In 2012 we, the Financial Services Knowledge Transfer Network (FS KTN), realised that whilst there was plenty of discussion on structure and regulation of financial services, or ethics and morality within the sector, or indeed on innovation within the sector, these subjects are all linked and had not really been considered simultaneously. Furthermore, the various groups that might have some interesting comment on these issues could be much more collaborative. The upshot was the Future of Finance Conference 2013, which aimed to cover structure, regulation, ethics and innovation together and involve a wide array of stakeholders including traditional economists, ‘new’ economists, quant scientists and mathematicians, high-powered computer scientists, innovators, policy-makers, regulators, and, of course, the industry.

FS KTN is grant-funded by the Technology Strategy Board and the Economic and Social Research Council to foster knowledge transfer and collaboration within and across the financial services industry, and between financial services and other sectors and players such as government, academia and entrepreneurs. It is an independent body that acts as a platform for discussion to understand and perhaps solve some of the key challenges facing the sector. We actively seek industry based challenges and problems and act as a catalyst, often using academia and entrepreneurs as a source of new information and new solutions.

We took this model into the conference by bringing a wide and diverse group of people together to transfer some of the knowledge of work already done on key issues facing industry, and to encourage engagement between the sector, academia and entrepreneurs. Our experience tells us that sometimes this means articulating the needs of industry in such a way that academics and entrepreneurs can work on research topics that have impact. Sometimes this means expressing the data and support needs of academia that will allow them to produce good research. Sometimes this means taking developing research and innovative business models and technology to the industry for them to adapt, adopt or otherwise consider. In the following pages you will see this model for knowledge transfer and innovation in action, as indeed it was during the conference.