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Blair Institute sets out 'progressive vision' for fintech

If it wins the upcoming UK general election, the Labour party must harness the fintech sector as an engine for economic growth, opportunity and inclusion across the country, says a report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

With Labour holding a double-digit lead in the polls, Keir Starmer's party is widely expected to return to power after 14 years in opposition.

The party's former prime minister, Blair, has put his institute's name to a report co-authored with the Startup Coalition that lays out a vision for how one of the country's most successful sectors can be used to deliver a "progressive agenda for a mission-driven government".

Fintechs, the report says, can fuel economic growth if they are given the right environment to grow. This means "optimising incentives like R&D tax credits and share option schemes, building fintech export opportunities, and providing regulatory certainty".

The report also calls for a national financial inclusion strategy that puts innovation front and centre by, for example, unlocking pensions to invest in startups, and increasing choice for small businesses in how to accept payments.

Labour has already promised an open finance roadmap, while just this week the government set up its own task force. The Blair report calls for an Open Finance framework within 100 days of taking office.

In addition, regulation for Buy Now Pay Later lending should be introduced within 100 days, while there should be mandating of financial education in primary schools by 2025

Jeegar Kakkad, director, government innovation, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, says: "Fintech startups have a crucial role to play in breaking down barriers to financial opportunity across the UK.

"By developing a national financial inclusion strategy with fintech at its core, and delivering innovations like Open Finance, we can increase choice and competition in financial services. This will empower individuals and communities to take control of their financial well being like never before."

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Editorial | what does this mean?

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

Comments: (4)

A Finextra member 18 April, 2024, 09:58

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0 likes The open finance expansion in combination with real time payments will speed-up the expansion of fraud in the UK. Does Labour and the Blair Institute have a programme for fraud elimination as well. If so, please table it asap. So far the UK government has made the payer and payee payment institutes compensate the defrauded but with expansion of open finance and real time payments these two payment instutes become even more victims than today and organized criminals can keep pocketing ever growing takings that they can re-invest in drug distribution and human trafficing.

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Steve Wilcockson - Quantexa - Diss / London 19 April, 2024, 08:17

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Putting the Labour/Blair thing to one side and responding to the fraud expansion comment, I do see UK Fintech leaders in real-time fraud detection and complex fraud detection (tax, AML, fincrime, etc). I've worked for two such firms.

Complex financial crime is easier to detect than it used to be. Money launderers, organized criminals and tax dodgers have far fewer places to hide. Also, streaming real-time analytics, including model inference at scale in-memory and with distributed memory, with much-improved model deployments (types and agility to recalibrate) is powerful and increasingly democratized.

That said, I'd also note that fintech favourite, crypto, is the criminal's friend and I'd hope there's a responsible crypto strategy in the bag of tricks of the next UK Govt.

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Martin Swanson - Atomic Wire - London 19 April, 2024, 08:28

0 likes As a recent FinTech founder, the things that I think would make a significant difference and encourage more people to build startups: - remove tax on redundancy payments - lower 25% corp tax - 0% CT for first 3-5 years - govt SaaS service for accounts and payroll - govt ESOP scheme - restore entrepreneur tax incentives