A fintech trade mission, organised by UK Trade & Investment, has headed to Switzerland this week to promote the UK’s fintech sector, attract investment and boost business opportunities.
Switzerland is currently ramping up its fintech initiatives with the launch of new incubators to help start-ups such as SIX Group and Fusion. The country is also developing expertise in ‘robo-advice’ for wealth and asset management, and cyber security.
The two-day mission will give local institutions and investors in Zurich and Geneva a chance to meet with UK firms that are developing technologies in the fintech space including distributed ledger technology and data analytics for risk and portfolio management in asset management, banking and insurance.
The fintech companies selected for the trip include Innovate Finance and its members Bankable, Clear Macro, Credits, Feature Space, Live Data Set, Origin, Percentile, Prophis and Sybenetix.
Britain’s fintech market generates £20bn in annual revenue and over 44,000 people work in the sector in London alone.
Commenting on the significance of the mission Lawrence Wintermeyer, CEO of Innovate Finance and London Tech Ambassador, said: “The size of the global financial services market in payments, lending, and investment management is alluring to innovators who believe they can deliver better propositions to customers than traditional banks and insurance companies. This coupled with a large global pool of available investment capital in both venture capital and institutional venture has created a demand for innovate fintechs.”
He believes that Switzerland can learn a lot from the UK. “The big lesson from the UK is collaboration. Innovate Finance is a single point of access for the FinTech ecosystem and we work to service our members by promoting and engaging in collaborations between startups, institutions, regulators, and venture capital to help them better understand how to work together to create better solutions for customers.”