest Network, and that’s already very well supported, and it’s got very wide common knowledge throughout the business community. It’s good to see those things happening. I think that attitude, the mix, the sort of liberal nature of the population down here bodes very well for us taking the lead in diversity and inclusion matters.

Julia:  Certainly, and in the world of fintech, of course, rebel entrepreneurs are quite largely welcomed. I always think, which of course, one of the joys of the sector as well, which is fascinating to hear. Sam, when you look at the UK as a whole, I’m really keen to hear, can you make any observations about how the southwest sort of differentiates from other regions?

Sam: Well, I think I can, because I think I have worked in London and Newbury and also Bristol. Three areas really, but on top of that, having come from Australia, I think I have a view on genuinely also New York and I guess England, because when I first arrived from Australia in the UK, that was quite a culture shock. Then I worked in the states, and then obviously working in the three different regions I just mentioned. So, it is really fascinating that you do take from the location a lot of culture. One of the things I would say first and foremost about Bristol, which stood out to me from day one, is it’s got a ferocious appetite for fairness, and who doesn’t want to work and live somewhere that’s fair? I’ve not noticed that anywhere else, as much as I’ve noticed, I’m not saying other places don’t have it that I haven’t been, but genuinely there’s this and do you know, it’s wonderful.

I think the culture of Bristol is the culture and DNA that we want for the future of the world. I mean, who doesn’t want to work somewhere like that? And then on top of that, we’ve got an extremely well connected group in Bristol. One of the things I missed in Newbury was that reach to the universities that Bristol has got, the reach to places like WECA, the working with the Western England Combined Authority, and they’ve got a good employment charter. The tech spark as well as obviously Fintech West.

There’s communities and groups that want to do more, faster and quicker, and I don’t know if that’s because it’s slightly on the fringes, and so therefore feels, it has to, I guess, punch above its weight. Just got to step up a little bit more to be seen or heard, and all of that really, I think, feeds into an incredible place to access talent that’s untapped, if you like, a little bit forgotten. The only other thing I would add to that is also the fact the lifestyle. I mean the food and the access to the outdoors. I mean, who doesn’t want that too?

Just think one of the fascinating questions I had from one of the CMA9 banks was they don’t really know how we’ve built the business that we have and the tech we have in Bristol. And I’m like, “Well, I don’t know what you mean by that.” I didn’t understand the question. And he said to me, “Well, you know, you’re not in London, so you haven’t got the talent, have you? I don’t know how you’ve done it.” I mean, genuinely, this was the question. I said to him, “Well, you clearly haven’t been to Bristol, quite a lot of people that go to university in Bristol, Bath, they never make it to London. You haven’t seen half of them. You haven’t seen half the talent.”

Julia:  Can I ask you a counter question, which is what are you finding that is harder to achieve in the context of diversity and inclusion in the region, in the southwest? Sam, your thoughts first, if you would, and then I’ll come to you, Stuart.

Sam: Well, I think I touched on it a little bit, because of that perception. The perception is you can’t really be at the leading edge if you’re not in London, I suspect, or New York, so the big cities, if you like. There is that perception and as you all know, perception rules quite often, doesn’t it? And then of course, I think you end up also with that manifests itself in also a lack of funding. So you get both hitting. With a perception that you can’t be as good, and therefore a lack of funding, I think that is probably the downside of being in a region.

Julia:  Stuart, what are your thoughts on that?

Stuart: Yes, I agree. I think funding is a key issue. A lot of businesses down here are very reliant on London based funding, particularly in the VC sector. When you get to diverse founders, again, slightly moving outside of fintech, but diverse founders in general, on a lot of occasions, all they need is a micro fund, a micro investment to get going, a little bit of support. That’s actually quite hard to come by, and if you look at some of the stats around startup loans, they don’t typically go to diverse founders.

In fact, investment doesn’t typically go to diverse founders. I think, from memory, there are some horrifying stats from 50 of a year or two ago that showed over a period of 10 years that VC funding only went to 38 businesses that were founded of the team of black entrepreneurs. It’s just terrible over a period of 10 years. I think that funding aspect’s got to be addressed, and that probably the right route to address it is for VCs to say, “Look, actually, the guys that make up our VC team at the moment are not diverse enough themselves. They’re not composed of enough people who’ve got startup experience. We ought to start building teams within the VC organisations that have those skills in place.” So yes, I think funding, funding, funding, really.

