Member Article

Warm welcome for Fintech event

Speakers at Bristol FinTech, the city’s first ever major event for financial technology entrepreneurs and business owners, said they were ‘overwhelmed’ by the level of interest shown by delegates at their launch event last Wednesday (23 November).

Bristol entrepreneurs, new start-ups and growth businesses assembled at the city centre offices of lawyers Clarke Willmott to hear established experts in the field address a variety of topical issues and lead practical workshops.

The gathering brought together financial services and tech innovators and was the result of a five-way collaboration between Barclays, Clarke Willmott LLP, Deepbridge Capital, Hargreaves Lansdown and PwC.

Philippa Hann, Partner at Clarke Willmott and one of the instigators of the event said: “Feedback from delegates reveals that our shared ambition to divert the FinTech discussions to a centre other than London is very welcome, and this get-together was a great first step.”

In the final keynote speech of the day Pete Trainor, director of ‘human-focused digital’ agency Nexus, provided plenty of food for thought, making a compelling case for carefully considered use of artificial intelligence and contemporary technology to avoid mankind being ‘redesigned’ by technology.

Workshops included an ‘inside view’ giving tips on how businesses can improve the chances of getting their start-up selected if they wish to join a FinTech accelerator, with input from Edwina Johnson of Startupbootcamp, Lesya Li of Railsbank and Alex Shammas from PwC.

Other sessions addressed how to finance your FinTech business, how to communicate with your clients, and what tools and support are available to support a growth business.

Delegates also learned ways to avoid cyber-attacks, what conditions are required for Blockchain, what legal protection is available for their own innovations and ideas, and some issues to consider in designing or redesigning organisations’ structures and client contracts.

Delegate Tizzy Jones from Valtech said: “The presentations and workshops reinforced our belief that a customer-centric and human approach to technology is the best way to develop products for our time. It was an invigorating forum.”

Jack Thompson from Simpleweb said: “It’s great to have the Bristol community collaborating around some really interesting areas of FinTech. I can’t wait to see how things will develop from here.”

The organisers say that plans are already in hand for the next event, and invite any businesses wishing to join the conversation to visit the Bristol FinTech website www.bristolfintech.com .

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clarke Willmott .