Four fintechs awarded £50,000 each through Innovation Accelerator-funded Financial Regulation Innovation Lab
Four fintech companies have been awarded £50,000 each through the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), funded by the Glasgow City Region Innovation Accelerator programme, following its latest Future of Wealth Innovation Call delivered by FinTech Scotland in partnership with SuperTech WM.
The six-week programme concluded on 15 January with a Showcase Day, where 21 fintechs presented solutions to the challenge: helping consumers make informed financial decisions and access more tailored wealth support, while keeping pace with evolving regulation.
The challenge was part of a series of Innovation Calls from FRIL which aim to co-create creative solutions to industry challenges.
The Innovation Call was aimed at exploring the HM Treasury-Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Advice Guidance Boundary Review (AGBR), in order to find new ways to support consumers to make informed financial decisions and deliver more accessible and tailored wealth support.
The Innovation Calls are a key part of the GCR Innovation Accelerator-funded programme, offering fintechs the opportunity to work with leading financial institutions, regulators and academics to solve key challenges and opportunities.
Alongside grant funding, the four selected fintechs will work alongside some of the leading financial firms in the UK; connect with industry peers, regulators and academics; access information and insights from industry partners; and test innovative solutions in a safe and de-risked environment.
The Innovation Call was delivered with the support of 10 strategic partners: PwC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Sopra Steria Financial Services, NatWest Group, M&G, BNP Paribas, Dudley Building Society, Wesleyan and Standard Life; alongside academic partners at the University of Strathclyde and the University of Glasgow, and Growth Builders, which supported delivery.
The pilot Innovation Accelerator programme is led by Innovate UK on behalf of UK Research and Innovation, and invested £100m into 26 transformative R&D projects between 2022 and 2025 to accelerate the growth of three high-potential innovation ecosystems: Glasgow City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.
The programme was boosted by an additional £30m of public funding for 2025/26 spread equally across the regions.
Who are the FRIL Innovation Call Winners?
Finspector
Finspector is an AI-powered compliance platform that automates the review and monitoring of financial promotions across text, images, video, and social media. It helps regulated firms reduce risk, evidence compliance, and scale marketing activity with confidence across jurisdictions.
Planda
Planda is a behavioural AI platform that helps financial services firms move beyond outdated segmentation to deliver hyper-personalised customer engagement. By connecting data across enterprise workflows, Planda builds dynamic customer segments that evolve in real-time, enabling institutions to personalise at scale and deepen relationships.
Amplified Global
Amplified Global uses AI and Machine Learning to help firms assess, simplify, and demonstrate consumer understanding at scale, ensuring they meet compliance obligations with confidence. Its technology analyses and enhances intelligibility, helping organisations turn complexity into clarity. Through a guided digital journey, it makes content more engaging, measurable, and human – redefining how people connect with information.
Afternoon Finance
Afternoon‘s the new data + AI first operating model for advice firms. Data collection is automated with a focus on completeness and quality. AI modules automate work, allowing a doubling of clients with the same team and with less risk from meeting to report in under 2 minutes.
Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive, FinTech Scotland, commented:
“The Advice Guidance Boundary Review is pivotal to widening access to meaningful financial support across the UK.
“Too few people are saving adequately for retirement, and historically advice has skewed towards higher earners. Government, regulators and industry are aligned on helping the wider population make better-informed financial decisions.
“By funding these four winning projects and opening real-world pilots with partners, we’re accelerating practical solutions that improve consumer decision-making and access to support, while helping firms operate confidently within the advice–guidance boundary.”
Kate Murray, Strategic Projects Lead, Scottish Widows & Lloyds Banking Group, said:
“We want to fill the advice gap that currently exists in Britain and ultimately, enable people to have a much more prosperous financial future. The Innovation Calls present such a massive opportunity.
“We at Lloyds Banking Group are changing the way we do change and innovate to go faster. Bringing in outside thinking, technology, and just a completely different perspective can help us achieve that.”
Hilary Smyth Allen, Chief Executive, SuperTech WM, added:
“Partnership matters because that’s how you really get things done with impact. Through the partnership with FRIL, we’ve been able to work across a broader spectrum of the ecosystem.
“Consumers come in all shapes and sizes, and so does the industry that services them. Innovation for us means we are maximising outcomes for those consumers.”
Crawford Taylor, CEO & co-founder, Afternoon Finance, stated:
“The advice gap is real, and firms are under growing pressure to support more people, with better outcomes, under tighter regulation. Afternoon exists to make that possible, using data and AI to remove friction, reduce risk and radically improve how advice is delivered.
“This funding allows us to continue to accelerate our mission: helping advice firms support more clients, more effectively, without compromising quality, compliance or trust. Being selected as one of just four winners from over twenty fintechs is a huge validation of the approach we’re taking.”