Ireland has received a timely boost to its employment figures thanks to the creation of almost 500 new jobs in the country's blossoming fintech industry.
Pramerica, the technology arm of financial services firm Prudential, is taking on 330 new employees its Donegal office in Northwest Ireland.
Meanwhile business processing outsourcing provider Abtran is hiring 100 employees in the consulting and technology services division of its Dublin office, situated in the city's International Financial Services Centre. And financial analytics firm Numerix is appointing 30 employees for its new Dublin office.
The jobs announcements have been welcomed by Irish ministers including Richard Bruton, minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Simon Harris, the minister responsible for International Banking who lauded Ireland's booming fintech sector ading that the new positions "illustrate where Ireland's financial services and technology sectors must aim for in terms of creating and attracting high value and high-skilled jobs into our economy".
A recent report from Deloitte, published in March, suggested that employment in Ireland's fintech sector could double in the next five years and exceed 5,000 employees. Deloitte partner David Dalton cited the number of financial services firms struggling to update legacy systems and cope with changes in consumers' payment methods as prime reasons for the boom in fintech jobs and urged closer collaboration between Ireland's financial services and IT sectors.
The Irish government has also targeted the fintech sector with the Department of Finance making it a central part of its IFS 2020 strategy which plans to create 10,000 jobs in the international financial services sector in the next five years.