UK Fintech News Roundup: The Latest Stories 17/05

Every Wednesday we delve into the latest fintech updates from across the UK. This week brings updates from Motorway, Quadient, Monolith and Workiva.

Gender differences in UK pensions

There is a 49 per cent gap between male and female average pensions in the UK, according to the latest review of the Gender Pension Report by The State Actuarial Department (GAD).

GAD analysis of the GPS gender pension gap found that the average male pension was equal to £8,466, while the average female’s was equal to £4,285. The report also draws attention to differences in pay, work patterns, as well as the frequency of individuals opting out of LGPS membership.

Fraser Stewartcommercial manager for the UK fintech platform Lifeguardsaid: “Pensions are an important aspect of people’s lives because of the large amount of time people spend working towards them, so it is important that there is equal opportunity to earn a fair pension fund for life after work, rather than facing a significant gender difference.”

Driving seamless car payments forward

Marketplace for used cars Motorway has launched ‘Motorway Pay’ – a new solution that enables dealers buying cars on the platform to fund a secure online wallet and release money to private sellers instantly to complete transactions.

The UK used car market is valued at more than £60bn per year and continues to grow, with SMMT reporting a 4.1 percent increase in Q1 2023. However, merchants still experience a long process to go through on each individual transaction. Motorway Pay allows dealers to pre-load their wallet before the vehicle is collected and then use those funds to instantly pay for the vehicle, at the click of a button.

James Wilson, COO at Motorway, said: “Simplifying the payment process has been high on our dealers’ wish list for some time. Removing the hassle of paying private sellers has been a difficult problem to solve, but we’ve built a powerful, secure and robust solution that makes it easier than ever to buy cars on the highway in high volume.”

Alarming misunderstanding of bank communication

In a survey of 402 UK bank customers, only eight per cent correctly identified how much banks would charge when presented with a standardized letter about changes to overdraft facilities; Quadrant has revealed. This despite the fact that 39 per cent claimed a high level of knowledge about financial matters, and 53 per cent said that they had a high understanding of communication from banks.

Quadient also found what types of communication are most useful to consumers. When it comes to communication from the bank, 36 percent said email to their personal email address, and 34 percent chose letters in the post.

Andrew Stevens, Vice President of Banking and Financial Services at Quadient said: “Clear communication is a critical component of modern banking, and never more so than during a cost of living crisis. Banks must not only share relevant, timely and understandable information, but ensure that it is read. This means choosing a channel that presents information clearly, and which you can be sure customers will read, as well as sending the right message at the right time to ensure engagement. Without this, the banks will invite complaints and fail FCAtheir customers and ultimately themselves.”

Engineers under pressure to adopt AI

Monolith, AI software provider to engineering teams worldwide, found that 67 percent of engineering leaders feel pressured to adopt AI in its latest study. It also found that those who have it are more likely to achieve increased income, profitability and competitiveness for their employers.

71 percent of the engineering leaders surveyed also indicated that they must find new ways to accelerate product development to remain competitive.

“The perfect storm is brewing in engineering as market trends around sustainability and digitization create even more intractable physics problems that current validation and testing methods are unable to solve,” said Dr. Richard Ahlfeld, CEO and founder of Monolith. “As the data from this study shows, engineering leaders are on a path to innovate in new ways as the pressure to stay profitable and competitive increases.”

Running out of time for CSRD

Workiva launches a new study, which looks at the EU’s corporate reporting directive (CSRD) readiness among companies in Europe.

CSRD will modernize the rules around social and environmental information that organizations must report on in Europe. The mandate will begin on 6 July 2024, and 94 percent of European organizations are working to comply.

Lack of decisive action, however, risks running out of time. Furthermore, as reporting teams continue to accept and absorb an ever-increasing workload, Workviva suggests that many are underestimating the amount of work required before the CSRD deadline.