• David Stewart, FinTech Co-Lead at SuperTech West Midlands


• 22.03.2022 04:00 pm
#FinTech #Startups

Celebrating its one-year anniversary, SuperTech responds strongly to Kalifa Review’s ‘greater upside to come’ for Birmingham FinTech hub

What a difference a year makes. It has only been 12 months since the establishment of SuperTech, the UK's first dedicated professional services technology (ProfTech) supercluster. In that time, we have seen an increase of 63% in the number of FinTech startups and scaleups from 24 to 39, and a 41% increase in employees within FinTech scale ups and start-ups in the region from 534 to 753.

SuperTech was founded a year ago with the purpose of spotlighting the strength of the West Midlands financial and professional services related technology base. Around the same time, the Kalifa Review of the UK fintech sector had pointed out that while Birmingham held a place as one of the 10 UK clusters of strong fintech activity, it was nevertheless “below potential, with greater upside to come”. Today, the West Midlands has a thriving FinTech community worth £411m and is only 1 of 3 recognised FinTech hubs by the UK Government. What makes SuperTech different is that it’s truly a ProfTech supercluster, focusing on a broader services ecosystem, rather than just FinTech. 

Over the past year, SuperTech has been pushing its strategy ahead with a number of different initiatives. A SuperTech Seeds pre-accelerator programme has been developed to support budding entrepreneurs by training them in no-code programming, one of the easiest ways to create a FinTech proposition. Free for entrepreneurs based in the West Midlands, 22 out of a total of 50 applicants were shortlisted for six prized investment places. We have now secured over half a million pounds of investment to support the second tranche of cohorts. A SuperTech Connector Series was also launched to help develop connectivity within the West Midlands ProfTech ecosystem by inviting startups and scaleups to meet with five established corporates to help accelerate engagement and explore areas of mutual interest. There have been over 30 sessions so far which provide unique access to major business, professional and financial services anchor firms such as Wesleyan, BNP Paribas Personal Finance, Bruntwood SciTech, Shoosmiths law firm, and Barclays Bank. Last but not least is the “Beyond the Capital” podcast series, the UK’s first podcast dedicated to showcasing ProfTech outside of London. Each episode provides insights on future trends and explores how ProfTech industries and professionals can thrive beyond the capital.

We’ve done some fantastic work, but there’s still more to do. We want to grow the number of corporates involved in the Connector series, and get to the stage in the Seeds programme where our start-ups are actually transforming into scale-ups. We’re also excited about piloting the SuperTech Serendip® incubator programme in which we’ve partnered with BNP Paribas Personal Finance and Bruntwood SciTech to solve challenges around automating underwriting processes and decisions, data visualisation, and chatbots. In addition, we want to offer more networking opportunities across the region and eventually leverage our presence more internationally. 

As a result of the efforts at SuperTech, interest in the West Midlands fintech community is now perceptible. During UK FinTech Week, SuperTech representatives were asked to present on panels and special envoys were sent to Birmingham. We were also delighted that Dr Christopher Sier, the Fintech Envoy for HM Treasury, joined us to speak at our official launch event last October. 

We've started an incredible journey. Progress over the past year has started to address the Kalifa Review’s “below potential” remarks. Looking forward, there is, in Kalifa’s words, only “greater upside to come”. 

David Stewart is FinTech Co-Lead for SuperTech West Midlands and Group Chief Operating Officer at Wesleyan, a Birmingham-based mutual which provides specialist financial services advice for key professions.