Joanne Dewar, former CEO of Global Processing Services, is leading the project. She spoke about its aims during an afternoon session on day one at ifgs: “Most organisations are addressing diversity and inclusion in the same order. So gender first, then diversity, and then LGBTQIA - so disabilities aren’t getting a look in. Yet at the same time, we’re not addressing the accessibility of all of our products and services.

“Fintechs have been really good at creating specific solutions to address specific pockets of exclusion; whether it’s things like creating banking for those without credit histories. Actually, all products and services should be accessible. I feel without the inclusion on the inside, we’ve missed a trick in thinking about the accessibility of the products and services on the outside.”

Dewar told Finextra the project will initially look like a series of events, each in a different venue, all covering a different subtopic of disability. The events will be targeted at different aspects of the industry such as marketers or product designers. Dewar describes these events as workshops or working sessions.

Project Nemo will also be releasing chapters of an e-book and a podcast series.

Dewar comments: “This has the potential to be a blueprint as to how disability inclusion be accelerated at industry level.”

Janine Hirt, CEO, Innovate Finance, said: “As the industry body for UK FinTech, Innovate Finance is delighted to support Project Nemo. We believe that fostering greater diversity across our industry is critical to ensuring our world-leading UK FinTech sector can continue to move from strength-to-strength. Project Nemo is an industry-first in terms of championing disability inclusion in our sector.”