A week is a long time in fintech

From Ezechi Britton MBE, CEO

I often say that, looking back over the relatively brief existence of the Centre for Finance, Innovation & Technology, it’s remarkable at how much has been accomplished in such little time.

In scarcely over a year since CFIT was founded, and just 12 months since I joined as CEO, we’ve coordinated with industry, government and regulators to begin solving the complex challenge of Open Finance and engaged with a diverse range of stakeholders on an array of other issues facing the UK fintech sector – all while setting up a new organisation from scratch.

But even against these standards of activity, last week felt like a big one.

On Monday and Tuesday, we were in attendance at the tenth annual Innovate Finance Global Summit, hosted by the City of London Corporation in the historic Guildhall.

And we were delighted to hear Bim Afolami MP, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, kick off the event with a landmark announcement: the creation of a new industry-led Open Finance Taskforce.?

Chaired by our own chair, Charlotte Crosswell, and with CFIT playing a central coordinating role, the taskforce will identify and prioritise more use cases for Open Finance, new datasets to be unlocked and APIs to be created in order to facilitate better SME finance availability. It will also identify commercially viable approaches to incentivise businesses to securely share their financial data, before considering appropriate next steps towards implementing any agreed recommendations.

Its creation fulfils one of the key recommendations set out in the blueprint report published by CFIT on 29 February, at the conclusion of our industry-wide coalition’s first phase of work.

Two days later, we made a second announcement, delivering on two more of the recommendations contained within our blueprint report.

On Wednesday, we were delighted to reveal the details of two pilot initiatives that are set to scale the proofs of concept (PoCs) developed during our coalition’s work.

These PoCs had proven the business case for building Open Finance solutions for use cases such as supporting vulnerable consumers and improving SMEs’ access to finance.

Now we will be working with Citizens Advice (CA) to build on the data-sharing dashboard we helped them to build, to deliver pilot schemes in Stoke and North Tyneside that will provide real-world benefits in terms of how quickly CA can serve clients. And, on the SME finance front, lenders including Barclays will design and implement Open Finance solutions that build on the successful pilot analysis we ran with our partners last year.

The two announcements set out a clear set of next steps for capitalising on the momentum around Open Finance that we generated through our coalition. As we always said, the coalition was only ever the first phase.

This work was also reflected in the Smart Data Roadmap published by the UK Government on Thursday. Following on from the success of Open Banking, finance represents the logical tip of the spear for rolling out data portability across a wider swathe of the economy. In other words, Open Finance is the next and crucial step en route to an Open Data economy. We’re proud to be the delivery body responsible for driving this forward.

But there is lots we are looking at and working on beyond Open Finance. Two other industry events in which we participated last week served to underline precisely that.

On Friday, I gave a speech at the annual UK FinTech Academic Network (UKFAN) conference, where I issued a call to action for the academic sector. We need academia to work hand-in-glove with industry and government to ensure that cutting-edge research programmes are informing the thinking, strategy and investment of financial institutions and technology companies, so that they can more effectively deliver benefits for consumers and businesses.

The interrelated issues of talent and diversity represent another long-term challenge facing the UK fintech industry. Last Tuesday, Charlotte spoke at the Personal Investment Management & Advice Association (PIMFA) Women’s Symposium on the importance of attracting and retaining women in a male-dominated industry.

That is the only way that the UK fintech industry can act as the country’s strongest engine of social mobility and professional opportunity, which it undoubtedly has the potential to be. But, from employers’ perspective, it is also the only way that we will address the growing shortfall in people that we need to fill the rising demand for financial technology skills.

The tenth edition of the annual IFGS event gave rise to many conversations around what the next decade of technological evolution in financial services will look like. The changes will be far-reaching and profound.

At CFIT, we’re excited to be both moving forward in the short term with our next steps on Open Finance, while continuing to engage with industry around the other big questions looming over UK fintech.

Watch this space for more updates on all fronts.