How can fintechs make their voices heard around the Budget?

By Chris Baker, Senior PR Consultant at Speed Communications

Budget day is always busy for business PRs. This is especially true when working for industry bodies, but there are plenty of opportunities for individual businesses too. National business and trade journalists making sense of policy announcements are usually interested in hearing real examples of how the decisions made will affect companies, their customers and the sectors they operate in. 

Looking at the policy asks from industry bodies is helpful to get a sense of the agenda in advance. In the fintech sector, last month, Innovate Finance set out a clear set of policy asks, while UK Finance has provided a wish list for the wider financial services sector.  We’ve yet to hear from the Payments Association, though they have positions on many of these policy issues already. techUK and the Startup Coalition have also made some relevant asks. 

For fintechs keen to support these campaigns, the opportunity is to help the media understand the real-world impact of any policy changes. This can be achieved by offering opinions on what effect anticipated changes could have in advance of the big day, then being available to react to what is said.  

Ideally, you might have spotted a consequence for your business, or your customers that others have yet to realise. Or you can make a strong case for why a change proposed or announced will have a positive or negative effect.

There are three ways to get involved:

1. Analysis of the impact of anticipated or proposed changes ahead of the day  
2. Availability on the day to react to any new policies or announcements within a few hours of the speech 
3. Providing insight in the following days once the consequences of any significant changes have been assessed for their commercial implications 

Speed is of the essence, but so is original insight, data and the ability to explain clearly what a change will mean for operations, jobs, investment and growth.  

Case studies and credible forecasts are invaluable. A fintech lender might be able to explain how a tax change affects its appetite to lend to SMEs. It could also introduce journalists to an SME customer who can explain what that means for their investment or hiring plans.

What does the UK fintech sector want?

Looking at the asks made to date, the general themes for fintechs are:  

1. Policy certainty – particularly around fast-moving technologies such as digital assets (and to an extent AI)  
2. Encouraging investment 
3. Removing obstacles to growth and scaling, including tax and regulatory burdens 

Innovate Finance is calling on the Government to:

• Review challenger-bank capital requirements and raise the threshold for the Bank Corporation Tax Surcharge to £500m. It argues that freeing up capital would allow smaller banks and fintech lenders to extend more credit, particularly to SMEs. 
• Accelerate Open Finance by establishing the legal and regulatory framework for broader data-sharing across savings, investments and SME finance, including AI-enabled financial guidance.
• Give sterling stablecoins a clear policy framework, treating regulated sterling stablecoins as cash-like digital money.  
• Encourage founders to reinvest in UK companies through “Scale-up Reinvestment Relief” 
• Abolish stamp duty on UK-listed shares, making London listings more attractive 
• Go further in improving incentives for founders and employees, using employee share-option regimes to allow high-growth companies to offer competitive equity packages to retain staff. 

UK Finance is also urging the Chancellor:

• Avoid additional sector-specific taxes 
• Accelerate payments-infrastructure reform 
• Establish commercially sustainable Open Banking 
• Advance tokenised deposits 
• Remove the 0.5% stamp duty on UK shares 
• Reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens and reform bank capital requirements 
• Extend responsibility for fraud prevention and reimbursement to technology and telecoms companies whose platforms facilitate scams 

On payments reform, the industry is pushing on an open door. Successive governments have said they want the UK to remain a leading fintech and financial-services centre, and the Government has recently consulted on modernising payments regulation. The risk is delay, with jurisdictions such as the US, EU and Singapore ready to take advantage if the UK moves too slowly. 

techUK’s main ask is no additional business taxes for the remainder of this Parliament. This follows a run of cost increases, including higher National Insurance Contributions (NICs), business rates multiplier reforms, inflation, and high energy prices. With the Government under pressure to fund public services and an increased defence, further tax rises can’t be ruled out. techUK also proposes measures covering investment, talent and innovation. 

Of course, not all these issues will be resolved in a Budget speech, particularly those requiring regulatory reform, but they provide useful context for the direction of government policy. 

How can you respond?

For PRs working with fintechs addressing any of these issues, particularly those lending to or supporting other areas of the economy, the opportunity will be to talk about what these policies could enable in terms of growth, jobs, investment and innovation. If you’re a member of an industry association, let its comm teams know how you can help.  They will often welcome real examples. 

Should any adverse tax changes or restrictions be introduced that affect the sector, or the businesses you’re serving, examples of what ‘unintended consequences’ this might have are always welcome by journalists seeking to understand them in the days that follow. 

Industry bodies submitting representations to the Treasury have already done much of the work identifying the most important policy issues in the forthcoming Budget. The opportunity for individual fintechs is to supply evidence that shows why those decisions matter.