Scottish IT Companies working in FinTech: 2017 Infographic by Company Connecting
Category: Blog
By Janice
20/06/2017
The series of infographics Company Connecting have put together recently has developed an overview of Scotland’s progress in some of the biggest IT and tech industries. This week the CC blog features an infographic looking at Scottish Financial Technology, or FinTech. The infographic is based entirely on Company Connecting data, the authoritative source of information on IT and tech SMEs.
What’s FinTech? It’s basically an industry where individuals and organisations develop tech solutions to improve financial services in a range of sectors. Scotland’s participation in the world of FinTech is of course extremely important in remaining technologically competitive with the rest of the world, as financial industries play a big part in the state of the country’s economy. The Scottish FinTech Infographic will display the state of Scotland’s FinTech industry by answering the main questions you would ask if you wanted to learn more about it. What kind of professional skills are present in the industry? Which sectors involve FinTech? Whereabouts in Scotland does this FinTech industry exist? How big are these companies? And what are the main focus areas involved?
The catalogue of skills involved in FinTech is - as you can see from the Word Cloud in the Infographic - very large. This is reflective of the range within the FinTech industry, as there are a great number of ways that technology can improve financial services; a number that constantly increases with ongoing innovation. Unsurprisingly Software Development is easily the Number 1 skill involved in Scottish FinTech, as the development and production of new software solutions is what drives the usefulness of Financial Technology in the first place. However you can also see a heavy representation of skills in Project Management, Mobile Applications, and of course Cloud Solutions which reflects the way we now tend to do our banking and financial transactions.
A variety of sectors require FinTech solutions. The main one is of course Financial Services, but Banking, Retail, Insurance and many more including the Public Sector, all have their own uses for these developing technologies. Perhaps from looking at this data these industries will themselves draw their own conclusions about the extent of the use of Financial Technology in the industry; maybe there is a need in some areas to invest more in it, in order to remain as globally competitive as other industries are in Scotland.
The bulk of Scottish FinTech is based in Edinburgh. Glasgow and Aberdeen clearly have reasonably-sized FinTech industries too, but Edinburgh is evidently Scotland’s financial hub – not on the scale of London, but the growth of the financial sector in Edinburgh is important in Scotland’s own standing in the UK and beyond.
We can also see variety in the main focus areas in FinTech in Scotland. Obviously most work in Finance. The next most common area is CRM which is interestingly high, reflecting the approach generally taken by FinTech companies in Scotland.
There are some fairly large companies involved in Scottish FinTech. However 47% of the companies involved are defined as small, 35% are medium-sized with 18% large. This is fairly typical of most industries in Scotland, however as the infographic below shows, there are a particularly high number of companies who employ 2-5 people.
In terms of the health of Scottish FinTech it is arguably a good thing that so many smaller companies exist as it is symptomatic of an industry that is growing and inspiring real interest for the future. This is important, as FinTech will play an important role in Scotland’s economic state, as well as its ability to keep up with the financial industries in other parts of the country, namely London.
As stated earlier, this data cannot be found anywhere else. Company Connecting data will continue to be used to publish infographics such as this, so follow the CC social media channels and this blog to gain a deep understanding of IT and tech companies. Take the time to view the infographic below, and share it on your own social media.
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"Scottish IT Companies working in FinTech: Infographic by Company Connecting" First published on Company Connecting July 2017
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