Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to promote fintech investment and skills development in regions outside London.

The UK has a world-leading Fintech sector throughout the UK.

The Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy identified Fintech as a priority growth opportunity, and set out measures to support investment in the sector, including welcoming the City of London Corporation and the British Business Bank facilitating greater access to finance and commercial opportunities for fast-growing Fintech firms across the UK.

This is in addition to wider action to boost investment throughout the UK, which includes the recent Spending Review settlement which increased the British Business Bank’s total financial capacity to £25.6 billion, enabling the Bank to back tens of billions of pounds’ worth of additional lending and investment to SMEs and scale-ups.

In the Strategy, the government has also committed to supporting the development of an industry-led Skills Compact for financial services and commissioned the Financial Services Skills Commission to produce a report on how the skills system can drive growth and productivity in financial services by supporting effective adoption of AI and other disruptive technologies. Both projects are UK-wide in scope.