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An independent review led by former Worldpay CEO Ron Kalifa has set out a new strategy to put the UK at the top of the global fintech league table.
The review has set out a blueprint for the UK to maintain its global leadership in financial technology by helping the country’s fintech firms to scale up, access the talent and finance they need, and deliver better financial services. The report calls on the government to shore up the fintech sector’s status as one of the UK’s most important export industries, warning that British fintech’s leading position is at risk from increasing global competition and regulatory uncertainty
At present, the UK has more than 10 per cent of the global market share in fintech and the sector is now worth more than £11 billion a year to the UK economy.
The independent review found that the UK is now at a pivotal moment and presents a wide-ranging strategy and delivery model to build on its existing attractiveness to start-ups firms and become the best place for a fintech business to reach global scale.
The Government says that the strategy marks an important step in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s plan to make the UK the most open and dynamic place in the world to operate a financial services business. The government will now examine the recommendations and respond in due course.
The review highlights the opportunity to create highly skilled jobs across the UK, boost trade and extend a competitive edge over other leading fintech hubs. Recommendations include:
Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said “Fintech is one of the UK’s great success stories and will help us seize new opportunities around the world. We must now build on our global reputation for fostering innovative start-ups and ensure firms can access the talent, finance and support they need to scale up here in the UK.”
“This review will make an important contribution to our plan to retain the UK’s fintech crown, create more skilled jobs, and deliver better financial services for people and businesses.”
Ron Kalifa OBE said “Fintech has the power to change lives, both in terms of job creation and better wages that are so essential to our recovery and making financial services more accessible and relevant to people’s lives.”
“Britain has a proud record of starting-up and scaling-up some of the best-known fintech products, but we cannot rest on our laurels. The next powerhouses will not be created by accident.”
“We must continue to nurture our start-up culture, but crucially we must also give our high growth firms the support to become global giants.”
‘With the right reforms that encourage entrepreneurialism, investment and make it easy to attract and invest in talent, Britain can usher in a period of dominance that can help us build back better from Covid-19.”
Commenting on the reviews’ recommendations, Aleks Tomczyk COO at Exizent said “Fintech offers significant growth opportunities and has the potential to revolutionise the way we do finance. As Kalifa says in the start of his report, Fintech is not a niche within financial services, it is ‘a permanent, technological revolution’ and, in the current situation, where so much of what we do has moved online, this has never been more pertinent.
“The UK is currently a world leader in this space, but the rest of the world is catching up, so we cannot rest on our laurels. We therefore welcome the report’s recommendations, in particular around investment, skills, availability of talent and creating an environment to facilitate success, and as a Glasgow based firm, are pleased to see the recommendation that a ‘cluster’ is set up in the Edinburgh / Glasgow corridor to support the Scottish fintech sector.”
“As a growing tech for good business we were particularly pleased to see a focus on scale up enablement which helps facilitate progress using proven architecture to find solutions to known problems and also, as Exizent is a purpose-driven business, the recommendation that, while any implementation should have financial inclusion at its heart, the needs of vulnerable customers should be recognised, and addressed where possible. As a cloud-based bereavement platform provider, addressing vulnerability and pain for people at a sensitive time is integral to what we do.”
“What we would like to see now is for regulation to keep pace to help enable even more innovation. For example – permission for Open Banking currently ends when a person dies, but if it were to continue after death, this would revolutionize the probate process.”
