At Labour’s Conference in Brighton, FinTech was at the centre of discussions, at a roundtable and a fringe event - as well as being the first topic mentioned by Bloomberg at their business leadership reception.
Our Director of Strategy, Ali Griffiths, represented Innovate Finance in Brighton, to highlight the work of the FinTech sector.
At a roundtable hosted by the City of London Corporation and the Institute for Public Policy Research, a panel discussion explored how the public and private sectors could drive local inclusive growth.
The speakers were Catherine McGuinness of City of London Corporation, and Liam Byrne MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth. Others attending included HSBC, Aviva, UK Finance, The Investment Association, KPMG, Lloyds Banking Group, the ABI and Barclays Bank.
Catherine McGuinness made the case that financial services are an integral part of the solution to local inclusive growth, and a key component of a new industrial strategy. The challenge is to share the high levels of productivity in London and prosperity right across the UK, as well as into the pockets of deprivation in London itself.
Liam Byrne MP spoke about the acute need for growth in cities and towns across the UK, which he believes need to be solved locally. He sees existing issues being exacerbated in the future by “The 3 Rises - robots, tradewars and temperatures”. He commented that FinTech is a “critical part of the solution”.
Ali Griffiths explained to the roundtable that numerous FinTechs are democratising access to finance for many of those currently without access to it, as well as delivering business loans to small businesses. She made the case for City Mayors to collaborate on attracting talent and investment to deliver growth, by developing the ecosystems between our regional cities.
At a fringe event in the afternoon, run by the Fabian Society, we highlighted the record investment into the sector in 2019, and reiterated the impact of UK-based FinTechs in creating access to finance for those previously without it. Yvette Cooper MP discussed her new commission whose remit is to explore ways to attract businesses to expand their operations in regional towns, as well as regional cities.
Next week, we move to Manchester, to highlight the FinTech sector to the Conservative Party Conference.
