ABSTRACT
In the UK, FinTech is seen as a potential solution to stubborn social problems, including how to improve people’s access to financial services while at the same time increasing their financial capability and boosting their financial resilience. This chapter explores social-purpose FinTech in the UK that aims to support innovative ideas for products and services that have a social purpose (such as increasing financial well-being or addressing access issues) which might otherwise struggle to attract commercial backing. Using Nationwide Building Society’s Open Banking for Good programme as a case study, we examine the potential to use grounded innovation (an approach that uses innovation to solve real and grounded challenges) as a means to ensure that social-purpose FinTech is inclusively designed from the start in order to increase its potential to meet the needs of its target audience. The chapter also makes a valuable contribution to knowledge by drawing out lessons for the future application of grounded innovation to stubborn social problems.
