3-July-14
Santander UK is building a $ 100 million venture capital fund to invest in financial technology companies, as it tries to keep pace with the rapidly growing market for financial services.
Spanish state-owned bank said mainstream lenders accounted for only 10% of financial innovation percent, while venture capital-backed companies have created 60 percent.
Online loan, such as crowd funding has exceeded growth in conventional banks, because of the recession, but it is still a small part of the market.
In June this year, Santander agreed to allocate circle, peer-to-peer lending site, a partnership, refers to small business customers, it becomes down. In turn, will promote the Spanish capital circle between bank accounts and cash management services.
Santander's move comes Britain is trying to position itself as the global financial venture in the field of science and technology leader. Investment in fintech companies has tripled in the past five years, $ 2.97bn in 2013, according to research from Accenture's Professional Services Group, the UK and Ireland's fastest growing regions.
Prime Minister David Cameron's office is to assist in the FinTech UK, an industry body, which is due to debut this year. Funds it has received funding from the City of London space and Canary Wharf Group.
However, industry experts said, a number of obstacles, including regulatory approval and a lengthy and expensive process, standing fintech growing large enough to seriously challenge the high street lenders such as HSBC, NatWest and Barclays way.
Santander fund, headquartered in London, but on a global scale investment, hoping to be fully submitted within three years. It backs up the technology can be introduced to customers by Santander. Its goal is to online lending, digital transmission services, such as e-banking services, as well as DIY investment company active in the online system.
• Ana Botin, Santander UK CEO, when she opened an incubator supported by the bank's initial capital start-ups in Liverpool on Thursday.
She said: "The UK is a global leader in financial innovation-based Santander Fin Technology Fund on our cooperation and partnership with small and start-up companies in Santander concept in this case, our. Goal is to provide much-needed funding fin-tech enterprises, and we gain knowledge and our customers benefit from the latest thoughts. "
Santander, the acquisition and Leicester and Bradford traditional mortgage lenders Alliance - part of Bentley's, has been more and smaller business loan business loans since entering the market in 2009.
Santander UK lent £ 1.1 billion in the first three months of this year, small and medium-sized businesses.
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