Neela Das has been appointed to lead Accuity’s global, multi-disciplinary innovation team, with regional hubs in London, Paris, Chicago and Singapore. She will be working in conjunction with Ronald Hobbs who has been appointed Director of Technology for Innovation.

They will work closely with Accuity’s clients and core product development teams, driving ideas from concept to prototype quickly and efficiently using Lean methodologies. The innovation teams operate like start-ups within the larger organisation, working directly with clients to develop proof of concepts that bring together disciplined lean development with compliance expertise. Since 2015, the innovation team has tripled in size.

The appointments come at a time when financial institutions are increasingly turning to FinTech and RegTech firms to improve customer experience and manage compliance risks. An example can be seen in Accuity’s Fircosoft screening technology, which uses machine learning to reduce false positive rates.

• Neela Das brings a wealth of experience working in disrupted markets. She held the Digital Director role at New Scientist, and as part of the senior management team developed its digital strategy at a time when the publishing industry was experiencing unprecedented change. At Accuity, she will develop the innovation strategy, collaborating with the risk, compliance and payments business and technology teams across the globe.

• Ronald Hobbs will lead the Innovation team's engineering experts having been the technical brains behind Accuity's innovative Dual-Use-Goods trade compliance solution. He joins after multiple technical leadership roles within RBI International, playing a key role in the facilitation of digital transformation; accelerating the transition to new technology platforms across the business. As the industry has evolved so have the projects he has tackled, delivering everything from centralised matching and information retrieval systems to the secure cloud-based evolution of key software products.

Neela Das commented: “Innovation isn’t just about understanding and implementing the latest technologies within an organisation. It’s about listening and understanding the problems and challenges clients face daily, and knowing how to fix and overcome them using the latest technology. Within financial services, this means creating technology-enabled solutions that help financial institutions to meet the new regulatory burden, while maintaining operational efficiency at the same time.”
Ronald Hobbs added: “Companies need to innovate constantly so they can respond to evolving regulation and new ways of working. We look forward to creating cutting edge solutions for our clients. Going forward, Accuity will focus on utilising the latest technologies, such as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), AI, machine learning, predictive analytics and big data, to adapt to the rapidly changing and evolving financial landscape.”