FinTech West evolved from what was originally known as Bristol FinTech, was founded in 2016 by a group of businesses operating in the city including Barclays, PwC, Deepbridge Capital, Hargreaves Lansdown and Clarke Wilmott before becoming an entity in its own right.

In 2019, FinTech West joined the FinTech National Network, which was founded in the same year by Innovate Finance, FinTech North and FinTech Scotland. The Network also includes FinTech Wales and FinTech Northern Ireland.

In 2021 we plan to build on this progress so we can support the growth of FinTech in our region and beyond. Of course, 2020 put a dent in the great momentum we were building with face-to-face seminars, but we’ve hosted a number of virtual events with strong engagement from across the South West and further afield. In future we aspire to deliver a blend of physical and virtual events, and to develop our reach via other activities such as enhanced communications and new ways for the region’s FinTech community to engage with each other.

2021 is an important year for FinTech in the UK. The publication of the UK FinTech Review is expected to strongly support the growth of the sector nationally across the UK. We had the opportunity to provide input to the Review via our role in the FinTech National Network. Additionally, a number of the FinTech community from the South West contributed to the Review via their involvement in the workstreams that make up the review, not least the ‘national connectivity’ chapter which was led by Tech Nation.

Our aspirations for 2021 include:

• Delivery of more frequent events, including seminars, webinars, roundtables and an annual conference.
• Stronger links to the other regional FinTech ecosystems in the UK, and international locations.
• Forming an advisory board to provide insight, support and guidance.
• Growing our presence and the impact we can make, by investing in our marketing, event management, business development and relationship management capability.

We are not a membership organisation, as we aim to be as inclusive as possible rather than adopting a model that would exclude non-members.

We want everyone to feel they are a member of the FinTech West community.

We would like to thank everyone who has supported FinTech West over the previous years, and we hope to have you all with us on the journey through 2021 and beyond.