UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) release a research report titled “Fintech – the UK’s unique environment for growth”

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: 

• the presence of a large and technologically sophisticated customer base 
• London’s position as a world-leading centre for financial services  
• good availability of business capital 
• a supportive regulatory approach
• excellent financial services infrastructure, and 
• London’s position as a global trading hub. 

In addition, the UK offers many specific market opportunities in Fintech, especially in relation to payments, platforms, software and data analytics. In Fintech, the UK is the place to do business, and the UK Government is committed to supporting Fintech companies. Today many of the biggest players in Fintech have chosen to have a base in the UK.

The UK Fintech market and Regulation 
The UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), supports the Fintech industry, providing transparency and creating a level playing field. The FCA liaises with other parts of the UK Government, so that it speaks with one voice, and it has a reputation for being open-minded. The FCA’s Project Innovate is a clear signal that the regulator wants to ensure that Fintech businesses operating in the UK are supported by the UK’s regulatory environment. As part of the project, the FCA has said that it will open its doors to any company that is developing new business models that fall outside of current regulation.

UK has supportive tax measures A number of tax incentives are also provided by the UK Government to encourage innovation, including in Fintech. They include:

 – the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS)
– the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS)
– Entrepreneurs’ Relief (ER) – R&D tax credits
 – the Employee Share Scheme (ESS)
 – the Patent Box scheme, whereby companies pay a lower rate of Corporation Tax on profits earned from their patented inventions and other innovations.

UKTI commissioned EY (Ernst & Young) to carry out research on the UK’s Fintech sector. The findings were used to create this report.

 Source : http://gov.uk and http://gov.uk/ukti

New UK Fintech industry body Innovate Finance launched by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the City of London Corporation and the Canary Wharf Group

Innovate Finance http://innovatefinance.com is the new UK industry body established to promote the interests of the UK’s rapidly growing Fintech sector. The launch was held on 6th August 2014, at Level39 http://level39.co. Online reports indicate that 250 people attended the launch.

What is Innovate Finance?
Innovate Finance is an UK industry organisation that will accelerate the UK's leading position in the global financial services sector, by directly supporting the next era of technology-led financial services innovators, whether they be a young start-up or an established industry player.

The organisation aims to be a single access point to the full financial services and technology ecosystem and – through its own innovation programmes and partnerships with other organisations – connects members to policymakers, regulators, investors, customers, educators, talent and key commercial partners (Including FCA Project Innovate, British Business Bank, TechUK and Open University).

The organisation is led by CEO Claire Cockerton, with a Board of Directors that includes Fintech leaders such as Nick Hungerford of Nutmeg, Justin Fitzpatrick of DueDil, and Alastair Lukies of Monitise Plc, who will serve as the organisation’s Non-Executive Chairman.  An Advisory Council of industry experts includes Eric Van der Kleij, Head of Level39 Technology Accelerator and Nadeem Shaikh of Anthemis Group, among others.


At launch it was reported that the organisation had over 50 founding members.

Innovate Finance is supported by the City of London Corporation www.cityoflondon.gov.uk as lead sponsor. The Canary Wharf Group plc www.canarywharf.com is a founding sponsor committing funding and high-tech office and events space.

The launch video can be viewed here :



Innovate Finance Launch from Innovate Finance on Vimeo.
Innovate Finance launched on August 6th 2014.

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) has published a report that sets out the strengths of the UK’s fintech sector and the market opportunities for Fintech companies

The UKTI publication titled “Fintech: The UK’s Unique Environment for Growth” gives an overview of why the UK is a unique location for companies specialising in Fintech (Financial Technology).

UKTI publication suggests that the Fintech market in payments, platforms, software and data analytics is worth £20 billion to the UK annually. The research was commissioned by UKTI and carried out by EY (Ernst & Young). EY has for the first time mapped out the opportunities and strengths of the UK’s fintech sector by speaking to existing investors.  The UKTI report can be viewed / downloaded here.