Julia:  One thing that I find is quite encouraging, but still such a long way to go, is that almost at every dynamic around fintech and the world of financial services as a whole, is that the conversation about diversity and inclusion is now sitting on almost everybody’s table, whereas before it used to be the preserver, the diversity and inclusion people. Now it’s leaders, investors, asset managers, I mean, I could rattle off every single player in the ecosystem. But certainly it’s heightening in its awareness, and I think the attitude of some of the impacts of the Kalifa Review have opened up people’s minds sightly, but we have still got a long way to go in terms of encouraging people to go into the regions and really see what amazing work is going on.

And certainly all the time I’ve ever spent in Bristol, and I want to confess I live in the southeast, but I have family in the west country, and it’s just got this incredible energy. Incredible energy, which is fantastic. But I wonder whether fintech has an opportunity to be the catalyst, almost could be the game changer if you like, but we still hear these stories. I mean, we have to call them out, which is that a lot of fintechs are still very male dominated. You’ve talked there, Stuart, about the makeup of entrepreneurs as well, and there’s a lack of racial diversity, for sure.

I wonder if you’ve got some, because I’m such a big fan of calling out some great examples, just to challenge people’s mindsets. Have you got some great examples of businesses that are coming through, positive progress, and also what role you’re playing in driving that change as well? Stuart, let me come to you first.

Stuart: I think there’s plenty of good examples, as Sam alluded to, there’s a general trend. It’s true across fintech, across the country, but particularly in the southwest, there’s a general trend of a lot of fintech for good, and the founders of these fintech businesses, they’re not starting fintechs to make a lot of money. They’re starting fintechs for a purpose. And that’s an ethos that continues across the business, and makes them quite different from a lot of obviously established financial services businesses. I think fintech can certainly lead the way, and there’s some very good examples in the southwest. We’ve got organisations, such as Lockbox, a very good example, helping individuals overcome their poor credit ratings and provide services in those areas. There are companies like Tumelo, who are very well known in the southwest looking to democratise investment and also challenge established financial services businesses about where they’re putting the money, what they’re doing with the money.

Personally, I’m proud to be involved in a couple of businesses that are doing some great things. One is an Islamic investment platform called Ethical Equity, and that’s to help Muslim business founders gain access to investment, which is very much underserved marketplace. And other areas, I’m very proud to be working with Invest West and on Invest West, we’re setting up a group to work with a collection of business people and investors indeed that are looking to invest into the Black Afro Caribbean community and business founders to help them get established, very much trying to in a small way, start solve the problem that I outlined earlier.

Julia:  Of course we have the CEO of one of the most amazing fintech businesses in the west, Sam. I’d love to hear your thoughts in terms of your view on the fintech dynamics, but also some great examples that you see that you’re really keen to call out. Because I think this is half of the argument of addressing the perception point that you made earlier, about let’s champion and challenge some of the perceptions out there by calling out some great examples.

Sam: I think one of the advantages to having a competitive environment in terms of talent, which Stuart mentioned before, is that then that drives you having to lift your game. So to me, that actually should drive better behaviour and they can be really simple things. Like one of the things that we did to be more diverse and inclusive, not just because I really believe in it and I’m passionate about it, but because I actually do believe it delivers commercial value. I mean, I really believe a diverse and inclusive environment, collaborative, and it delivers real value. We can probably come onto that in a little bit, but things that you can do, which are quite small, but have a big impact. Like we’ve got a form that we get everyone to fill out when they join, which sounds really archaic, doesn’t it? Like some dreadful HR form.

It’s not, but it’s actually all about how you as an individual respond and work in an environment, so that as a business, we can work with you to maximum effect, if you like. And it’s things like religion, the food you eat, and it’s not just about what I would call the general things. When we did it, it was a very simple, genuinely very simple form. Everyone’s filled it out that’s joined, but actually everyone loves it. Everyone loves the fact that actually not just the people that have filled it out, but even the people in the business, for example, when they’re organising a lunch, it’s much easier to organise a lunch now we know who eats what, and how to put it without having to go around and go, “Oh, who’s…”

Genuinely just makes things run smoother, quicker, simpler. But on top of that, you’re actually making things more individual for people. I think we can do much more of that. You know, things that we’ve started there, simple things. I mean, another thing we did last year and this year, and I’m now on a bit of a mission about it is, we give Christmas trees, we give little saplings to everyone. All of our clients get a sapling each year, in effect as a Christmas card. And the reason for that is because I’ve decided that we need lots of clients as a business, and that means I can actually aspire to create a forest.

