Barry Abbott and Frank Paganelli authored a Puget Sound Business Journal article titled “Puget Sound Area Should Get in on Fintech Revolution.” The article discusses the “FinTech” or “Financial Technology” industry — a term used to describe any line of business that uses software and digital platforms to provide financial services — and how entrepreneurs have been extremely disruptive in the this space especially in the areas of payments, remittance, consumer and commercial lending, insurance products, financial planning and more recently, the offering of debt and equity securities. Abbott and Paganelli note that Seattle has been somewhat slow in expanding its footprint in this space, and provide four reasons why the region would be the perfect place to grow the significant and disruptive FinTech companies of the future.
Notwithstanding this disparity (especially compared to California), the Seattle high-tech ecosystem seems to be the perfect place to grow the significant and disruptive FinTech companies of the future. Four elements are necessary to develop and sustain a major company in the FinTech space, all of which are in ample supply here:
- Technical expertise (especially in the programming, big data and cloud arenas). Put simply, there is no place better in the country for this expertise. With Microsoft, Amazon and the deep tech talent in the Puget Sound area, this is an area in which Seattle can compete with any locale, including Silicon Valley.