UKFIN
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: School of Computer Science
Abstract
The ACORN network's mission is to bridge the gap that currently exists between the research in universities and the need of the financial services industry, its consumers and the regulator. ACORN wants to grow to well over 100 primary partners and 1000 associated partners, offering an inclusive, diverse and responsible research culture. Based on regional presence in Wales, Scotland, North-East England and London, it will harmonize technological know-how across regions and connect regional partners to nation-wide efforts.
Real-life challenges in financial services are complex, combining responding to technology innovation with business ethics, green/environmental considerations and scarcity in the talent pipeline. This presents FS with wicked problems, which the industry cannot ignore, and which require people and researchers from across disciplines to come together. ACORN aims to address wicked problems in FS that are associated with innovation in technology, mathematics and sciences.
ACORN provides a number of mechanisms to succeed in this mission.
Central to ACORN's working is its 'commissioning framework', which provides the funding mechanisms for five types of collaborative projects between academia and partners. ACORN offers seed project funding, which aims to explore technological, mathematical and scientific solutions for real-life challenges in FS, prioritised through co-design sandpits. It then offers funding for larger multi-disciplinary feasibility projects, which may build on the seed projects, and expand to consider 'wicked' multi-disciplinary research problems.
In parallel, ACORN offers funding for agile projects, which can be of any type, e.g., horizon scanning, population survey, a software prototype or a machine learning application. These have predetermined IP arrangements, so that they can be organised in agile manner and can start at any time for the duration of ACORN. Additionally, impact projects are offered to take any of the research projects further (e.g., to influence policy makers, or initiate commercialisation), and education/engagement projects allow to grow the FS talent pool and address the talent pipeline.
To support researchers and partners in these project, ACORN establishes a number of services the community can use. The co-design service and the corporate digital responsibility service help researchers to consider these aspects in their proposals. The secure data vault, the shared code base, the experimentation sandbox and template IP arrangements are available to improve research, its impact and to lower collaboration barriers.
We name the network ACORN, to signify that collaborations as majestic as an oak tree can grow from humble beginnings.
Real-life challenges in financial services are complex, combining responding to technology innovation with business ethics, green/environmental considerations and scarcity in the talent pipeline. This presents FS with wicked problems, which the industry cannot ignore, and which require people and researchers from across disciplines to come together. ACORN aims to address wicked problems in FS that are associated with innovation in technology, mathematics and sciences.
ACORN provides a number of mechanisms to succeed in this mission.
Central to ACORN's working is its 'commissioning framework', which provides the funding mechanisms for five types of collaborative projects between academia and partners. ACORN offers seed project funding, which aims to explore technological, mathematical and scientific solutions for real-life challenges in FS, prioritised through co-design sandpits. It then offers funding for larger multi-disciplinary feasibility projects, which may build on the seed projects, and expand to consider 'wicked' multi-disciplinary research problems.
In parallel, ACORN offers funding for agile projects, which can be of any type, e.g., horizon scanning, population survey, a software prototype or a machine learning application. These have predetermined IP arrangements, so that they can be organised in agile manner and can start at any time for the duration of ACORN. Additionally, impact projects are offered to take any of the research projects further (e.g., to influence policy makers, or initiate commercialisation), and education/engagement projects allow to grow the FS talent pool and address the talent pipeline.
To support researchers and partners in these project, ACORN establishes a number of services the community can use. The co-design service and the corporate digital responsibility service help researchers to consider these aspects in their proposals. The secure data vault, the shared code base, the experimentation sandbox and template IP arrangements are available to improve research, its impact and to lower collaboration barriers.
We name the network ACORN, to signify that collaborations as majestic as an oak tree can grow from humble beginnings.
