Minister of State for Financial Services Michael D’Arcy, TD, at the Future of Fintech event in Dogpatch Labs, Dublin. Image: Luke Maxwell
An international forum of more than 100 fintech leaders convened in Dublin to discuss what Ireland can expect when Brexit comes into effect.
It has been more than a year since the UK voted to leave the EU and instigate what we now know as Brexit. In that time, the opinions of some of the world’s largest financial institutions in London have been made abundantly clear.
Since the announcement, Dublin is quickly becoming the hottest place to move for many of those banks, with at least 15 – including Barclays and JPMorgan Chase – now based here.
However, it isn’t just the major institutions from abroad set to make a splash, but some of Ireland’s fastest-growing fintech start-ups, which have already reaped some of the benefits from a UK outside of the EU.
This was highlighted at Enterprise Ireland’s Future of Fintech event at Dogpatch Labs in Dublin this week, featuring more than 100 leaders, collaborators and disrupters from international banking and fintech hubs such as New York, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto and Mumbai.
Its purpose was to meet, discuss and debate the global future landscape while getting the chance to meet Enterprise Ireland’s fintech client companies.
Among these homegrown companies were payments start-ups TransferMate and Plynk as well as some bright regulation tech (regtech) players, including AQMetrics and Corlytics.
PFS success
Speaking of Ireland’s placing in the world in this sector, Enterprise Ireland’s head of fintech, Giles O’Neill, said: “These Irish companies offer innovative solutions and services in payments, regulatory technologies and broader fintech applications across the world.
“They have achieved this by investing and innovating to understand the fintech market, and, correspondingly, meeting the requirements of some of the toughest professional procurement and business teams and institutions in the world.”
Meanwhile, one fintech start-up with Irish roots recently achieved European success as Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) won a national UK award for 2017-2018 as part of the European Business Awards.
The company has offices in Navan, Malta and Cheshire, with its headquarters based on Regent Street in Central London. It has expanded rapidly in recent years, with active programmes in 24 countries and the ability to transact in 22 countries.