I looked it up this year, because I was a bit intrigued about when would I have made a forest? And apparently the definition of a forest is five and a half thousand trees. When I’ve given away five and a half thousand saplings, we’ll have a Money Hub forest somewhere, won’t we? Might be in lots of different places. But you know, I just think there are things you can do which are fun and are positive, and they are small. And if we can do it, us as a little business, if we can do these things, then genuinely anyone can do it.

Julia:  I love it in the context, by the way, of decentralised finance that we’re talking about decentralised forestry.

Sam: Yes, this year was in Dorothy’s forest and last year it was in another forest. It doesn’t matter, does it? It doesn’t matter, I’m keeping a tally of the trees we’re planting.

Julia:  I love it. I think it’s a great moment where we pause for just one moment to bring in Cynthia Akinsanya, who has some research to support today’s discussion.

Cynthia: The Southwest region of Bristol, Gloucester, Swindon and Bath is a hub of innovation according to research carried out by Beauhurst in 2021. The region is drawing increasing investment and world class tech talent with Bristol in particular home to a strong cohort of tech companies. Beauhurst revealed research showing that home to 479 high growth private businesses, Bristol is the fourth most popular UK city for startups outside of the capital. The city is by far the leading hub for startups in the southwest, with Bristol based companies making up to 20% of the region’s high growth population.

Bristol’s high growth population has a similar sector makeup to the wider UK, with businesses and professional services, technology and IP based businesses, and industrials being the most common industries in the city. At 36%, Bristol’s focus on business and professional services is much greater than the rest of the country at 18%.

Julia:  Thank you, Cynthia, as always. And of course you can find the research on the website, and let’s take a moment just to remind you all about how you can find Divercity podcast. So it’s divercitypodcast.com and you can find all our episodes and sign up for early notifications of future recordings. Do follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and we’re also available on Bright Talk and all good podcast channels. By the way, we’d really love a rating, because it does all help to promote the show.

Now I’ve been really thinking about the discussion as we were going into the statistics that Cynthia was sharing there, and one of the things that occurs to me is we have to recognise history. And of course this feels very poignant as we talk about the southwest. I think we have to recognise why organisations are structured as they are now. Sam, as a female CEO, when you look at board structures and your peers around the UK and around the world, any thoughts on why we’ve got to where we are today and maybe then we can go on to how we can drive change.

Sam: I think it’s worth pausing for thought, because I think you can’t have ended up with such a bias towards one gender without something driving it, is where I got to. I discovered that there was a marriage bar, which was in place, it wasn’t abolished by the EU until 1977. Actually earlier than that from New Zealand, because of course they like to lead the way on these things, but it was across the world. What it meant is that women got married quite young traditionally, and as a result meant that they immediately left their profession. If that was accounting, law, medicine, it didn’t really matter what it was, but any profession. So of course if that’s the case, then you can see why we’ve got a situation today, whereby companies are predominantly men.

Julia:  That’s recent history, isn’t it? That’s really, really recent history. Stuart, can I just bring you in with your thoughts here about, once you look ahead, what should we be mindful of? And what’s going to drive change?

Stuart: I have a real concern about the perception of success over a longer period of time, particularly if we don’t address matters as soon as we can. If we’re looking at the stats and 1% of ethnic minority founders are getting funding, then that clearly is going to mean in a period of say, 10 years, that only 1% of diverse founders are going to be exiting, at best. But from reports that the British Business Bank have done, we’ve already seen that the failure rate is higher due to lack of finance for those ethnic minorities.

My concern is that at the end of those periods or after perhaps five years, the perception is going to be that as an investor, my money is more likely to find success with white entrepreneurs than it is with an ethnic minority team. I really think that there’s a danger that using pure figures and analysing stats, we’re going to come up with entirely the wrong conclusions by not solving the original problems.

