The intersection of technology and financial services is a celebrated hotbed of innovation. Indeed, whether in the UK’s Silicon Roundabout, throughout the Square Mile, or further afield in research centres including Cambridge, some of the most important and valuable new ideas of the last decade have been based on a simple question: “how can we make financial services better?”
For the big institutions, innovation is an issue of existential importance. Slow-moving and sclerotic, the financial services incumbents have only recently understood that they must adapt quickly if they are to maintain their dominance. Alongside their own in-house innovation labs, forward-thinking institutions recognise that the best ideas are coming from product-minded and digital-native agencies and startups – and they are keen to buy into them.
