A City of London and PwC India joint report will be launched later this month in Mumbai analysing opportunities and challenges faced by the UK FinTech firms trying to invest in India. This launch will be followed by a trip to India by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Rt Hon Charles Bowman in October 2018, along with some 20 member delegates. The City of London is now inviting companies in the FinTech sector to join this delegation.
Speaking about his trip, the Lord Mayor told Asian Voice, “I will be heading a delegation to Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi in October this year. I’m seeking to take with me companies that are interested in flying the flag for UK innovation. So for any FinTech expert ready to learn about the Indian market with the aim of forging new partnerships – please do get in touch.
“Our work alongside the India Advisory Council is another way the City hopes to support UK-Indian partnership, particularly with our recent focus on the payments sector and further opportunities in India. With cashless payments hitting gigantic amounts – in fact, I believe the government is on its way to reaching their target of 25 billion digital payments in a year! The UK hopes to collaborate with India to bring about innovation and drive expertise in this field.”
A panel discussion was organised at the City Hall on Monday 16th July, to discuss the report which aims to gauge appetite from both the UK FinTech entrepreneurs and their Indian counterparts to consider in-bound and outbound investments in this area. It also aims to foster deeper engagement between the UK and Indian FinTech Payment firms, create the required visibility on the opportunities and challenges within India and UK for FinTech Payment firms and provide perspectives on the way forward including best practices that Payment Firms from the UK and India can leverage on. Panel members included Sanjay Jain, Chief Innovation Officer at the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship, IIM Ahmedabad, and the newest member of the IAC. Ron Kalifa, Deputy Director of Worldpay and Shiva Iyer, from PwC India.
The event coincided with a meeting of the City of London Corporation’s India Advisory Council (IAC), which focussed on FinTech exchanges between the UK and India. The City is also working with the Indian High Commission’s Access India programme as an official government partner to further UK-India collaboration in FinTech.
Speaking at the event, which was held on the eve of the 2nd Green Finance Summit in the City of London, the 690th Lord Mayor, Charles Bowman said, “FinTech is a key strength of the City of London – we are the world’s foremost FinTech centre - employing 61,000 people and some seven billion pounds to the UK economy every year.
“Some of the innovative solutions from companies in the room, or from UK FinTechs, have the potential to impact hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people and whilst profit is good, there is huge opportunity for financial inclusion in India and the opening out of financial services to those whom have never had access.”
His Excellency Y K Sinha, speaking before the panel discussion said, “We are very happy to partner with City in many ways. By next year we would be the 5th largest economy, and all forecasts are that India will show continuous growth. With UK leaving the EU, this is perhaps the right opportunity focussing and enhancing our bilateral trade. FinTech is an area where the UK is acknowledged as a global leader and City of London is a global financial centre. The sky is the limit as far as UK-India collaboration go. Last year the Chancellor took a FinTech delegation to India and since then we have had series of event including many ministerial visits. When the Indian Prime Minister was here earlier this year, opportunities in areas like electric cars, artificial intelligence and FinTech were discussed. The FinTech Rocketship Award was announced which provides great opportunity for mentoring young entrepreneurs, starting with 20 members from each other's country to understand the environment better.”
Innovate Finance, the independent membership association that represents the UK’s global FinTech community, alongside WPI Economics, released a report recently on the potential effects on the UK FinTech sector of future changes to the country’s immigration policy. The report provided new insight on the scope of the UK FinTech sector which currently represent. It said, “Failure to maintain a flexible immigration policy could harm the attractiveness of the UK as a place to do business and could lead to a shortfall in highly-skilled workers, resulting in a potential loss of £361m to the UK FinTech sector.”
76,500 employees of whom 42% are from overseas (28% from EEA countries, and 14% from non-EEA countries). Under the most likely scenario for future immigration policy, in which the system for EEA migrants moves closer to that for non-EEA migrants, the report predicts a shortfall of 3,200 highly-skilled workers by 2030, at a cost to the UK FinTech sector of £361m.
