The Future of FinTech

On Monday 11 September, I joined a panel discussion at the London Women's Forum, along with Imran Gulamhuseinwala, OBE (Global Head of Fintech, EY, and Implementation Trustee for Open Banking), Antony Jenkins (Founder and CEO of 10x Future Technologies), and Pascale Moreau (Global Deputy Head of Fixed Income & Currencies Sales, Société Générale).

The London Women’s Forum is an ‘invitation only’ group of senior City women who come together to discuss issues common to all their organisations. (Thanks to EY for hosting this time around.) The subject of the day was FinTech.

Even a definition of FinTech as a sector is up for debate: associated with start-up, disruptive companies, when in fact there is a long heritage of FinTech innovation hidden behind the walls of financial institutions.

On the panel discussion, we debated whether there was acceleration. When financial services, regulation and customer experience are moving forward at full speed, then there is bound to be a non-linear expansion of supporting technology.

FinTech is destined to grow, but only if there is access to capital and talent. In the UK this already accounts for:

•60,000 jobs and contributes £6.6bn annually to the national economy.

Innovate Finance, the industry sound box and champion, plays a key role in presenting and nurturing the UK’s position as a world leader.

Yet in many ways the big revolution is yet to come. Early stage disruptors already bring new ideas to the table, but it is the infrastructure powering the financial institutions that needs serious upgrade.Continued challenges restrict the progress of the capital markets. Enter FinTech – Blockchain, big data, AI and more – at industrial scale. Only when this is in place will we see real change.

There remains much to accomplish, but this creates great opportunity. Furthermore, the recent FinTech Census, published this month by EY, HM Treasury and Innovate Finance, shows that 44% of the FinTech Census universe are FCA- or PRA-regulated. I wager that in ten years’ time it will be difficult to see the difference between “Financial Services” and “FinTech.” In fact, Financial Services will be FinTech.