Julia:  Sam, your business is based on statistics. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

Sam: You’ve got to be very careful, haven’t you, where the data originates. That’s why I was, I am a founding member of Open 51. And the reason for that is because, you can see that what Stuart’s mentioning, his concern is already very prevalent with data and women in the representation. I mean, you haven’t got to look too long ago where Apple was in quite a lot of trouble with its Apple credit card in the states. Actually women who had a far higher credit worthiness were getting far less credit than their husbands and so forth, and it blew up, didn’t it? I think that’s what Stuart is really referring to.

If you’re not careful, that data can compound in a way that actually ends up in the wrong place. So genuinely with the power of compounding, which hopefully the investors do understand Stuart, but plus the machine learning and the algorithms that are set loose on that data, we do have to be very careful. I guess we are asking a lot to the data scientists, who are very mindful of it, to be absolutely militant about what data can be used for those algorithms to grow and develop. But I think it’s a very valid point, Stuart.

Julia: It’s been a most wonderful conversation, because not only have we talked about some of the amazing initiatives that are happening in the west of England and to hear the work of Fintech West, to hear the story about your organisation and things you’re focused on as well, Sam, which is so impressive, but also some context around talent and growth and innovation and investment. I love the pause for thought towards the end of our conversation, where we really thought about how have we got to where we are in terms of gender representation, but also what we should be mindful of as we plan ahead.

I wondered if I could ask you to see us out with your final thoughts. The question I ask everybody, which is as we’re going through these fascinating times, likely could be very turbulent, who knows? Who knows what 2022 will throw at us? Why should diversity inclusion remain high on the corporate board agenda? Stuart, I’m coming to you first of all.

Stuart: Absolutely should be high, not least which it’s the right thing to do. That alone should be enough reason. I think the first point I’d make is that there are many, many studies that have shown having a diverse board or having a diverse workplace does lead to better decision making, and ultimately greater capability to grow the business and increase profits. I like to use a simple thought experiment here that, can you imagine, God forbid, having a room full of 10 Stuart Harrisons? You get the same outlook, you get the same decision making, you stifle creativity and productivity. That’s basically what happens when on many occasions you get boards that are composed of people that quite frankly look like me.

I think the second point to make, without diversity and inclusion, as I alluded to earlier, you’re missing out on potentially vast pools of talent and having a rigid view, I think, of what makes the right candidate simply based on past occurrences is the wrong way to go. I think we need to give people a chance and give them some responsibility. My experience has shown that in general, people will grab the opportunity and they won’t disappoint. If you get given a chance you don’t necessarily expect, I think that’s a fantastic motivator.

Julia:  Wonderful, fantastic motivator indeed. Sam, can I ask you the same question? It’s wonderful to hear throughout this same conversation about how importantly you are taking and your organisation is taking this.

Sam: I honestly can’t tell you enough that it matters a lot. I think the thing that really stands out to me though and we forget, is that if we just addressed gender diversity, we could actually address the inequality of the world’s poverty. I think we forget that by addressing inequality in gender, how much impact we can have beyond our little bubble. You’ve only got to look at Oxfam’s site, why a majority of the world’s poor are women. That’s why UNICEF and all these companies have got this on the agenda. I think if you can just take away one thing, which is actually by just making the world an equal place, we can end world poverty. Why wouldn’t we want to do that?

Julia: This is exactly why it is on the UN sustainability goals. This is why this matters. It’s been a fantastic conversation. Stuart Harrison, thank you so much for joining us today.

Stuart: Thank you.

Julia:  Sam Seaton, it’s been great to have your company and all your thoughts.

Sam: It’s been great fun.

Julia: Wonderful, and to all listeners as always, thank you for tuning in I’ve been Julia Streets. Tune in soon for another episode, and thank you for listening to Divercity podcast.

Kieron: This episode of DiverCity Podcast was produced by me, Kieron Yates on behalf of Julia Streets Productions. Thanks to Cynthia Akinsanya for her insights. You can find out more about the guests on this weeks show on our website, divercitypodcast.com and that’s DiverCity with a C, not an S. Whilst you are there, you can also sign up to our newsletter for all our latest updates. All our episodes are available in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast app. If you enjoy DiverCity Podcast, remember to share on social media and give us a rating or review, it really helps promote the show to a wider audience. Finally, our Twitter handle is @divercitypod. Thanks for listening.