How to Scale a FinTech Forum Write-up
On Wednesday 7th October, the Northern FinTech community came together at Avenue HQ in Liverpool for our How to Scale a FinTech forum, hosted in partnership with DTM Legal, and hosted by Barclays Eagle Labs.
The afternoon brought together founders, innovators and ecosystem partners for honest, first-hand conversations about what scaling really looks like, across people, culture, funding, risk and regulation. The event saw fantastic engagement, with 80% of registrants attending the session.
Welcomes and ecosystem outlook
The session opened with a welcome from Joe Roche, General Manager at FinTech North. Joe introduced FinTech North’s purpose, to develop the FinTech sector in the North, and how it delivers this through events, partnerships and community activity. He shared the organisation’s journey and growth so far, and gave an overview of the ecosystem it champions.
Lilly Chatwin, Ecosystem Manager at Barclays Eagle Labs, followed with an overview of how Eagle Labs helps ambitious businesses connect, innovate and grow. It does this through the UK’s most powerful entrepreneurial networks of peers, mentors, investors, academia and corporates. Lilly highlighted the breadth of businesses and entrepreneurs Barclays Eagle Labs has supported to date, with no catch, simply a desire to support growth in the UK economy. She also spotlighted its Funding Readiness Programme, Female Founder Accelerator, Black Founders Accelerator and Scaleup Programme.
Richard Harris, Partner at DTM Legal, then shared the firm’s growth story and its proud presence in the North West. He outlined the services DTM Legal offers to growing businesses and highlighted its support for FinTech North and the Liverpool FinTech ecosystem.
How to Scale a FinTech: interactive panel
Moderated by Richard Harris, the panel brought together Richard Carter, CEO, Lenvi; Andy Porter, Commercial Director, iCede; Neil Pickles, Partner, FS Risk Assurance, RSM; and Elaine Mullan, Head of Marketing & Business Development, Corlytics. Speakers shared perspectives from different stages of the scaling journey, reflecting on how much growth happens by accident rather than design.
Letting go and building the team. The panel discussed the founder’s shift from doing everything to leading others. Scaling means delegating, trusting and establishing core disciplines, with leadership evolving in layers as the business grows. Andy noted that you can’t scale if you are the bottleneck, and that growing the team to lighten the load takes courage. The panel also explored how to spend funding, and whether to progress internal people or bring in new talent.
Culture. Elaine highlighted how people are rewarded for their behaviour, and how new hires and processes can feel disruptive when a culture has previously been unwritten. She stressed the importance of acknowledging the people who got the business this far and being clear about where it is going. Retention matters as much as hiring, and a great culture is somewhere your team would want their friends to work. Richard emphasised that reward isn’t always about money, pointing to curiosity, boldness and trust, including trust to experiment with tools such as AI. Andy observed that a single hire can be disruptive or transformative depending on whether they’re right for the business. He also spoke about the value of investing in young people and universities, sharing that he met a student at a FinTech North event and went on to hire them.
Choosing what to stop. The panel agreed that deciding what to stop doing is as important as deciding what to start, including saying no to certain clients, though they differed on how. Richard argued for saying yes and making money, since being able to pay people at the end of the month is what counts. He shared a “days to disaster” metric as a way to keep cash runway front of mind. Elaine pointed to the hidden costs of stretched resources and the importance of estimating them properly. Growth was framed as making things work in a repeatable way, not just adding new logos.
Control and compliance. Neil was asked what scaling businesses most often leave too late. He highlighted the tension between commerciality and control: the more you do, the more chance of falling out of compliance, and the bigger you get, the greater the scrutiny. He encouraged founders to consider what’s further down the track, whether they have one client or ten. Andy noted that money spent on professional advice is often recouped quickly, and Richard urged founders to see regulation as valuable in how a business operates.
Lessons learned. Closing the panel, Andy shared that businesses often underestimate spending: not everything adds value, but some spend saves pain down the line. Richard encouraged founders to seek advice from a wide audience, including on areas such as R&D tax credits.
FCA support for start-ups and scale-ups
Toby Whitlock, Manager – Scaling & Growth at the FCA, outlined the support available to start-ups and scale-ups. This included the AI Lab (with its Supercharged Sandbox and AI Live Testing), Smart Data Accelerator, TechSprints, Digital Sandbox, Innovation Pathways, Regulatory Sandbox and Scale-up Unit. He noted that 1,058 firms have been supported over ten years.
On AI, Toby explained that the FCA‘s approach is principles-based and outcomes-focused. It gives firms flexibility to adapt to technological change and market developments, while relying on existing frameworks that mitigate many AI risks. He highlighted the FCA’s AI Update on how existing rules apply to AI, its AI research publications, the Mills Review on the long-term impact of AI on retail financial services, and support through the AI Lab. Toby encouraged attendees to connect with the team to learn more and collaborate.
Start-ups showcase
The final session, affectionately dubbed “pitches and pizza”, was moderated by Rachel England, Events & Project Manager at FinTech North. It gave the audience a series of strong pitches and a vibrant Q&A over great food. We were delighted to hear from:
- Hannah Morrison, Founder, ClearCreator, a Liverpool-based business supporting FCA-regulated firms to embed the Consumer Duty throughout their organisation. It builds digital customer journeys that lead to good customer outcomes, alongside the processes and governance to keep them that way.
- Alana Neimanis, Co-Founder & Anna Watt, Head of Cloud Architecture, Vamos, an applied AI platform for financial services, helping firms build their AI strategy, train their workforce and deploy tailored AI solutions.
- Angela Baines, Lead Technical Consultant, Digital Sparkx, who introduced My Treasure Chest, a new secure digital vault for wishes, messages, memories and key legal and financial documents. Solicitors, will writers and advisers can offer it to their clients under their own branding, alongside the will itself.
The afternoon drew to a close with a vibrant networking reception.
Thank you to our sponsors, DTM Legal, our host, Barclays Eagle Labs, to all of our speakers and panellists, and to our community for attending.
For more information, or for opportunities to collaborate, please reach out to us at info@fintechnorth.uk.
