FinTech companies are shaking up the financial services industry. They are leveraging new and emerging technologies in innovative and creative ways to create next gen products and services that have the potential to better meet the needs of consumers and businesses across all sectors of the economy. The transformative potential is exciting and the pace of change rapid.

In turn, this has created more fulsome competition with and within the established industry and financial services institutions are being driven to examine their own business models and technology estates in response. Sitting still is not an option and the disruption and change engendered by the digitisation of the industry is very much in keeping with what has been seen in other sectors. A blockbuster moment may well be on the horizon for a number of FIs.

As the competitive dynamics within the industry shift so do the dynamics between cities, regions and nations. Leading financial centres across the world may find their own positions threatened as technology and the pace of digitisation alter the foundations on which the industry has been built. The evidence of that has been the charge to capture the status as leading fintech hub and showcasing the characteristics of successful innovative economies. If you are a leading fintech hub, you shout about it and if you are looking to create one, shout about it even more.

Technology does not run independent of the base supporting its development and continued success and the most crucial component of that base is talent. The digital skills deficit, both current and looming larger on the horizon, threatens to derail the pace of innovation. Successful economies have always had to deliver the right skills for growing industries and in an increasingly mobile world, in terms of capital, the provision of services and talent, getting it right is even more important.

Clearly, there is a pressing need to address that gap across a wide range of tech skill categories. Companies in this sector need a lot more than just software development skills to build a fully digital industry.

What the future holds

As one of Britain’s fastest growing sectors, adding more than £6.6 billion into the UK’s economy and attracting more than £500 million of investment, the FinTech sector must address the shortage of talent so central to its continued success and innovation. This is equally true of the established financial services sector who find themselves in tough competition for tech talent across a wide range of sectors, equally as hungry for digital skills in a more challenging context (greater competition, Brexit and so on).

As the war for talent goes on, demand will continue to outweigh supply. There is no magic bullet and multiple pathways into industry need to be explored; apprenticeships, re-training of the current workforce and ensuring that all groups in society (women, minorities, older people, the economically disadvantaged and so on) are included in a forward looking, comprehensive talent strategy. However, the training process does require effort and is a costly investment that not all companies can afford. Fundamentally it is the people with a passion for technology that provide the long-term competitive edge for any business. But where and how to find them?

Financial inclusion on multiple levels

Now that data scientists, infrastructure experts, technologists, domain expertise, operating systems experts and digital security experts are in high demand, the question remains – where to find them? Indeed.com reports that the growth rate for these professions has reached more than 4,000 percent. The demand for individuals, who possess a deep understanding of advanced mathematics, data engineering and domain expertise, has never been higher.
FinTECHTalents provides a good starting point to help building the ecosystem and providing a short-term solution to what is a much larger and longer-term problem requiring collaboration across government, the private sector and academia. FinTECHTalents assembles the five components of a successful innovation framework in financial services: the incumbents, the investors, the entrepreneurs, the technology partners and the regulators. This provides an organic and productive environment for interaction, co-creation, lateral thinking, which are the pillars of FinTECHTalents.

Until the UK follows in the footsteps of South Korea with government-sponsored education that focuses on science, maths and tech to reap rewards for global tech innovation, FinTECH Talents can offer a one-stop shop for the financial services sector to access the talent of today and tomorrow; truly bringing together the entire ecosystem and demonstrating the spirit of excitement and innovation of a reinvigorated financial services sector.
The goal of ensuring a future work force that is adequately skilled and sufficient in number will be an ongoing challenge. In the near-term however, platforms that engage, through innovation rather than old-style recruitment, the talent of today and ensure the pipeline of tomorrow, will play an important strategic role for the industry.