The Department for International Trade (DIT) announced the Fintech Champions for Scotland and Wales at the Board of Trade meeting in Wales yesterday.
DirectID have been appointed as the Fintech Champions for Scotland, with Yoello selected as the Welsh Fintech Champion. They join the previously announced Northern Ireland Fintech Champion FinTrU, meaning that a Champion is now in place across each of the devolved nations.
The Fintech Champions scheme was established by DIT last year as a way of better supporting the UK Fintech industry. Each Fintech Champion will be tasked with working alongside other industry leaders to elevate the UK’s status as a global Fintech hub.
They’ll also be asked to help promote expansion around the world and help businesses scale-up and up-skill by providing one-to-one sector-specific advice.
Headquartered in Northern Ireland, FinTrU is a multi-award-winning technologically enabled Regulatory Solutions company. The company designs technology-enabled solutions to help their clients meet their regulatory obligations.
Appointed at the end of last year, they have already been working to promote the UK as a place to do business.
Darragh McCarthy, Founder & CEO at FinTrU, said:
“We are proud of our position as the FinTech Champion for Northern Ireland. With offices around the globe, we have been extolling the benefits of doing business in the UK to everyone that we work with.
“We have also been helping to support other businesses that have been set-up locally, and it is great that Scottish and Welsh businesses will also be able to benefit from the FinTech Champion programme.”
Minister for Exports Andrew Bowie said:
“Fintech is already worth billions to the UK economy, and we’re keen to see the industry continue to grow over the coming years.
“With these two companies joining the Fintech Champions programme, we now have expertise supporting businesses across all four nations who want to scale up their operations.
“Both are leaders in the industry and will do a fantastic job promoting the UK’s place as a global Fintech hub.”
The UK is already a world leader in Fintech, owning more than 10% of the global market share and is forecast to grow dramatically to £380 billion by 2030.
The UK also secures 11% of all global investment into the sector, attracting nearly half of all investment in Europe. Innovate Finance estimate total investment into British fintechs jumped more than 217% to $11.6bn in 2021.
With an increasing number of Fintech firms exporting globally from the UK, DIT is helping the sector take advantage of our global trade links, ultimately creating more jobs and driving further investment into all corners of the country.
The new Scottish Fintech Champion, DirectID, was the earliest open banking pioneer, and provides advanced open banking data for credit & risk decision makers in 46 countries.
James Varga, CEO & Founder at DirectID said:
“I was incredibly humbled and excited when I was invited to help champion exporting in the Fintech sector.
“DirectID now powers some of the world’s biggest brands in North America, Europe and Asia to scale, drive efficiencies, manage risk, and create fairer outcomes for their customers.
“Whether it’s working with other industry figures to promote the UK as a place to do business, or sharing knowledge of our experience exporting to multi-national organisations, I’m proud to be supporting the growth of the £11 billion UK fintech economy.”
The Welsh Fintech Champion, Yoello, launched two years ago and has since won national awards for its QR Pay solutions, providing free payments to help save UK businesses billions of pounds every year in transaction fees.
Yoello’s order and payment solutions are now used by hospitality and retail businesses all over the world including the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. They continue to rapidly enter new markets with the majority of their international partnerships being with acquiring banks, payment providers and POS systems.
Yoello Founder & CEO, Sina Yamani said:
"Wales is an incredible hub for Fintech in the UK, with initiatives such as the Cardiff Capital Region and Fintech Wales helping businesses to scale and contribute to the Welsh economy through increasing employment, exports and investments.
“I am honoured to support the Welsh Fintech Champion programme and look forward to helping accelerate the growth ambitions of businesses towards the thriving Welsh economy.
“We've seen huge growth among the Fintech cluster thanks to the support of the UK Government and DIT, and their continuing support through this programme will help us grow the Welsh and UK economy even further."
For media enquiries and interview requests, please contact communications@fintru.com.
