Later life planning solutions win Smart Data Foundry, FinTech Scotland Challenge

The Smart Data Foundry and FinTech Scotland UK Fintech Challenge has been won by Doqit Technologies and Planda AI, respectively, with their solutions focused on later life financial planning.

Doqit Technologies has developed an app to help people manage their life admin more easily, while Planda AI designed an AI and machine learning financial wellbeing platform which provides a “bridge” between technology and personal finance.

L-R: Sam Brown of Planda AI and Catherine Ann Reid of doqit Technologies

The challenge saw six finalist companies, including Doqit and Planda AI, given a chance to improve their financial solutions and products with synthetic data from Smart Data Foundry, which replicates data relating to consumer banking, investment, and savings products.

They presented their solutions and innovations to UK financial institutions, including NatWest, PwC and Royal London.

The winning companies were each awarded prize money of £45,000 to fund the development of their ideas.

Bryn Coulthard, Smart Data Foundry’s chief technology officer said: “The creativity and determination showcased by all the finalists were truly inspiring, but doqit and Planda AI absolutely stood out.

“Their solutions address the pressing financial challenges individuals face as they age and demonstrate remarkable commercial viability. These innovations have the potential to transform the landscape of financial planning and wellbeing for future generations.”

FinTech Scotland chief executive officer Nicola Anderson

Nicola Anderson, chief executive officer of FinTech Scotland, added: “The progress demonstrated by doqit and Planda AI in developing solutions for later life financial planning shows the power of collaboration to support initiatives that drive meaningful change and improve financial wellbeing for all.”

Catherine Ann Reid developed doqit with the aim to create a single place for people to manage their day-to-day life admin, such as monitoring bills and tracking insurance policies and multiple pensions.

“The synthetic data allowed us to create personas, and envision the introduction of machine learning into doqit’s next phase. This will streamline the process of recording a huge chunk of life admin into doqit using Open Finance and more APIs,” she said.

Sam Brown, founder of Planda AI, said the UK is “sleepwalking into a big problem” when it comes to wellbeing in later life.

“Smart Data Foundry’s synthetic data set, combined with our AI profiling technology, has been invaluable in allowing us to prove out key hypotheses related to peoples’ financial trajectory in life,” Brown added.

In March, the four winners of the UK’s ‘Smart Data Discovery Challenge’ were announced, with each of the teams awarded a share of £20,000 for their ideas on how to use Smart Data to make a difference for consumers, small businesses and society.

Smartlayer.ai, Rodeo, Mealia and Smarter Contracts were revealed as the winners at a pitching event.

Nicola Anderson, FinTech Scotland’s chief executive officer is speaking at Open Banking Expo UK & Europe on 15-16 October in London. Find out more about the speaker line-up and how to get involved here.