Organisations
- University of Birmingham (Lead Research Organisation)
- AdviceRobo (Collaboration)
- SWANSEA COUNCIL (Collaboration)
- Asset Reality (Collaboration)
- Center Res Adv. Financial Technologies (Project Partner)
- Cardiff Capital Region Board (Project Partner)
- #joiningthedots (Project Partner)
- Open Banking Excellence (OBE) Limited (Project Partner)
- Atom Bank plc (Project Partner)
- FundApps Ltd (Project Partner)
- Dynamo Northeast (Project Partner)
- Fin Tech Scotland (Project Partner)
- Incuto Ltd (Project Partner)
- Beyond Reach Consulting Ltd (Project Partner)
- FinTech North (Project Partner)
- WorldLine (Project Partner)
- Digital Poverty Alliance (Project Partner)
- Gainwell Technologies (Project Partner)
- WhiteCap Consulting Ltd (Project Partner)
- Northumberland Community Bank (Project Partner)
- J.P. Morgan (UK) (Project Partner)
- Sage (UK) Ltd (Project Partner)
- Admiral Group Plc (Project Partner)
- FinTech West (Project Partner)
- GAIN: Group Autism, Insurance, Neurodiv (Project Partner)
- ThoughtWorks Ltd (Project Partner)
- SIMBA Chain (UK) (Project Partner)
- SuperTech West Midlands (Project Partner)
- Mastercard (Project Partner)
- The Inclusion Foundation (Project Partner)
- Aster Foundation (Project Partner)
- IBM (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
| Title | Weisser: Baseline Survey |
| Description | The pilot's detailed baseline survey already offers some initial insights into young adult's wellbeing, financially and otherwise, and their FinTech experience. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | the pilot's detailed baseline survey already offers some initial insights into young adult's wellbeing, financially and otherwise, and their FinTech experience. |
| Title | Kromida: dragnet data |
| Description | We have data on darknet markets, users, products and reviews |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | TBC |
| Title | Survey on the wellbeing of young adults in a cost-of-living crisis |
| Description | This data originates from a survey that was part of the pilot project "The Impact of FinTech Apps on Consumer Wellbeing". Its focus was to test and evaluate a data collection strategy to better understand young adults' financial circumstances. Beyond income and expenditure patterns, the survey elicited financial decision-making strategies, and FinTech app familiarity. Additional topics cover aspects of housing, deprivation, weekly activities, and personality traits and preferences. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Facilitated the research |
| URL | https://researchdata.uwe.ac.uk/id/eprint/755/ |
| Description | AdviceRobo |
| Organisation | AdviceRobo |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The partner industry, AdviceRobo has been instrumental in this project. They provided their dataset for analysis. We had conduceted joint weekly technical meetings. They contributed in the problem forumation, requirements gathering, and algorithm selection. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partner industry, AdviceRobo has been instrumental in this project. They provided their dataset for analysis. We had conduceted joint weekly technical meetings. They contributed in the problem forumation, requirements gathering, and algorithm selection. |
| Impact | The partner industry, AdviceRobo has been instrumental in this project. They provided their dataset for analysis. We had conduceted joint weekly technical meetings. They contributed in the problem forumation, requirements gathering, and algorithm selection. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | DEFEND: Swansea Council |
| Organisation | Swansea Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Our partnership with Swansea Council was crucial to conduct this project. They have the access to older adults which provided us with plenty of participants that shared their experiences with us. We could not have recruited older adults without this partnership. Swansea Council are also helping us disseminate our findings to various groups within the older adults domain, we are going to present our findings during Ageing well steering committee meeting that is go to happen last week of February 2025. Swansea council also got us intouch with the Older Persons Commissioner for Wales, with whom we had informal chats about our research. For the time being we are developing the relationship and we still cannot claim this connection to be an outcome or new partnership. For us, the partnership with Swansea council is critical and we plan to maintain it even in the next phase of our project. As for things that worked well. We can say that constant communication with Swansea Council is essential. Not only via email or WhatsApp, but also having informal chats with them in their offices. At every stage of the project, we kept Swansea Council updated of what we were finding/learning which also helped develop the relationship because it helped them feel involved in the research. We learned that this approach does involve a lot of effort to nurture the relationship with the stakeholder, but this is the only way to have a successful partnership. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partnership with Swansea Council was crucial to conduct this project. They have the access to older adults which provided us with plenty of participants that shared their experiences with us. We could not have recruited older adults without this partnership. Swansea Council are also helping us disseminate our findings to various groups within the older adults domain, we are going to present our findings during Ageing well steering committee meeting that is go to happen last week of February 2025. Swansea council also got us intouch with the Older Persons Commissioner for Wales, with whom we had informal chats about our research. For the time being we are developing the relationship and we still cannot claim this connection to be an outcome or new partnership. For us, the partnership with Swansea council is critical and we plan to maintain it even in the next phase of our project. As for things that worked well. We can say that constant communication with Swansea Council is essential. Not only via email or WhatsApp, but also having informal chats with them in their offices. At every stage of the project, we kept Swansea Council updated of what we were finding/learning which also helped develop the relationship because it helped them feel involved in the research. We learned that this approach does involve a lot of effort to nurture the relationship with the stakeholder, but this is the only way to have a successful partnership. |
| Impact | Our partnership with Swansea Council was crucial to conduct this project. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Wang: Assett Reality |
| Organisation | Asset Reality |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration |
| Collaborator Contribution | TBC |
