How the UK will become a world leader in FinTech to rival Silicon Valley
Innovate Finance’s manifesto outlines our vision for FinTech 2020 for the UK.
It’s bold and ambitious, but also achievable if we continue to have the support from everyone within our ecosystem. According to Prime Minister David Cameron, his government wants the UK to “be the leading FinTech centre in the world” and has appointed a Special Envoy, passion capital's Eileen Burbidge, for this fast growing sector.
He’s’ also led a trade delegation to Asia this week with FinTech entrepreneurs on board to showcase the immense talent our £20bn sector and to attract more investment to the UK.
Read more: David Cameron backs manifesto to make UK a world leader in FinTech
Our FinTech goals for 2020 outline our ambition to make the UK the most investment-friendly environment for FinTech globally. We want to attract $4bn of venture investment and $4bn of institutional investment in corporate venture funds, accelerators and innovation programmes.
We also want to transform the UK as the destination of choice for FinTech entrepreneurs to set up a business, launch an IPO or gain global market share by valuation.
Finally and crucially, we want to create 100,000 jobs for our sector by increasing investment in FinTech and developing more global leading companies that will generate this level employment. We can achieve this by helping to create the skilled workforce necessary to make the UK the global centre for FinTech.
Innovate Finance is already responding to the chancellor’s call for apprenticeships to deliver FinTech job placements by working closely with business leaders and academic institutions. Among our many initiatives is an exciting talent partnership with Imperial College Business School and UCL University to provide Innovate Finance members with access to the best computer science and business students for paid internships for their companies.
We’ve also partnered with Open University to launch the world’s first introductory course on financial technology. The online training course, FinTech 101: Understanding Financial Technologies, offers 50 hours of module-based learning and provides examples of the technologies making up this niche ecosystem and how they can help to democratise and contribute to the sustainability of financial services.
In addition to helping create a skilled workforce we are working closely with regulators, startups, accelerators and policy makers to ensure that the right incentives and business conditions are in place to attract the big-scale investment we need to give Silicon Valley a run for its money.
Our Chairman, Al Lukies, believes the UK has “a critical role to play in ensuring financial inclusion, common standards, continued innovation and socially enhancing services for all.”
Our manifesto states our intentions to achieve these ambitions and with the help of our sector, we are confident that by 2020 we will unlock the potential of FinTech innovation for the UK economy and make financial services better and more inclusive for future generations.