Financial Services
& FinTech

We support people and organisations to be adaptive, innovative and futures-focused.

Four firms explain why fintech collaboration is key
Free online SHort course: DATA Ethics, AI and Responsible Innovation

Taught by leading experts in data science, AI, information law, science and technology studies, and responsible research and innovation.

Co-create futures

Shape thinking

Develop Knowledge

Nurture talent

Make change

We use design and futures thinking approaches, underpinned by data-driven innovation, to tackle complex challenges and create sustainable and ethical solutions for business and society.

In a rapidly transforming world how do we address challenges like the transition to Net-Zero, customer confidence, product innovation and the ethical use of data and AI technologies, all within an increasingly complex regulatory and policy environment?

Our collaboration opportunities are designed to bring academic and industry expertise together to develop your innovation capacity and create better futures for business and society.

Get involved with:

Long-term strategic partnerships

Research and innovation projects

Education, training and development

Student challenge projects

Sector-focused events and networking

Design thinking workshops

Futures-focused facilitation and consultancy

We build better futures through world-leading research innovation and knowledge creation.

We work with the world’s top researchers, developing deep expertise in areas critical to the rapidly transforming financial services sector: from artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and the ethics and explainability of AI, to credit risk, portfolio optimisation, and capital markets. Our expertise is underpinned by core themes of climate and sustainability, ethical and data-driven innovation, and addressing financial vulnerability and wellbeing.

Get inside the minds of some of the leading thinkers navigating routes to better futures at Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Building future skills and knowledge for financial services and fintech.

We are helping the sector address complex challenges like climate change, poverty, local and global inequalities, and the ethical use of data and AI. Our range of postgraduate programmes is designed to build and share knowledge across sectors and disciplines. We also offer custom executive education for teams and organisations.

We offer two programmes which have been specifically designed to support the future workforces of financial services and fintech companies:

Executive education

Our executive education and professional development courses are designed to challenge, inspire, and transform your thinking.

Invest in the next generation to help tackle the complexities of our future world.

The future workplace is interdisciplinary, multi-modal, and challenge-led. Our students graduate with the ability to interrogate issues of global scope and complexity, and with the creative and entrepreneurial mindset to problem-solve that is vital for building better futures and shaping the future of the financial services and fintech industry.

We have lots of exciting opportunities to connect our diverse and talented students with a range of professional and sector-specific experience.

You can propose student projects for our MSc Finance Technology and Policy degree focusing on fintech or for any of our interdisciplinary MSc programmes.

We are helping the financial services and fintech sector build better futures.

Edinburgh Futures Institute is one of six Data Driven Innovation hubs at the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University. We are part of a regional power-house for collaboration and data innovation with industry partners.

Our innovation ecosystem is designed to support the sector with various aspects of challenge-led, data-driven innovation that delivers economic, social, cultural, environmental, and ethical impact.

Find out about some of our current collaborations and projects.

Innovation ecosystem

With expertise and facilities to help financial services and fintech sectors become more innovative through data, we offer specialist innovation and co-creation services – delivering new value, outcomes, and transformations for people, communities, organisations and society.

Explore more of the innovation ecosystem at Edinburgh Futures Institute:

Two people looking at graphs on their phones. green tint over image.
stacks of coins
laptop with data overlay
data visualisation display

In focus

architect impression of edinburgh futures institute building

The Centre for Investing Innovation is a strategic partnership between global asset management company abrdn and the University of Edinburgh. It is addressing challenges facing the investment and asset management sector, including how to improve demonstrable societal benefit.

Graphs and charts fill the screen, much like stock market visuals.

The financial services sector faces a range of challenges, but working with externals to innovate with purpose is key to meeting them, writes Ksenia Grant, Director of financial services and fintech sector engagement

aerial photogrphy of george square

The Edinburgh Centre for Financial Innovations, in collaboration with external stakeholders, exploits the big data and computational evolution in financial services for societal benefit. 

Latest

News

‘Data for Good’ Pioneer Relocates to Futures Institute

A person is holding a smartphone with an electronic payment app open, ready to make a contactless payment. The phone is near a payment terminal. A laptop is visible in the background on a white table.

Edinburgh Futures Institute has welcomed one of its first commercial tenants, Smart Data Foundry.

News

abrdn and Edinburgh join forces to develop an AI investment tool

Woman looking at data on computer screen

abrdn and the University of Edinburgh have announced a pioneering project out of their partnership Centre for Investing Innovation that will harness generative artificial intelligence (AI) to support the firm’s investment research process.

News

Executive Education Programmes showcased at FinTech Symposium 2023

Three people stand in front of a display for the University of Edinburgh Business School's Executive Education program. They are indoors at a conference or event, with banners, tables, and informational materials visible in the background.

The Executive Education team from Edinburgh Futures Institute and the University of Edinburgh Business School attended the UK Fintech Symposium, where they showcased University of Edinburgh’s Executive Education programmes.

Become a member

New tenancy and membership opportunities coming 2024/25.

We can create better futures

Edinburgh Futures Institute works across financial services and FinTech supporting corporates, SMEs, start-ups, regulators and policy makers – in Scotland, in the UK and globally.. We’d love to discuss potential collaborations and opportunities and how we can innovate together.

Meet the lead

Tobi Schneider

Sector Engagement Manager
(Financial Services & Fintech)

Headshot of Tobi Schneider
Examples of organisations we collaborate with:
abrdn Logo
Natwest Logo
Fintech Scotland Logo
direct id logo
predictiva logo

Join us to challenge, create, and make change happen.

#ChallengeCreateChange