This week marks the second year since the start of FinTech Week – a coming together of the best, brightest, most innovative and creative fintech start-ups, professionals and influencers; and one of the largest fintech conferences in the world. And all of
that in the heart of London – a buzzing fintech scene, attracting talent and investment from around the world.
FinTech Week celebrates the advancements in the financial services technology sector – and for very good reasons. Last year alone, the sector saw an unprecedented growth and there’s no sign of it slowing down.
Fintech is now worth £20 billion in revenue to the UK economy and investment in the sector is expected to double by the end of 2015. The growth of cloud computing, big data and automation has pushed the development of many new solutions across different
areas, including banking, e-invoicing, data transmission, payments and lending.
In banking, new entrants are threatening to shake up the old world order, with Aldermore, OneSavings Bank, Atom Bank, and Verus360, the “challenger banks”, aiming to create the UK’s first online-only offerings. In lending, a new wave of SME lending start-ups
are making traditional banks re-evaluate their risk averse lending strategies, if they want to continue competing in this space. In payments, a growing number of alternative payment providers are starting to eat up the customer base that originally belonged
to large FS organisations – and the competition doesn’t just come from fintechs – an increasing number of technology and media companies are eyeing the payments market, with the likes of Facebook and Twitter integrating payments into their platforms. All of
this, on the backdrop of a number of interesting mergers, acquisitions and partnerships, such as the ones between Metro Bank and Zopa.
Throughout the number of conferences, hackathons, networking sessions and Q&A panels during the event, much of the talk so far has been focused on upcoming data protection challenges. We’re in the midst of significant data regulation changes, with the European
Union planning to unify the General Data Protection Regulation and the upcoming re-evaluation of the EU – US Safe Harbour agreement, and one of the things the sector will need to consider is how to continue to innovate, while complying with the new laws. It
will be interesting to see how restricting the new regulation will be for the industry and how the fintech scene will respond to this growing challenge.
The role and position of the UK fintech sector on the global tech scene has also been a hot topic during this year’s event. An increasing number of industry voices believes that Silicon Valley is losing the fight to compete with London when it comes to attracting
investment and innovating cutting-edge technology. Of course, a big hurdle that remains to be addressed is the ongoing skills shortage. Finding the right talent remains one of the biggest risks to fintech’s growth and as a CEO of a fintech company in London
myself, I recognise that problem more acutely than ever. I spend a disproportionate amount of my time looking for new talent because specialist, skilled and experienced IT professionals are a rare commodity.
That’s why events such as FinTech Week are so crucial – not just a celebration of our hard work and UK’s innovation, they bring together the best in breed experts to raise awareness of the issues facing the industry and solutions that best cater to our needs.
I hope that by the time we celebrate the 7th FinTech Week, in 2020, David Cameron’s pledge of making the UK a world leader in fintech and addressing the skills gap, will have long been a reality.