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Matt Harvey, Senior Front-End Developer at Neo, writes for the Cambridge Independent.
In recent years, the UK fintech industry has become much less London-centric. For many start-ups, the cost of office space in London is hard to justify, especially with how the world has adjusted to remote working over the past year.
When you add the growing competition for tech talent, the cost of living in London, and the growing trend of the ‘reverse brain drain’, where people move away from big cities, other regions become more attractive. as a basis for starting new businesses.
Cambridge has done particularly well in this regard – a recent report from the Global Fintech Index showed that it has become a new hotspot for UK fintech, dropping from 55 places in 2020 to 38th on a global list of fintech hubs.
But why is Cambridge – or Silicon Fen for the locals – attracting fintech companies like Neo, and what does that mean for the region?
Decades of investments and partnerships that bear fruit
First, housing a booming industry and attracting more businesses will boost the local economy. In the first quarter of 2021 alone, FinTech companies around the world raised $ 22.8 billion. This means more jobs and local investment.
Earlier this year, the UK government’s Kalifa review for the fintech industry proposed the creation of fintech ‘hubs’ across the UK that will support and tailor regional specialties unique to the UK, such as intellectual property created in UK universities. This represents a huge opportunity for Cambridge.
This strategy is a continuation of an approach that has been in place for decades to improve collaboration between universities and companies focused on science, technology and engineering. This has attracted an array of pioneering global companies and research firms to establish a presence in the region.
By positioning itself as a hub for one of the world’s most exciting industries, Cambridge has the opportunity to welcome the next generation of innovative technology companies, potentially generating thousands of jobs and millions of investments.
Why Cambridge for Neo?
Neo is a financial technology company established in 2017 to create an integrated enterprise banking, payment and treasury management system affordable for SMEs. Our unique platform brings together treasury, payment, cash flow management and currency execution functionalities in one place, making life easier for finance professionals and small business owners alike by saving them money. time and money.
These companies are the backbone of the UK economy and huge engines of innovation. For example, the voice recognition technology behind Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa was developed by small businesses in Cambridge.
But SME owners face many challenges in accessing efficient cross-border banking services and have to pay high fees for payments. Many existing processes rely on decades-old, slow and cumbersome archaic technology. We saw the opportunity to change that.
We opened our Innovation Lab in Cambridge in 2018. Based in the Castle Park area, our team is responsible for the technological and engineering processes that underpin our system.
When we were looking for locations, we looked at different cities around the world. We wanted to focus on talent grown in top universities, but stay somewhere close to our clients, partners and investors, many of whom are based in the UK and Europe.
So Cambridge, with its world-renowned university and talents, as well as its proximity to London, was a natural fit for us.
Looking ahead, the next few years should be very important for British fintech clusters like Cambridge. No country in Europe compares with the scale of the FinTech industry in the UK and the review of Kalifa clearly showed the UK’s intention to maintain this advantage and ensure that the entire country gets a piece of the pie. This will further consolidate cities like Cambridge as one of the most dynamic and welcoming places to start and grow a fintech business.
We are proud to be part of the local fintech scene and the team here will be integral to our success. We may be operating globally in over 20 countries, but our technology is proudly made in Cambridge.
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