In today’s world we are so fortunate to have the opportunity to travel if our means allows us. This is especially true for us entrepreneurs in fintech. The tech industry has enhanced such a fundamental aspect of every single person’s life - finance - no matter the country.

With globalisation comes increased expectations of financial products. One person recently asked me why they can’t send money to their family in the Caribbean instantly, another asked me why can’t the UK access their US credit score and just transfer their score to the UK? Both great questions, and I am sure it will be something that will be fixed down the line. However, what is hard to see is how far we have come and how easy it is to actually move money around, make payments domestically and internationally and how interlinked we have all become financially.

The influence we all have on each other has opened up the world and it's an exciting time for fintech. In the UK we have a new government that wants to support tech and AI innovation, global investment is slowly starting to stabilise (with a lot of work still underway), ambition is accelerating growth in Europe with the idea of becoming a unicorn back on the table and optimism is higher than previous years. So, what can we still learn from our global counterparts and what have they taught us in the meantime?

Africa: mobile-first mindset

Africa’s mobile-first approach to finance is a transformative model that began gaining momentum in the early 2000s. This was driven largely by the rapid adoption of mobile phones across the continent. With limited access to traditional banking infrastructure, mobile technology became a lifeline for the populous continent, enabling them to leapfrog over outdated systems. The catalyst for this shift was the launch of M-Pesa in Kenya in 2007, a mobile money service that allowed users to send, receive, and store money using their phones. M-Pesa quickly became a game-changer, providing financial services to the unbanked and revolutionising how people across Africa handled money.

The success of mobile-first finance in Africa has since influenced the global financial landscape. The continent’s innovative use of mobile technology demonstrated that banking doesn’t require brick-and-mortar institutions—it can be in the palm of your hand. This realisation has spurred the growth of fintech globally, inspiring solutions like digital wallets, mobile banking apps, and peer-to-peer payment systems worldwide. Today, Africa's mobile-first model is not just a case study in innovation but a blueprint for financial inclusion, proving that technology can democratise access to financial services, particularly in regions where traditional banking falls short.

The UK: working closely with banks is a necessity if we want fintech to really make an impact

It’s no secret that banks liked things the way it was. They could dictate where they spent their money internally (not necessarily for improving archaic systems and legacy code) and have the fiat-stronghold within a nation.

PSD2, otherwise known as Open Banking, kicked off in 2018, and with that, the floodgates opened up. Collaboration with banks, who were the keyholders to customer banking data - a critical source of information that fintechs needed to train their models and make products and services - meant that the everyday citizen could now access tools that were more aligned with a technologically advancing world. Both sides benefitted. By partnering with banks, fintech companies could scale faster and navigate complex regulatory landscapes. For banks, the culture and agility of a fintech helped them to stay competitive.

Other countries learnt from this and developed their own regulatory framework for collaboration. Which leads us to …

The Middle East: community is critical to success

Around 2019, the Middle East were quick to recognise the potential for Open Banking. Whilst they begun the implementation of their own version (the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) introduced Open Banking at the start of 2021, in Dubai, the DFSA conducted their business from the DIFC, a purpose-built financial free zone in Dubai, plus the UAE Central Bank recently issued an Open Finance Regulation framework) the region remained true to their community-first culture whilst learning from countries who were challenging the banking status quo.

With community comes greater scale and opportunity. The pandemic had killed in-person events, the typical avenue for building business connections and promoting brands, however the MENA region found that this could not kill the close-knit ties everyone had with each other and utilised this to increase its fintech prowess.

Only with community can you learn, build and support a boundary-pushing industry that is reliant on hiring diverse, smart and curious talent.

Europe: an engineer-first culture

Today, we can see the lessons learnt from Google in the 90s seep into all facets of tech, none more so than Google’s rebrand of engineers. They were the ‘rockstars’ of the team; the beating heart of the operation (we can also thank Time Magazine’s inclusion of Bill Gates as its cover story in the 90s with the brilliantly captioned “Having conquered the world’s computers, Bill Gates takes aim at banks, phone companies, even Hollywood. He’s in for the fight of his life”).

Since Brexit, and the pandemic, there has been an exodus from the small number of cities which were considered the mainstay tech hubs - London, Seattle, San Francisco, Berlin. People are now much more dispersed, and places like Bulgaria and Estonia are becoming (and probably always have been, just much more quietly) hotbeds for engineering talent.

Countries in the CEE are becoming increasingly known for their engineer-friendly culture. As tech publication, Verdict, stated: “Each country has its own story and formula, but between all CEE countries there is a shared understanding and experience when it comes to the lasting impact of Soviet rule between the end of the Second World War and the independence gained throughout the 1990s. This ‘post-Sovietness’ is at its core a shared appreciation and understanding of the value of what it is to be free to live a life of your choosing”

Many people believe that this gave residents in the CEE a flair for ‘thinking outside the box’. This was even made evident by our very own Managing Partner, Kamen Bochev’s piece on the Skillwork blog about his own experience in Bulgaria growing up and his own tech journey.

The US: community banks and supporting marginalised communities cannot be forgotten

As people age, financial services have to respond to changing customer needs. The US has really taken this in their stride, recognising that in 2022, there were 58 million Americans aged 65 and older, with this number set to rise to 82 million by 2050, making this an issue the US cannot ignore.

The U.S. boasts a highly developed financial system with a vast array of banks, credit unions, and financial institutions that offer specialised products and services tailored to the needs of the elderly. This includes retirement planning, healthcare savings accounts, and age-specific financial advisory services. They also maintain a strong regulatory framework that protects the financial interests of seniors. Regulations like the Elder Justice Act and the Senior Safe Act focus on preventing financial exploitation and ensuring that elderly consumers are treated fairly.

Each country, region and continent listed here (and this is by no means exhaustive) shows how far we have come in terms of fintech. The influence we all have on each other is astounding. It might be difficult to remember a world where fintech wasn’t so heavily embedded into our society, yet these developments have only taken place in the last 20 years. This piece doesn’t even include how e-commerce giants like Amazon, or how the creation of Paypal or the iPhone (all deriving from the US) paved the path for fintech to become what it is today. There is no doubt that over the next decade or two things will continue to rapidly change. With the next technological breakthrough on the horizon, such as AI, it only makes sense that those heightened expectations from users will bring new products and services that will impact us all globally, not just locally.