UKTI released a report titled “Fintech – the UK’s unique environment for growth” on 6th August 2014 to coincide with the launch of the new UK Fintech organisation Innovate Finance.
The report looks at the strengths of the UK’s Fintech sector and how overseas companies can benefit from setting up in the UK.
The full report can be viewed or downloaded here.
Fintech in the UK. The UK is a uniquely well-suited location for technology applied to financial services – Fintech.
This fast-growing sector covers both: (1) Traditional Fintech (with larger incumbent technology firms supporting the financial services sector), and (2) Emergent Fintech (with small, innovative firms using new technology to bring financial services directly to consumers, often disrupting existing business models).
The UK and Ireland is now the fastest-growing region for Fintech investment (Accenture). Deal volumes here have been growing at 74 percent a year since 2008, compared with 27 percent globally and 13 percent in Silicon Valley. During the same period, the value of Fintech investment increased nearly eightfold, to US$265 million in 2013 – a rate of 51 percent a year, nearly twice the global average (26 percent), and more than twice that of Silicon Valley (23 percent). The UK’s growing strengths in Fintech are due to: