An AI automation developer for Scottish fintech and research.
Edinburgh runs on two different clocks: the regulated cadence of one of Europe's densest fintech clusters, and the research clock of four universities and their spinouts. I build AI automation that behaves properly inside both.
annual GVA from Edinburgh's financial services sector, second only to London in the UK.
fintech scale ups headquartered in Edinburgh, making it the largest fintech cluster in the UK outside London.
of Scotland's tech workforce sits inside Edinburgh's city region, backed by four universities inside the metro area.
Bishal Paul
AI automation developer · Edinburgh and Scotland
Hi, my name is Bishal Paul. I run Erudience (see erudience.com), the AI automation agency behind this work, and sit as Head of AI at Absolute Intelligence UK. Live products under my own name include push8 and ExcelErrorFinder.
Scottish fintech and research teams tend to have a shorter list of concerns by the second call because everything I recommend is grounded in a system I have already operated on my own bill. The compliance and audit story is the same.
Scottish cluster fit
Three types of Edinburgh team already on the books.
Fintech and payments
Applied LLM features inside compliance workflows, KYC pipelines, structured document extraction on onboarding, human approval gates on anything material.
Asset management
Research summarisation with citations, structured extraction on quarterly filings, agent workflows behind analyst review.
University spinouts and research
Productisation of research tools, retrieval on scientific datasets, applied AI features inside SaaS shipped from Scottish academia.
Regulated defaults
How AI systems behave inside a regulated shop.
These are the defaults I ship with. They are the reason FCA regulated fintech teams have not needed a second security review on the second engagement.
- Model access
- Access to Claude and OpenAI is scoped per environment with keys held in secrets management, never in the codebase, never in the workflow export.
- Prompt versioning
- Every prompt in production is versioned in git, referenced by hash at call time, and auditable. Prompt drift is a real problem and it is treated like a schema migration.
- Structured outputs
- Function calling with strict schemas by default. Free form model output is only used where it is genuinely required and always parsed against a validator.
- Human approval
- Anything with financial, reputational or customer impact routes through a Slack or email approval before it goes out. No AI system commits money on its own.
- Retention
- Prompts and outputs stored per your policy, encrypted at rest, purged on a schedule you approve. Data residency respected where required.
Common builds for Edinburgh teams
Six workflows Scottish fintech and research teams ask for first.
Every one of these has shipped inside a UK regulated or research grade environment. The compliance defaults above ship with every one.
KYC and onboarding document extraction
B01Structured extraction from passports, utility bills, incorporation documents and beneficial ownership packs. Confidence scores on every field. Failed extractions routed to a named human reviewer with the original document attached.
Regulated support triage on Intercom or Zendesk
B02First pass classification, response drafts pulled from your approved knowledge base with citations, escalation into a live agent within FCA appropriate SLAs. Every model call logged with prompt hash and output.
Analyst research summarisation
B03Quarterly filings, broker notes and internal research summarised with citations back to the source paragraph. Sits behind analyst review, never customer facing without a human on the record.
Compliance policy retrieval
B04Retrieval augmented answers over your compliance manual, financial promotions rules and internal policies. Access respects your existing SSO groups and audit trail is exportable to your GRC platform.
Spinout SaaS AI features
B05Applied AI features shipped inside University of Edinburgh and Heriot Watt spinout products. Retrieval on research corpora, structured extraction on scientific data, function calling behind product UI.
Voice AI for regulated support lines
B06ElevenLabs voice agent handling non advised call flows, always disclosing that it is an AI, escalating anything advised or complaint shaped to a live human. Call recordings retained per FCA rules.
Area coverage
Where Scottish clients tend to sit.
Engagement models
Four ways Scottish teams start working with me.
Pick the one that fits the decision you are trying to make, not the one that sounds biggest. Most engagements start with Discovery or Advisory and only move to a scoped build once the risk is understood.
Recently shipped, relevant to Scotland
Three builds Scottish teams keep asking about.
Client names withheld. These are all live systems shipped into UK regulated or operational environments.
Multilingual subsidy qualification agent
Recently shipped for an energy sector team: a voice agent that qualifies subsidy eligibility across English, Polish and Romanian, files structured records into the CRM, and hands anything ambiguous to a live agent inside SLA.
Inbound call routing agent
Recently shipped for a retail operations team: a first line voice agent that classifies intent, answers FAQs, and routes only the calls that need a human. Cut average handling time and gave the support team their evenings back.
AI powered client support system
Recently shipped for a professional services firm: LLM triage on inbound tickets with drafts pulled from an approved knowledge base, citations back to the source, and a human on the record for anything material.
Answered before the call
Eight questions from Edinburgh and Scottish teams.
Are you based in Edinburgh?+
UK based, working with Edinburgh and Scottish teams regularly. Remote by default. When on site adds value, day trips are planned in at scoping. Overnight stays are booked into the scope, not billed hourly.
Do you work with Scottish fintech firms?+
Yes. Edinburgh has one of the densest fintech clusters in Europe, and applied AI features inside compliance workflows, KYC pipelines and customer support triage are common opening engagements.
Can you handle FCA regulated environments?+
Yes. I ship into FCA regulated shops regularly. That means auditable prompts, controlled model access, structured outputs, and human approval gates on anything material. Compliance is a first class engineering concern, not an afterthought.
Do you work with University of Edinburgh spinouts?+
Yes. Applied AI on top of research grade models, retrieval on institutional or scientific datasets, and productisation of an internal tool into a shippable feature are common asks from spinouts and research teams.
What is the typical engagement shape?+
Paid discovery, scoped build in weeks, optional retained operator. No open ended time and materials. Suits regulated shops that need a defined statement of work more than they need a loose retainer.
Can you invoice in GBP with a Scottish entity?+
Yes. Erudience is a UK entity, invoices in GBP as standard, and is used to Scottish procurement paperwork. VAT handled per the standard UK rules. Purchase order flows and vendor onboarding forms are routine.
Do you sign NDAs and DPAs before we share anything?+
Yes, always. Mutual NDA on the first call if the topic needs it, DPA before any production data changes hands. Sub processor list shared on request. No client data touches a laptop without a signed agreement in place.
How fast can a Scottish engagement start?+
Paid discovery usually inside two weeks of the first call, scoped build starts one to three weeks after that depending on access, procurement and holidays. Genuinely urgent regulated work has been started inside a week when the scope was already clear.
Available for new work
Edinburgh and Scotland focus
Reply within 24 hours
Start a conversation
Let's talk about your Scottish build.
A free 30 minute discovery call. You leave with a concrete direction on scope, sequencing and cost, even if we do not end up working together.
- Direct line to me, not an account manager or a sales team.
- No slide deck. We look at your current workflow and where it hurts.
- Written summary in your inbox within 24 hours of the call.