New UK visa scheme in the making for fintech talents

Rishi Sunak, the UK Chancellor, is to launch a new UK visa scheme to support fintech companies in London to attract more international talent. The exodus of EU citizens in large numbers from London, one of the world’s largest hubs for fintech, has put the stability of the UK’s fintech sector at stake. The new visa scheme is aimed at filling this void and helping the UK’s fintech sector to grow with more people holding a UK work visa employed in the sector.

UK’s fintech sector is worth £7 billion. Sunak is eager to protect the status and global repute of this sector of the UK economy. He is expected to announce the new visa scheme officially in his budget presentation on March 3, 2021.

The 3 fintech firms based in London: Revolut, Cazoo, and Monzo, along with 5 other firms with headquarters in the UK are worth over £1 billion. This makes it important to keep up the high stature London has in the fintech sector. That’s why Sunak’s new visa scheme will be welcomed by Tech Nation. It’s an organization that UK’s Home Office has designated to endorse applications for the UK’s Global Talent visa.

The idea for the new visa originated from Ron Kalifa, the ex-Chief Executive of Worldplay. He suggested this idea after an independent review came out on ways to boost the fintech sector in the UK post-Brexit with more foreigners willing to work in UK in this sector.

John Garvey, PwC’s global leader for financial services, has stated that industry leaders are taking it into serious consideration to determine which roles must be assigned to permanent employees and which of them to contractors, gig-economy workers, or even crowdsourced workers. This will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

As COVID-19 and the ensuing travel restrictions have given rise to the new culture of working remotely, there’s an increased opportunity to access and recruit international talent as temporary or gig workers in the financial services sector. The physical presence in a physical location of these workers isn’t necessary now. Their skills that boost productivity within the fintech business are available. Hence, the new visa will be similar to the Global Talent visa that was announced in 2020, once its final details are decided upon and made available.

If you are looking to Study, Work, Visit, Invest or Migrate to the UK, talk to Y-Axis, the World’s No.1 Immigration & Visa Company.

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