FinTech Wales in partnership with The FinTech Power 50 launches the FinTech KICKSTART scheme

FinTech Wales and its partners (The FinTech Power 50, Innovate Finance, London & Partners, Rise created by Barclays, the Emerging Payments Association and iFinance Academy, part of The Conexus Group) have launched the FinTech KICKSTART scheme that looks to champion support across its FinTech ecosystem and provide employment opportunities for 16-24 year olds. This scheme falls under the UK governments Kickstart Programme that launched in September.

The Kickstart programme aims to help young people bank into work by creating placement opportunities within companies. These placements last for 6 months and are fully-funded by the government, who will pay the minimum wage for 16-24 year olds for up to 25 hours a week, plus NI and auto enrolments. The government will also pay a £1500 per placement grant to employers to go towards set up costs, equipment and training.

The UK government are requiring companies to take on a minimum of 30 placements in order to apply for the programme. This may be difficult for some FinTech start-ups, who may not have the scale to support 30 new employees and their training. To aid in this FinTech Wales has partnered with The FinTech Power 50 will act as a gateway representative company for the programme to allow FinTech wales member’s to take on one or more placements, as well as helping to streamline the application process. 

Sarah Williams-Gardiner, CEO of FinTech Wales, said: “When the UK Government announced the Kickstart scheme back in early September, I thought it was a fantastic idea. However, when applying the concept to the Welsh FinTech sector we found several limitations that made the scheme difficult to access for many welsh companies. In order to bridge this gap, I wanted to form a group of the leading associations, companies, and partners within the FinTech world, offering additional support and allowing access to placements for welsh companies that may not have existed without our help.

The benefits of working with FinTech Wales & The Power50 as a gateway representative include:

•         The provision of templates to streamline the application process
•         Due to its audience and partners, FinTech Wales can attract a larger pool or prospective young people to work with
•         The administration of applications, bundling them with other companies to hit the minimum of 30
•         Free listing for placements on TFT jobs board
•         Start-up orientation eLearning module available to complement the initial training plan
•         Access to more specialist training options for your placements.

FinTech Wales already has support from Confused.com, Illustrate Digital and Backbase who will be helping with the promotion of the scheme and taking on a number of placements themselves.

The scheme has potential to support FinTech start-up/ scale up environments with an extra pair of hands, as kickstart employees could provide help within an operation, increase productivity and could potentially grow as future talent within the company. There are no mandatory requirements for the companies to provide permanent full-time employment at the end of the 6-month placement, however there is a hope that the young person would prove themselves, gain work experience and may make themselves suitable for internal opportunities or extended employment.

To be eligible for the grant, FinTechs will need to provide detail on the job type and responsibilities of their placement, as well as provide evidence that it is a newly created role. They will also need to provide evidence of how they will support the young person’s future employability (such as through CV help, interview skills training or career advice.)

Want To Get involved and support early careers? 

Sign up for our webinar on Thursday, 12 November⋅10:00 – 10:45 to find out more: http://bit.ly/FintechWalesKICKSTART 

For more information visit https://www.thepower50.com/kickstart/ or email [email protected]