Teenage kicks hard to beat for Innovate Finance
Innovate Finance has unveiled a talent and skills programme to ensure the UK can get young people involved in the world of fintech.
FinTech for Schools… for a nation’s future
Called FinTech for Schools, the independent not-for-profit membership association wants to provide a “diverse range of ways to get involved and to inspire the current and next generation of innovators”.
It aims to get interest from schools, universities, and companies to promote fintech opportunities to young people.
Fintech in the UK is doing well, and Innovate Finance wants to keep it that way. For example, as reported last month, UK fintech investment rose by 18% to a record $3.3 billion in 2018.
The idea of FinTech for Schools is to support a future domestic pipeline of talent, and encourage digital skills in the workplace, “with an emphasis on ensuring the sector is appealing to girls”.
If you look at the stats on Innovate Finance’s website, 76,000 people are employed in the UK fintech sector and there are 1,600 UK companies. Out of that, 42% of the workforce is from overseas.
However, only 6% of UK deals had a female founder – and that represented a mere 3% of total capital invested in UK fintech in 2018.
FinTech for Schools will target secondary school students to inspire them as they make decisions between universities or more specialised further education such as apprenticeships
To get this initiative moving along, it will host sessions in schools and organise regular career events. This starts with City of London Schools, but Innovate Finance will be expanding out to more schools both regionally and nationally – private and state.
On Innovate Finance’s website it has a number of member programmes and courses to support all its plans. Banks include RBS, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and Santander.