The UKTI report was published to coincide with the launch of new UK Fintech industry trade body. 

Innovate Finance is a new UK industry organisation that aims to accelerate the UK’s leading position in the global financial services sector. It will support young or established technology-led financial services innovators.  

Fintech backdrop

Since 2008, the value of Fintech investment in the UK and Ireland region has increased almost 8 times to US$265 million in 2013. This makes the UK and Ireland the fastest growing regions for fintech investment globally. The UK’s strengths in fintech are due to:

• London’s position as a world leading centre for financial services 
• Edinburgh, Belfast, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff all have strong financial services sectors 
• good availability of business capital 
• a supportive regulatory structure

Opportunity for overseas businesses
There are big opportunities for overseas companies looking to invest in the UK’s growing Fintech industry. This includes setting up business operations in the UK. About 1.1 million people work in financial services in the UK, with two thirds of those employed outside London. Overseas companies investing in the UK will be able to find highly qualified and experienced staff. A wide range of financial support is also available for fintech businesses in the UK. Start-ups or early stage companies can also benefit from setting up in the UK. Tech City (London) attracted more than 15,000 new companies in the year to April 2013

Source : http://uk.gov

Fintech Investment Boom is an Opportunity for New York to Lead in Technology, According to Report by Accenture, Partnership Fund for New York City

A recent report, titled “The Rise of Fintech; New York’s opportunity for tech leadership,” was released for the FinTech Innovation Lab’s fourth annual “Demo Day” event in New York.  The report was made by Accenture in  partnership with the Partnership Fund for New York City.

The report  says that deals and investments in New York’s Fintech venture sector have been growing at twice the rate of Silicon Valley since 2008 and further the trend is accelerating innovation among New York’s global financial institutions.

Global fintech investment tripled between 2008 and 2013 from $928 million to $2.97 billion and is expected to double again to between $6 billion and $8 billion by 2018. The first quarter of 2014 was the most active on record, with $1.7 billion invested globally. Silicon Valley is still by far the world’s biggest recipient of fintech investment, but it is facing growing competition from New York. Banks, capital markets firms and insurers are increasingly aware of the benefit of having a fintech cluster close to home.

The Accenture study can be viewed or downloaded at the following link: http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-rise-fintech-new-york.aspx

London is Benefitting from Fintech Investment Boom, according to Accenture Study

Recent research published by Accenture says that London is benefitting most from a global boom in fintech investment and that the London Fintech boom is strong because the City of London has a long tradition of strength in the financial services sector.

The Accenture study is titled: “The Boom in Global Fintech Investment; A new growth opportunity for London”, is based on an analysis of global Fintech investment data from CB Insights.

The Accenture report can be downloaded at the following link:

http://www.accenture.com/Microsites/fsinsights/capital-markets-uk/Documents/Accenture-Global-Boom-in-Fintech-Investment.pdf

A Research Report on Crowdfunding regulation in Europe issued by European Crowdfunding Network

The European Crowdfunding Network’s report is titled “Review of Crowdfunding Regulation - Interpretations of existing regulation concerning crowdfunding in Europe, North America and Israel”

The report provides in depth cover of the current regulatory approaches to crowdfunding in 29 countries, considering the varying applications of the single market legislation to Crowdfunders across Europe both now and in the foreseeable future. The report also reviews Crowdfunding regulation in North America and Israel.

On 3 October 2013 the European Commission started a public consultation asking for opinions on a (possible) harmonised regulation of Crowdfunding until 31 December 2013.   Crowdfunding is already restricted by national regulatory provisions, but the continuing development of the European single market in financial services has and will continue to ensure that there is a small degree of conformity between those national regimes, even absent any Crowdfunding-specific European regulation. Further it can be anticipated that Crowdfunding could be even more restricted under the future AIFMD regime.  The report can be viewed / downloaded here

Source:  European Crowdfunding Network, Belgium (2013) http://crowdfundingnetwork.org