London is second in the world in terms of the number and success of its FinTech companies, beating all the competition apart from San Francisco according to a new index from Findexable.

New York, Sao Paulo, and Tel Aviv rounded out the remaining spots in the top five, coming third, fourth, and fifth respectively.

The index ranked the FinTech ecosystems of more than 264 cities across 83 countries and found that the UK FinTech industry is becoming less London focused.
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There are now 13 UK cities with 10 FinTech companies, including Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Cambridge, Brighton, Oxford, Newcastle, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, and Glasgow.

Manchester climbed 19 places in the index to 34th globally, 8th in Europe, and 2nd in the UK.
Cambridge rose 55 places to 38th globally, 10th in Europe, and 3rd in the UK.

However, Leeds fell to the 115th position globally and 42nd in Europe according to the index.
In addition, Birmingham, Cardiff, and Newcastle upon Tyne entered the ranks for the first time at 123rd, 127th, and 155th respectively.

Despite the dispersion of the industry, only Manchester and London have any FinTech ‘unicorns’– companies with valuations over $1 billion – headquartered in them.

According to Findexable, the total combined value of all FinTech unicorns rose from $199 billion to $440 billion over the past year, regardless of the disruption caused by the pandemic.

“The UK continues to be a major player in FinTech, but unlike the larger finance sector it is moving away from being largely London-based,” said Simon Hardie, chief executive at Findexable. “We are seeing how investment in creating technology hubs in secondary cities is translating into the creation of thriving communities and viable companies."

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