5 Influential FinTech Companies in UK Financial Services

By Leandra Monteiro

Financial technology or FinTech is not a sub-sector of financial services in the traditional sense of describing a particular activity or business model within the wider financial services market. Rather, it is a brand applied to firms operating across a wide range of financial services, using new technology to provide services in modern ways.

While technological innovation has always been at the forefront of advances in the financial services industry, FinTech is marked by the way a variety of new, new age technologies are being leveraged to change how financial services are delivered across different product types and customer segments.

Innovate Finance, the industry body representing UK FinTech, reported that the UK FinTech sector witnessed record investment in the first six months of 2021. The UK FinTech sector raised $5.7 billion in the first half of 2021, surpassing the total investment secured in 2020 ($4.3 billion) ) by 34% and broke the record year set in 2019 ($4.6 billion) by 26%.

According to Beauhurst, FinTech is the UK’s strongest start-up sector, with more than 1,400 high-growth FinTech companies currently active, 20 FinTech unicorns (around half of the UK’s billion-dollar start-ups) and more venture capital investments than anyone else. other industry.

Here are the top 5 FinTech companies in the UK:

Revolut is building the world’s first truly global financial super app to help people get more out of their money. In 2015, Revolut launched in the UK and offers money transfer and exchange. Today, more than 20 million customers worldwide use dozens of Revolut’s innovative products to make more than 250 million transactions a month.

Revolut recently raised $800 million in Series E to continue building the first global financial super app. The company also launched Stays, which makes it easy to book holidays directly from your Revolut app. It also launched On-Demand Pay to manage expenses when you need to by withdrawing earned salary early.

Thought Machine’s mission is to create technology that can power the world’s banks according to the best design and software practices of the modern era. By doing this, the company aims to rid the world’s banks of the problems generated by poor technology running on legacy infrastructure, properly and permanently.

Its core banking engine Vault Core was born in the spring of 2015. Since then, the company has expanded to more than 500 people across Europe, Asia, North America, Australasia and the Middle East. Temasek, Intesa Sanpaolo and Morgan Stanley have invested in Thought Machine’s $160 million Series D funding round, doubling the company’s valuation to $2.7 billion.

Founded in 2015 and launched in 2017, London-based Tide is one of the leading financial platforms in the UK. Tide helps SMEs save time and money in running their business by not only offering business accounts and related banking services, but also a comprehensive set of highly usable administrative solutions.

Tide has 450,000 SME members in the UK (around 8% market share). Tide has been funded by Apax Digital, Anthemis, Augmentum, Creandum, Goodwater, Jigsaw, Latitude, LocalGlobe, Passion Capital, SpeedInvest, SBI Group and Tencent, among others. It employs 1000+ professionals worldwide. Tide chose India as its first international market in 2020. With over 350 highly skilled employees in India.

TrueLayer is a global open banking platform that makes it easy for everyone to build better financial experiences. Businesses of all sizes can use TrueLayer to power their payments, access financial data and onboard customers across the UK, Europe and Australia. Founded in 2016, TrueLayer is trusted by millions of consumers and businesses worldwide. The company’s vision is to create an economic system that works for everyone.

Starling Bank is a fully licensed and regulated bank built to give people a fairer, smarter and more human alternative to the banks of the past. In addition to current accounts, it offers B2B banking and payment services through its Banking-as-a-Service model based on the proprietary technology platform that it uses to operate its own bank. Starling Marketplace offers customers in-app access to a selection of third-party financial services. Headquartered in London, it has offices in Southampton, Cardiff and Dublin.

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