London has confirmed its position as a global hub for the crypto industry after being named in the top three cities for FinTech along with San Francisco and New York. London does, however, claim the outright top spot as having more FinTech events and job opportunities within the sector than any other city.
Data compiled by leading firm Fluro names San Francisco as the FinTech capital of the world with the highest amount of available funding at nearly £204 billion, as well as 4,326 investors and 46 fintech unicorns – more than any other.
New York ranks in second place and actually beats San Francisco when it comes to the number of Fintech companies, with 1,515 registered. However, its total funding amount of £122 billion, 3,521 investors and 35 unicorns fall just short of the top spot.
London stands at third, boasting the greatest number of FinTech companies at 1,866 – 25 of them being unicorns. The capital also has more funding available than New York at just short of £140 billion, making it second only to San Francisco.
London is ahead of both when it comes to FinTech events. New York hosts 49 a year, San Francisco 41, but London stages 52 major events. While Singapore came fourth on Fluro’s list of FinTech hubs, it has been crowned the best city for those looking to launch a career in the industry. There are 3,211 FinTech job opportunities at an annual salary of £54,312 on average, and the cost of living (before rent) is an estimated £840 per month.
London still has the highest number of job opportunities at 3,441, but scores lower because of the cost of living. Berlin surprisingly, comes a second, with a slightly higher average salary of £55,462, as well as a lower cost of living (£776) and a better quality of life score (169.95 vs 158.34 in Singapore). And there is plenty of talent to fill the 1,148 fintech job opportunities available in Berlin, with Germany having the highest percentage of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) graduates – 71 per cent.
“Fintech companies have filled the gap left by traditional institutions which struggled to keep up with changing consumer behaviour,” said Fluro CEO Nick Harding. He added: “As the industry continues to grow across the globe, now might be the time for businesses, consumers and future talent to get on board with digital finance.” Meanwhile, crypto exchanges have looked to cool investors’ fears of contagion as the industry is shaken by the collapse of FTX, which at its peak last year had over a million users and was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. The boss of Singaporean-based exchange Crypto.com, Kris Marszalek, insisted the firm had a strong balance sheet and was not exposed to the ripples of the FTX collapse.
Marszalek faced questions from customers over his transfer of over $400 million worth of Ethereum to a secure ‘cold storage’ address, which was mistakenly sent to another exchange address.
He said: “At no point were the funds at risk of being sent somewhere they could not be retrieved. It had nothing to do with any of the craziness from FTX.” Crypto is among a host of firms to commit to releasing audited proof of reserves to try and bolster confidence and convince the market it is not susceptible to a run on its assets.
FTX was brought down by a rush of customers looking to pull their assets from the exchange last month. Marszalek said the sector had been set back “a good couple of years” by FTX’s collapse and the market now needed to win back the faith of investors and customers.
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