At the intersection between fintech and academia | Interview with Prof. Karen Elliott

I refer to myself as a ‘practitioner’ to reflect that I do not have a traditional academic background. Rather, spending 16 years in industry as a project, program manager and consultant across private, public and third sector organizations before joining Durham University. I completed two degrees while working and when I was on maternity leave I decided to look for a part-time role which came up as a research assistant at Durham University and serendipity took over to result in a second Masters and PhD. I then moved into the Business School and lectured in project management and entrepreneurship, and it was in Durham that I began exploring Fintech with Prof Williams before moving to Newcastle University six years ago. Here I collaborated with Prof van Moorsel (computer science) to investigate the socio-technical challenges facing digital transformation and adoption of technologies in financial services, vulnerable consumers and responsible innovation using digital technologies. We continue this research partnership at the University of Birmingham.

This fintech course emerged in response to the growth of this sector and targeting by the government to develop a talent pipeline to fill the new positions created in this sector, which require a fusion of business and informatics knowledge and skills. UOB is well positioned within the National Fintech Network and regional financial services and fintech providers located in the Midlands. Therefore, the course is relatively new, but I consult with industry to co-create content, improve the modules and draw on their expertise and participation (ie lectures, workshops, etc.). This is important to ensure that graduates are fit for purpose after graduation and are ready to enter the sector.

What are the most important takeaways you hope the students will get during the course?

A key element is placing responsible innovation at the heart of decisions to adopt digital technologies across the fintech supply chain. For example, at the development stage, obtaining diversity of thought on how to offer services to vulnerable groups, an area of ​​focus for The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the introduction of the consumer duty standards between 2022-24. Furthermore, checking that data sources do not, through automation, introduce existing inequalities and biases into the algorithms and models, rather pushes towards responsible and inclusive economics. Technology should therefore be deployed for the right tasks, for easy and fast transactions, open data APIs to allow real-time insights into human financial behavior and so on. Conversely, where empathy or consideration of multiple factors is required to reach an accurate lending decision, or access to basic bank accounts, data-driven insights require human oversight to ensure wrong exclusion from financial services is avoided. Technologies are not best suited for such tasks unless ethics-by-design is a core function of the design process. Such topics will be taught during this course to provide students with a holistic understanding of the socio-technical challenges facing financial services and fintech now and in the future.

What are your suggestions for career success? What is the first lesson you always share with your students at the University of Birmingham Business School for their future success?

That you don’t need to be a STEM subject or computer science expert to understand and excel in fintech. Simply put, be curious to understand the challenges of operating in a socio-technical and heavily regulated landscape where the latter seeks to protect citizens but not stifle innovation. Recognize that technology starts and ends with people, i.e. the developers are people, and the machine learning models or underlying algorithms are only as capable as the data they are trained on, and form part of the solution to deliver responsible and inclusive financial services facilitate profit , but with the aim of benefiting society.

You were included in the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Powerlist. What are the key changes you have seen in this area as more and more women play leading roles in shaping the fintech sector?

There is a noticeable increase in access to initiatives aimed at encouraging women to appreciate or study STEM subjects that have traditionally been socialized to be male-only domains, i.e. CodeFirstGirls, Tech you Can, STEMETTES, Women in AI, etc. This perception of male dominance is changing, although more development is required if you examine the statistics to create a balanced female representation in fintech, i.e. 4% of fintech start-ups are female-led outside of London and 11% in the capital itself (see Innovate Finance reports). Also, with Powerlists, media attention to the female voice, highlighting role models for younger women to recognize the art of the possible, is now more common. In addition, recognition that a diversity of thoughts and perspectives across society is necessary to inform and shape digital technologies that affect our daily lives. As a socio-technologist, I use this term after deciding to study machine learning to understand the subject related to the sociology of business and technology, one subject without the other loses focus on the reality of tackling real problems facing finance and fintech. I will continue to champion and encourage more women like myself from non-typical backgrounds to explore fintech and be part of its development, based on my and others’ belief that without access to basic financial products and services, sections of society will continue to live in a social and digital divide. Next to this divide in today’s social, economic and environmental problems, inclusive and responsible fintech must be a priority, and the knowledge spillover effects from fintech can help the development of other sectors that are moving forward through digital transformation.

