The gift that keeps on giving: Fintech

Its been a turbulent week in Fintech!

1) Due Course // Goes into Administration

In the light of the recent announcement of Manchester's hottest Fintech Startup Due Course going into Administration, it has sent shockwaves through the startup industry.

They were truly the startup of the moment, having received the biggest amount of investment outside of London, a whopping £6.25million! Backers included founders and investors in Zoopla, LoveFilm, TransferWise and LinkedIn.

Their tagline was to 'Raise an invoice and be paid a few clicks later'.

The days of having negative cash flow for small and medium businesses, finally looked numbered. By all accounts, it seems like they ran out of runway to successfully build the product and launch.

They're such a great bunch of people and I hope that they can bounce back from this stronger than ever. Such sad news.

2) ProManchester: Fintech Event // Bridgewater Hall (27.07.2017)

Yesterday I attended a well organised and thought provoking Fintech discussion at the Bridgewater Hall with ProManchester.

It was clear that we (Manchester) still had a long way to go in terms of the level of understanding of Fintech and its influence on reworking financial regulations, pushing innovation and changing customer behaviour.

It also highlighted that there's a real appetite from the finance industry to learn more about new technical frontiers and that we need more events that raise the awareness and create synergy between both finance and technology companies respectively.

3) Manchester churns out the largest number of Fintech Graduates.. then lose them to the shiny bright lights of London.

Finally, I was astounded to hear from someone at the University of Manchester, that Manchester creates the highest number of Fintech graduates but lose them to other places as the salary is greater elsewhere and opportunities more rife.

We need to do more in retaining the homegrown talent. Burnham, one for you mate?

4) Glimmer of hope for debt ridden Millennials?

Phillip Nunn, wants to make 'pensions sexy'.

He's the CEO of the Blackmore Group and was one of four panelist's at the ProManchester Fintech event.

I'm not usually a sucker for taglines, however, I really do believe he can lead a revolution on how millennials are currently making transactions and save for the future.

He revealed this week he's working on a solution aimed at Millennials and I can't wait to hear more.

I'm 25 and I know I'm on the borderline of being the lost generation, in debt to our eyeballs.

One third of the under-35s surveyed said that they can’t afford to save as a result of university debt and 27 per cent said that there is little point in investing because they are in so much debt.

Finally, we have someone who has a solution to help us to plan and forecast for the future! Hurrah!

5) Berlin // Silicon Valley of Europe

I visited Berlin this week and checked in with a friend who has his own FinTech company called Taqanu.

Its essentially a bank for refugees, allowing everyone to have banking, regardless of residency and available documents.

He's hoping that he'll be able to open accounts in 2 minutes, which beats challenger bank N26, who open bank accounts in 8 minutes.

See site here: https://www.taqanu.com

This is an example of true innovation, attempting to face the complexities around the number of refugees in Germany and across the world and creating a solution for the vulnerable few and not the many.

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I wonder how Manchester can create a solution that can truly change the world in Fintech...

It's not like we haven't done it before! ;)