UK FinTech Body Launches FinTech For Schools Initiative

Innovate Finance, the independent industry body for UK FinTech, today launches its FinTech for Schools Initiative, with the aim of inspiring the next generation of FinTech leaders and raising young people’s ambitions for innovation in financial services.

FinTech for Schools is an important piece of Innovate Finance’s Skills and Talent work, which aims to support a future domestic pipeline of talent as well as showcasing the various skills initiatives of its members in one, easily accessible place.

To celebrate the launch, Innovate Finance, along with a selection of its 200 FinTech members, will be hosting a school event to introduce students to financial services and technology, and demystify one of the UK’s fastest growing sectors: FinTech.

The FinTech for Schools campaign is designed to encourage young people to understand the increasing importance of digital skills in the workplace, with an emphasis on ensuring the sector is appealing to girls.

It has been shown that by the age of 10, children already have a strong sense of identity of what they can and can’t do. Inspiring young girls from an early age, by providing them with a wide variety of role models from diverse backgrounds and skill sets, is a vital first step in creating a new model to deliver real change in terms of diversity.

The sector continues to grow rapidly and therefore needs to appeal to a diverse workforce to fill the many exciting opportunities within FinTech companies. It is therefore important to target secondary school students to inspire them at this crucial point in their lives, as they make decisions between universities or more specialised further education such as apprenticeships.

Featured speakers at the school event include City of London Corporation’s Alderman William Russell, Innovate Finance’s CEO Charlotte Crosswell and two representatives from Innovate Finance member firms: Oval Money CEO and Co-Founder Benedetta Arese Lucini and Jonathan Naismith, Business Development Manager at Exate Technology.

Charlotte Crosswell, CEO of Innovate Finance, commented:

“FinTech is one of the UK’s fastest growing industries and one where we hold a strong competitive advantage.  Success is however heavily dependent on talent, which is in short supply both domestically and globally. It is vital that we ensure we are inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators, and equipping them with the skills they will need to succeed.  We are committed to working with schools, universities and our larger financial institutions on their schools engagement programmes to ensure a bright future for all.”

In April 2018 Innovate Finance released Supporting UK FinTech: Accessing a Global Talent Pool, a research report in conjunction with WPI Economics which suggests the UK FinTech workforce is set to double to 3,300 firms by 2030.

About Innovate Finance: An independent membership association that is at the heart of the UK’s FinTech ecosystem. Founded in 2014 and supported by the City of London and Broadgate, Innovate Finance is a not-for-profit whose mission is to accelerate the country’s leading position in the financial services sector by directly supporting the next generation of technology- led financial services innovators. More than 200 global members have joined the Innovate Finance ecosystem to date, ranging from seed stage startups to global financial institutions and professional services firms. All benefit from Innovate Finance’s leading position as the single point of access to promote enabling policy and regulation, talent development, business opportunity and growth, and investment capital. By bringing together the most forward-thinking participants in financial services, Innovate Finance is helping create a global financial services sector that is more sustainable, more inclusive and better for everyone.