What do you think are the biggest disruptions we will see in the coming months at the intersection of finance and technology, and how will they affect traditional financial services companies? When you think about the future of fintech, what are you most excited about?

The biggest disruptions are now happening with the rise of the Metaverse and the transition to a potential hybrid existence and society. Traditional financial service providers are buying assets where fintech is and will also operate in this cyber space. Here, I think it is exciting to learn from students and younger demographics how this affects their lives and what their perceptions about the future of Meta have. In today’s digital society, which will be transferred to Meta, we must be responsible and ensure that citizens are aware of what they are consenting to, and we do not repeat or open the gate to exploitation in Meta as we have seen in our current environment. For example, I was familiar with the practice of uploading your DNA via NFTs to Meta, where is the ethical consent? Who wants access to global DNA and for what purpose? These must be questions we explore via such mechanisms as Corporate Digital Responsibility which explores how we achieve this balance between utopian and dystopian futures, and consider technologies that do not cause unintended consequences, errors or harm to people when they engage in Meta, online or via digital devices.

Can you share more details about UKFin+ and its mission and vision?

The UKFin+ Network relates to the previous discussion in the recognition that the financial services (FS) industry has experienced unprecedented technological innovation in recent decades, as illustrated by the rise of distributed ledgers and cryptocurrency, automation based on AI, Open Banking, self-overwhelming architectures, high-frequency trading using of machine learning, etc. Dependence on digital technologies is accompanied by risks around ethics, transparency, fairness, use and reuse of data (eg privacy and cyber security). Moreover, there are pressing societal concerns about economic exclusion, business pressure from shareholders, regulatory involvement to protect citizens and, increasingly, the need to meet environmental sustainability goals. In other words, the combination of the above factors represents wicked problems. Wicked problems cannot be solved, but they can be managed through genuine stakeholder involvement. The UKFin+ Network provides an environment to build synergy between financial services (FS) professionals and researchers to tackle wicked problems in FS via collaboration, coalition and co-production communities. It does this by creating a network that is highly inclusive and sensitive to regional and national concerns, which will fund 41 projects with money provided by UKRI (EPSRC), including seed, agile, feasibility, education and impact projects during of the next 5 years. UKFin+ will hold a series of events and workshops to facilitate knowledge exchange and address a key issue of industry and academia working together, while becoming a trusted venue for promoting co-created research in evil finance, and a channel between regional and national effort. , as well as between academic researchers, who are developing a suitable talent pipeline, and FS partners.

What is an organization timeline roadmap? What are the next steps?

UKFin+ launched the website on 1 October 2022 and a media announcement is forthcoming which will be a ‘soft’ launch. In 2023, UKFin+ will tour the UK regions to raise awareness of the network, what a project should include, how to contact academics in your area and when the funding calls will be released regularly over the coming years, watch for the timeline and updates. Our vision is that we raise awareness and demand for the funding calls which will allow our team to seek additional funding to support the growth of the UK financial and fintech sector.

Professor Karen Elliott is Head of Practice in Finance/Fintech at the University of Birmingham Business School and Co-Director of the FinTech MSc programme. She has been named ‘Standout #35 Women in FinTech Powerlist by Innovate Finance’ for Policy and Governance 2019/2020/2021. Karen leads the FinTrust, Finclusion, Agency and UKFin Network+ projects (GBP 8 million) with Prof van Moorsel to optimize trusted/ethical AI. As a member of the Prime Minister’s Champions Group for Dementia, Corporate Digital Responsibility, Radix, IEEE Global Initiative Planet Positive and a Digital Poverty Alliance Ambassador, Karen seeks a balance between academia and practice towards a just digital society.

The University of Birmingham (UOB) is a key technology hub working with organizational stakeholders and ecosystems to transform talent, skills and expertise in digital technologies and data. UOB is a member of the Turing Institute, Rosalind Franklin Institute and Diamond Light Source which address real challenges in sustainability, equality, innovation and data-driven science. The Sustainable Financial Innovation Center (SFiC) conducts interdisciplinary research and hosts studies in financial innovation, FinTech and sustainability.