Deadline Date: February 12, 2026
The Finance and Health Lab (FHL) is inviting fintechs, startups, and innovators to explore solutions that enhance financial resilience, confidence, and wellbeing in later life.
The focus areas include Predictive Financial Vulnerability Insights for Later Life, Healthy Ageing Scenario Simulation for Financial Planning, Data Quality and Ethical Data Sharing for Health and Wealth Insights, Cross System Care and Financial Navigation for Ageing Populations, Empowering Later Life Financial Decision Confidence, and Age Friendly FinTech and Inclusive Digital Service Design.
FHL is a national programme led by FinTech Scotland that brings together financial services organisations, innovators, academics, and public sector partners to investigate how financial wellbeing and health intersect as people age. With the population growing older, shifts in health, income, care needs, and financial complexity increasingly influence quality of life, making the need for evidence-led innovation and collaboration urgent.
Through the Innovation Stimulation Open Call, applicants are invited to align their ideas with the defined challenges. Predictive insights can help identify periods of financial vulnerability linked to health changes, while scenario simulation tools can support long-term financial planning by reflecting evolving health and care needs. Ethical and high-quality data sharing is critical to building trust and enabling actionable insights across health, financial, and public sector systems. Technology solutions can also simplify access to complex care, social, and financial ecosystems, helping older adults navigate multiple services with confidence.
The programme encourages solutions that strengthen financial decision-making, reduce stress and cognitive burden, and adapt digital services to be more inclusive and accessible for older adults. Applicants may include early-stage fintechs, innovators exploring new service or data models, and teams working across finance, health, data, or care sectors. Successful participants are expected to engage with research and policy, test assumptions, refine ideas, and embrace collaboration.
FHL’s Innovation Stimulation programme is structured in five phases over February and March 2026. Phase 1 focuses on understanding challenges and aligning with research and partners. Phase 2 involves shaping and testing solution concepts, while Phase 3 emphasizes validation and preparation through expert deep dives and pitch practice. Phase 4, Demonstrator Day, showcases prototypes to industry and policy stakeholders, and Phase 5 concludes with a major conference connecting industry, academia, and the tech ecosystem at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
For more information, visit Finance and Health Lab.
