London tipped to lead the fintech world

Britain’s developers are right to be snubbing banks for fintech companies, assuming that such IT professionals want a stake in a world-beating business.

In fact, London and the UK “will lead the fintech sector” on a global basis, says UK Treasury special envoy Eileen Burbridge, who is a partner at tech venture capitalists Passion Capital.   

Speaking at London Fintech Week, Burbridge outlined why the finance-tech space “can’t be [dominated by] Silicon Valley,” in spite of the US being the space’s biggest investor to date.   

The interaction of the systems of finance, government and IT is unique in the UK which, she said, benefits from the fact that “Wall Street talent doesn’t come to Silicon Valley.”

“They,” said Durbridge, referring to the California-based IT-business hub, “have produced a few start-ups like Stripe but numbers are tiny compared to the UK.”

Figures released by organisers of the London summit support her stance. They show that UK fintech start-ups have attracted more investment than the rest of Europe put together.

In the five years to 2015, UK fintech investment hit $5.4billion – about £3.5bn – compared with £$4.4bn for Europe as a whole. The US remains top however, having pulled in $32bn.