| Impact | TBC |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Birmingham Tech Week |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Birmingham Tech Week is the main annual event for technology advances in the West Midlands. This item refers to the invited presentation about research in the FinTrust, UKFin and AGENCY projesct |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | DEFEND Guest Talk Birmingham City University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Presented an overview of the DEFEND project to MSc students and academic staff in Computer Science at Birmingham City University, followed by a discussion on future directions. Main Outcome: Plans made for analysis of the collected data and outlined future directions of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | DEFEND talk at UKFin+ Research Showcase |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Provided a summary of the DEFEND project, covering what the project is about, why it is important, and the benefits of collaborating with our industry partners (Swansea Council). Main Outcome: Received valuable feedback from various stakeholders, including PIs of the UK Fin+ project, which inspired ideas for future funding applications |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Digital Banking WOrkshop 1 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Phase 1 involved open discussions where participants shared their experiences with financial technologies and scams. The workshop concluded with an educational session on fraud prevention and best practices. Main Outcome: Older adults are always trying to catchup because there is always something new that they do not know about |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Digital Banking Workshop - Phase 1/Session 2 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Phase 1 involved open discussions where participants shared their experiences with financial technologies and scams. The workshop concluded with an educational session on fraud prevention and best practices. Main Outcome: Older adults are overly sceptical, anxious, and fearful about all digital communications that they receive |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Digital Banking Workshop - Phase 1/Session 3 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Phase 1 involved open discussions where participants shared their experiences with financial technologies and scams. The workshop concluded with an educational session on fraud prevention and best practices. Main Outcome: Practices/technologies evolves but the messaging is not corrected, so older adults keep relying on outdated information. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Digital Banking Workshop - Phase 2/Session 1 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Phase 2 consisted of structured workshops on multi-factor authentication, where participants shared their experiences and engaged in a scenario-based exercise on identifying online scams. They mapped out the user journey for booking a cruise online, helping to assess their understanding of digital security. Main Outcome: Older adults seem open to use multi-factor authentication (e.g., face, fingerprint) because they can see the added security benefit of these technologies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Digital Banking Workshop - Phase 2/Session 2 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Phase 2 consisted of structured workshops on multi-factor authentication, where participants shared their experiences and engaged in a scenario-based exercise on identifying online scams. They mapped out the user journey for booking a cruise online, helping to assess their understanding of digital security. Main Outcome: Older adults miss face-to-face interactions, they value direct contact with banking representatives because it allows them to establish trust. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | EU COST Fin-AI Keynote |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited Keynote for the very large EU Network on Financial Services, the counterpart of UKFin+ |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://fin-ai.eu |
| Description | Jesus: Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Workshop (6-June-2024) with industry and academics about our cross-discipline approach |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Kafteranis: FinTech West Annual Conference in Bristol |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We participated in the FINTECH annual conference in Bristol where we had the chance to present our project and engage with the community there. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Kafteranis: UKFin+ Annual Research Showcase |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | the project was presented in the UKFIN+ event in Manchester in November 2024. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Keynote at Utility and Cloud Computing 2024, Sharjah, UAE |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Keynote on Agency and UKFin+ related research and research methods such as co-design |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Keynote at ValueTools conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An invited keynote at an academic conference to present work on financial inclusion and related issues. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Kromidha: dissemination workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We organised and delivered a seminar to 17 attendees on the 27th of June 2024 summarising our key findings, ideas, guidelines for practitioners and research, and contributions |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Launch Event UKFin |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The UKFin+ launch event invited industry and academic participants to discuss how to work together in financial services. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://ukfin.network |
| Description | London Launch Event UKFin+ |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This is the second launch event: after the Birmingham event, UKFin+ also launched in London the day after, to reach financial services industry in the city. The purpose was to get the network out among professionals as well as academics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://ukfin.network |
| Description | Northern Ireland Launch |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The UKFin project organised a number of regional launch events of the network. This event was for Norther Ireland, where academics and practitioners came together to discuss grand challenges in financial services. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://ukfin.network |
| Description | UKFin+ Annual Research Showcase 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Annual UKFin+ event in which all funded research projects aprticipate. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | UKFin+ Spotligh Workshop on Financial Inclusion |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Academics and industry as well as 3rd sector participants came together to discuss research challenges associated with Financial Inclusion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | UnFed UKFin Research Showcase |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | we attended the UKFin+ event in Manchester and presented our research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Weisser: stakeholder and community workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As part of our community and stakeholder engagement, we held a workshop in December with 10 participants. The Bristol FinTech community was represented by FinTech founders, app designers, and marketing managers. Other stakeholders are active in finance-related fields with a special interest in sustainability and EDI. The workshop was opened by presenting the preliminary findings of the pilot project. Building on the result discussion, the subsequent dialogue focused on integrating stakeholder experiences and expert insights. A most surprising outcome was the consensus that the current state of the FinTech sector could be described by two features: An oversaturation of the market with too many providers that may offer products of limited use or are rated as irrelevant by a majority of consumers. Both FinTech founders and app developers highlighted that new FinTech may fall prey to old design problems, lack of trust, and investor-driven cycles. This suggested a certain level of awareness within the sector that its priorities may not be optimally aligned with consumer needs and longer-term goals, such as establishing sustainable businesses. Eventually, this dialogue highlighted once again why FinTech app (design) and firm practices can pose a wicked problem. Based on the established common ground, another workshop outcome is the potential for closer cooperation with the Future Finance group at the University of Bristol. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |