Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology launches to support UK fintech
A new private sector-led body, the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), has been set up to nurture the UK’s fintech scene.
CFIT chair Charlotte Crosswell
The CFIT will be chaired by Charlotte Crosswell, a former CEO of both Innovate Finance and Nasdaq NLX. She currently chairs the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE).
Among her “vast experience”, Crosswell has also served as a board director at LCH, UK Finance and TheCityUK, and headed up international business development at the London Stock Exchange Group. She will start her new role on 4 January 2023.
Borne out of the 2021 Kalifa Review, the CFIT’s mission is to support UK fintechs looking to scale and to ensure the UK remains a “global leader for financial innovation”.
Kalifa says: “CFIT will be focussed on bringing together the best minds from the ecosystem to drive better outcomes for consumers and SMEs across the UK.”
The City of London Corporation and HM Treasury are stumping up a combined £5.5 million seed funding for CFIT. After the seed funding period, CFIT will be self-financing.
CFIT will bring together experts in finance and technology from across the UK to devise solutions to issues facing fintech firms including how to help firms scale, how to foster collaboration within and between growing national and regional fintech hubs, and how financial innovation can promote sustainability and financial inclusion.
Over the course of 2022, a steering committee led by Ron Kalifa and comprised of “key stakeholders” within the fintech ecosystem has worked with consultancy EY and more than 80 other organisations to develop proposals on CFIT’s priorities, objectives and operational requirements.
Crosswell and the CFIT executive, set to be appointed in the coming months, will consider these proposals in early 2023 and set out plans for CFIT’s first programmes of work.
City of London Corporation policy chair Chris Hayward says Crosswell brings “deep and unique experience” from across the fintech and financial services ecosystem and “will drive forward CFIT’s vision and ensure vital engagement with the fintech ecosystem”.
On her now role, Crosswell comments: “We have a unique opportunity to capitalise on the considerable progress that has already been made between industry, government and regulators to support this exciting sector, and ensure that its impact is felt up and down the country.”
