Fintechs moving fast

The fintech industry remains a source of pride for the UK, despite the challenges it currently faces.

As Sophie Long, Business Consulting Partner at S&W, put it during our recent Fintech unicorns panel session: “Even through uncertain times, there remains an energy and optimism in the UK where finTech shows that it pushes harder than anywhere else.”

It continues a tradition of innovation in the country from the Industrial Revolution on: “Whether it is manufacturing, engineering, technology or financial services, we have consistently found new ways to adapt, evolve and compete on the global stage,” said Long.

“FinTech really has been at the forefront of that innovation. The disruptor, the challenger.”

But the challenger is also being challenged. UK fintech funding cooled in the first half of the year, with fundraising down more than a quarter on the same period in 2025. And while the UK still comfortably leads the continent in investment, the gap continues to narrow.

To shed light on how the sector can continue to grow and succeed, it helps to take stock of its achievements to date and ask what we can learn from them. To do so, Long was joined by a panel of fintech unicorn leaders who have already seen huge success:

• Charles McManus, Co-founder and former CEO of Clearbank, a fintech pioneer who founded the UK's first non-clearing bank in over 250 years, and also co-chair of the Unicorn Council

• Emma Alley, Group Chief Financial Officer of insurance fintech Marshmallow, and former Chief Operating Officer of Moneycorp

• Adnan Ahmed, Group Director of Strategy and Corporate Development at UK digital bank Starling

• Ryan Mendy, Co-founder of the Unicorn Council and strategic advisor to the CEO at direct-to-consumer payment network Zilch

• Steve Hume, the Chief Financial Officer who played a key role in securing the banking license for Zopa

As the panel explained, the sector’s success depends on a few key factors. Among them is the willingness to operate at speed. If UK fintech wants to keep its lead, it can’t afford to slow down.

In many cases that means juggling a lot of balls. Starling, for instance, was a retail bank in 2019 when there was an opportunity to gain grant money to start serving SMEs.

“If we were too slow or too big to turn and pivot to those opportunities, we would have missed the most profitable segment that we could have got into,” said Ahmed.

"For me, that's one of the most important learnings as we look to scale and grow into the future," he added.

“It is a really, really important thing to maintain and keep as you grow.”

It also means being prepared to make big bets, as Hulme explained. Zopa has been lending since 2005, but only launched as a bank in 2020, and then to offer current accounts. It was a big decision and a significant investment for the company.

“Without taking those risks, we would not have been the business that we are today. We would have been a very successful non-bank lender. We would have been a lot smaller, and our investors might have had fewer grey hairs along the way, but we wouldn't have created the value that we've created,” he explained.

“We've really made a difference, but that's been because we made the big bets.”

That does bring risks, however, as Hulme acknowledged. In previous roles, decisions could take a long time, but for a fast-growing fintech, there is often no such luxury. “In a business like Zopa, we don't have that amount of time to really think about anything. We just need to get on with it and make a decision,” he said.

“When you're running at that pace, the risk of just making a bad decision is very high.”

Alley agreed. “When you scale and you grow at that pace, it's sometimes the most obvious and basic things that you forget to do,” she said.

“There is a fine balance and a lesson to be learned around how you maintain growth, product innovation, how you push the boundaries, while also respecting what we do from a regulation perspective,” she added.

“In any regulated space, in any fintech business or insurtech, you have to have that rigour to be able to scale and scale safely.”

There are several ways to achieve that, but it begins by recognising the different requirements at different stages of growth. As Alley put it, “What gets you here doesn't get you there. You can achieve unicorn status, but to scale and grow requires a different mindset and a different lens.”

It also requires the discipline to say no, according to McManus.

“As a new bank, we wanted to say yes to everyone, but building a sustainable business, we had to say no.” Or, rather, as he added, he would advise some clients what further work would allow the bank to say yes.

“Risk appetite is really important.”

What applies to clients also applies to markets and jurisdictions. Clearbank’s initial target for international expansion in 2018, for instance, was Ireland, but it was thwarted by the country’s central bank, which demanded an impossible condition – that it be cloud agnostic. It ultimately turned to Amsterdam instead.

“We stopped, came back, built the UK stronger, and when we went again, it was Amsterdam, and a brilliant decision.”

“The regulatory environment needs to be right to help that expansion,” agreed Ahmed.

It still requires operating at speed, however. As Ahmed explained, it just means recognising failures early and regrouping: “You should try fast, release things quickly, and if it fails, you need to know when to stop and pull back.”

Firms also need to be able to trust their numbers and to justify their decisions, particularly in a tougher funding environment. As Mendy said, “The winners today are effectively combining ambition with evidence: real economics, real unit economics, real growth, real compliance.”

Fintech leaders need to make decisions fast, said Hulme, but they must also recognise the big calls with significant consequences. “You should evaluate the importance of the decision and the ability to back away from it. Then check and probably get input from a second pair of eyes.”

However fast you move, it’s important not to lose sight of the main risk, as McManus noted. “One of my mantras was that I never really wanted to be in front of the Treasury Select Committee with our customers' customers not being able to make a payment or use a card,” he said.

“If you want to build for scale, then you really have to invest for it.”