As someone working for a global financial services company, what technology trends do you see emerging in the sector, and how are these impacting your customers?

Company secretaries and governance professionals are facing an increasing administrative burden as a result of complex regulatory demands. ‘RegTech’ is becoming an important part of the solution for many companies, and we expect its use to continue to grow in the future.

The importance of cybersecurity will continue to increase for both companies and the customers, and the industry will need to continue to invest in technology that keeps data and infrastructure safe.

We also expect to see a growing emphasis on technological solutions to sustainable issues, and at Computershare, we’ve invested heavily recently to ensure that our carbon footprint is as low as possible, particularly within the technical side of our operation. Data federation is clearly an area of growing interest for many companies, and we expect a growth in the use of technology that enables them to access distributed data from a single interface.

Within our own world, we expect to see a continued shift towards digital communications and electronic payments and away from letters and cheques as well as an increased use of ‘virtual’ or ‘hybrid’ shareholder meetings, at which some or all attendees do so through the internet, watching proceedings, casting their votes and asking questions remotely.

What do you see as being the main challenges that financial services face today and how can these be overcome?

Cybersecurity is a constant challenge for all corporations. We continuously invest in systems that protect information, IT systems and applications to ensure the highest levels of protection.

Our comprehensive global information security framework aligns with international standards for preventing cyberattacks. Our people are a vital ingredient in helping us keep data, our clients and their customers safe.

We have a great and enthusiastic focus on recruitment, training and retaining the best and brightest team members available. Everyone at Computershare understands their role in doing the right thing, anticipating issues before they happen and meeting all the obligations of regulation — as well as the high expectations of our clients.

On a company level, what have been the latest developments at Computershare in Scotland?

In June, we formally opened our Global Technology Centre (GTC) in Edinburgh, which supports the work of our 16,000 global clients and the technology needs of our 12,000 employees around the world.

Why did the company choose to open the centre in Edinburgh when there’s so much uncertainty around Brexit?

Edinburgh is synonymous with finance and is home to some of the most well-known banking and finance names in the UK. Its reputation as a hub for financial technology also continues to grow.

The city’s finance heritage means we can access a highly-skilled workforce to meet the needs of our 16,000 global clients. Edinburgh also has strong transport infrastructure, which is attractive to prospective employees.

We’ve also had a presence in the city for more than 20 years and play an active role in the wider community.

How do you envisage the tech centre will benefit your customers?

The centre has a modern, dynamic environment that encourages agile working and employee satisfaction. We believe that this, in turn, will support innovative and successful project outcomes for clients, providing joined-up, 24/7 services.

It’s been reported that this new centre will create hundreds of “high-quality tech jobs”. What kind of roles will these be?

We’re on track to meet our goal of creating 350 high-quality jobs in Edinburgh by 2020 and are grateful to the Scottish Government for its support to enable us to achieve this vision.

Jobs include developers/coders, scrum masters (who oversee agile project teams) and software release/test managers. Others include roles in risk, information security, HR and recruitment. There will also be positions in our IT operations unit and helpdesk.

How challenging is it to find people in Scotland with the right kind of skills to fill these positions?

So far, we’ve been able to build a highly-skilled, hardworking and diverse team that prides itself on both innovation and lateral thinking.

This includes women returning to work after a career break, whether with technical or non-technical backgrounds and recruits not traditionally well represented in skilled tech jobs, such as people over 50 or under 25.

Scotland’s universities provide a good supply of candidates with the right technical and broader professional skills to help us develop and manage our technology-based products and services.

We’ve also invested in industry-recognised technology apprenticeships to develop home-grown talent that can perform in financial services environments.

What does the future hold in store for Computershare in Scotland?

Our focus will remain on trying to go above and beyond for our clients by offering products and services to suit their needs in a way that reflects the changing nature of technology and their own customer base.