Britain is ideally placed to enhance its role in the global economy through its leading role in fintech, the Chancellor will tell the UK’s inaugural International fintech conference today.
Philip Hammond is giving the speech at the conference in central London, which is being hosted by the Government to introduce over 100 UK fintech firms with investors from around the world.
Hammond will warn that Britain's leading status as a global financial powerhouse could wane if it does not seize and exploit the technological opportunities that lay before it.
In an extract from the speech Hammond says: "We must do better at nurturing and developing the home-grown talent to drive our economy forward in the future. Our vision of an outward-looking, global Britain will deliver the high-skilled, high-wage economy of the future that will power the higher living standards we all want to see for future generations.”
He cites fintech as providing consumers with "better services, more choice, and lower costs for businesses", adding that it can mean access to new and cheaper credit.
To help nurture the sector, Hammond said that Britain needed to continue to attract the brightest and the best from around the world to the industry.
In the notes that accompany the speech, the government calculates that the fintech sector already employs over 60,000 people in the UK and is worth nearly £7bn to the UK economy.
It attributes it as being responsible for innovations such as contactless payments, banking apps and online crowd funding.
It adds that "independent experts rank the UK as the best place to start and grow a fintech firm anywhere in the world".
The Financial Conduct Authority is currently looking into ways in which it can use regulation to help encourage more players to enter the UK fintech market.
