EXCLUSIVE- Royal Bank of Scotland will unveil an Open Experience center in London to facilitate interaction with fintech entrepreneurs, Kevin Hanley, Director of Innovation at the bank told Bank Innovation.

Royal Bank of Scotland has been making a concerted effort not only to adapt to changing landscape of banking, but also to extend relationships with burgeoning innovative players in the space.

The Open Experience is a type of innovation lab for RBS’s external fintech partners (or potential ones) in which they can experiment, test and proof new technologies and new features.

This office space acts as a type of fintech lab for startup entrepreneurs in the space. The space will be dedicated to developing innovation and tech that could be integrated into RBS to either create new products or enhance existing ones.

The bank opened its first Open Experience Office last year in Edinburgh with “great success,” Hanley said.

“At the heart, Royal Bank of Scotland is just as much a technology company,” he said, (as it is a bank). “The Open Experience center allows us to understand and stay in tune with how technology is changing and how we can use it to give our customers the best products and banking experience.”

The Open Experience center will first open its doors sometime in the first half of 2018. No specific date has been set yet, Hanley said. The new center will be located in the Regent House office in London. The Regent House is in the building of RBS-owned National Westminster Bank, commonly called NatWest Bank.