Description
University of Dundee School of Business and industry collaboration webinarTitle: Digitalisation; Issues and Challenges for FinTech
Date and Time held: 15 September 2021 from 10.00-13.00 UK time
Orgnaisers: Dr Semmab Farooqi and Dr Gizella Marton
Keynote Speakers: Clive Webb, ACCA and Stephen Ingledew, FinTech Scotland
Participating organisaitons: Attendees were representatives from tech firms, technology consultants, industry regulators, and academia.
UK - FinTech Scotland, ZUDU , NCR, Tech Nation | Convener at Can Do Collective, Birmingham University Business School, Dundee University Business School, ACCA
Pakistan- Tez Financial Service, Sehat Kahani, SadayPay, Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Karandaz Pakistan.
Webinar Brief
The webinar sought to provide an opportunity for networking bringing together academics, policymakers and industry specialists from Scotland and Pakistan to exchange ideas, share knowledge and create collaboration opportunities for joint projects and research. The first session was a discussion about the key technological challenges facing digital businesses and FinTech’s response. The second was a discussion about how FinTech is responding to the challenges of human capital development and technological innovation for businesses scaling up.
It began with a few words from the Dean of the School of Business, Prof. Morris Altman. In his presentation, he highlighted the importance of FinTech in enhancing productivity and general wellbeing and emphasised that the human side regarding the implementation of FinTech initiatives falls short due to financial literacy and decision making challenges.
In the lively discussion round of the first session, it was generally agreed that the Covid19 pandemic was a driver for the current trend of higher digitalisation in the business space. Challenges identified include unequal access to technology, data capture and storage, information security, and inadequate regulatory landscape, and financial literacy. The first keynote speaker, Clive Webb, argued that the role of finance itself is undergoing a change; finance professionals are no longer expected to keep historical records of past transactions but are now expected to be able to predict potential future outcomes. Accordingly, FinTech needs to be able to expand and integrate better with the core architecture of a business. He added that the adoption of new technology like AI is affected by cultural inflexibility and an education gap, but agreed that different economies are at different stages of digitalisation.
The second session focused on human capital and innovation challenges. It was proposed that while technology may drive business growth, human capital necessarily supports it hence they are aligned. Contract enforcement and back-end obscurity were introduced as challenges facing regulators in this space. Other issues identified during the discussion were the acquisition and retention of staff with the relevant skillsets, the proper integration of FinTech solutions considering multiple worker backgrounds across different business functions, and the education /skills gap in different economies. Stephen Ingledew, the second keynote speaker, emphasised that FinTech should not be seen as inherently ‘financial’, but should focus on people; positive economic and social impacts on people. He suggested that an improved regulatory atmosphere, engagements between academia and industry, and partnerships with big and small tech players are key to achieving this people-focused orientation
| Period | Sept 2021 |
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