Scottish Financial Inclusion Forum
Thursday 18 October 2007,
Marriott Hotel, Glasgow
This years Financial Inclusion Forum took place at the Marriott Hotel in Glasgow, on 18th October.
The event was co-hosted for the first time by the Scottish Government, Transact and the Department for Work and Pensions, with the aim of exploring financial inclusion from both the UK and Scottish perspectives.
Over 200 delegates listened to key note speakers, took part in a debate, attended a choice of workshops and made those all important networking connections. They also had the opportunity to view a host of stands, from a range of organizations all keen to showcase their work and products.
The chairperson for the day was Scottish broadcaster Shereen Nanjiani. After welcoming delegates to the conference, she introduced the Financial Inclusion Action Plan DVD. This was being shown for the first time, and featured many of the projects funded by the Scottish Government through the Financial Inclusion Fund. All delegates received a copy and the DVD has now been distributed to all 32 local authorities in Scotland.
We then had the opportunity to hear from, and question, keynote speakers Mark Lyonette, Chief Executive of the Association of British Credit Unions Limited (ABCUL), and Bernie Morgan from the Financial Inclusion Taskforce.
Before and after lunch delegates were able to attend a choice of 6 workshops on a range of topics. Alternatively, there was an opportunity to join in a debate, hosted by Shereen Nanjiani our chairperson. Mark Lyonette from ABCUL and Stephen Moir, Head of Community Investment at the Royal Bank of Scotland discussed the topic of whether "Special Products Reinforced Financial Exclusion".
The forum resumed in the afternoon with a presentation from keynote speaker Stephen Moir. This was followed by a panel session at which Mark Lyonette, Stephen Moir, Faith Reynolds from Transact and Pam Whittle, Director General of Public Health and Wellbeing at the Scottish Government bravely offered to take questions from the audience.
Evaluation forms from the forum gave very positive and constructive feedback.
Delegates were also invited to give us their opinions on the Financial Inclusion Plan by way of a questionnaire. We received many interesting and useful comments from this, and the responses will form part of the current review of the Financial Inclusion Action Plan.
Please click on the following links to find further details of
Workshop presentations and subsequent discussions, summaries of responses to the Financial Inclusion questionnaire, and conference evaluation.