One thing the government was not light on yesterday at the Innovate Finance Global Summit was advice. Everyone has it. That’s a good thing.
Panel discussions were loaded with genuinely interesting ideas about strengthening London’s competitive advantage in fintech. Those that had “made it” were offering advice on corporate governance to those still in the “making it” phase. It was smart people bouncing smart ideas off each other, and a reminder that when it comes to it, the thing that really matters is an economy is the agglomeration effect of concentrated brains, bucks and (gender-non-specific) balls.
None of that comes guaranteed, however. Amid the positivity were warnings that London’s place in the fintech ecosystem, though stable now, was by no means secure. The brightest young things have a raft of other cities in which they can choose to build their careers, most of which have cheaper rents. Those with capital can deploy it elsewhere, too, not least with our moribund IPO markets hardly providing the most obvious possibility of a future, lucrative exit.
Protecting all of that matters, and that is why the combination of delayed policy making and unimaginative thinking from government sticks in the craw. We have written endlessly about the lack of drive to reform capital markets. Now we can add a lack of imagination on the tax system to the charge sheet, with calls to ditch the stamp duty on share trades met with a barely caveated no by the City minister, despite the boost it would give to equity markets and crucially the businesses listed on our struggling public markets.
One doubts if any government could ever match the radicalism and energy of the private sector. But, goodness, this one could try a little harder.