Philippa Rouse, Director, Future Border & Immigration System Directorate, Home Office, spoke at the Innovate Finance Global Summit – the flagship event of UK FinTech Week – where she discussed the Home Office’s latest plans on the scale-up visa and
getting more overseas talent into the UK FinTech sector.
Her key updates included:
- Scale-Up Business Route: “In August, we are setting up a special group for the UK’s fastest growing businesses so they can access highly sought-after individuals, and this was set out in the Government’s Innovation Strategy last summer.
It will offer preferential conditions that are more flexible than our skilled worker route. Scale up businesses will be able to apply for a licence – these businesses must have average turn over or employment growth rates over a 3 year period of more than
20% a year and a minimum of 10 employees at the start of the three year period.”
- High Potential Individual Route: “At the end of May, we’ll be opening up our high potential individual route. This will be a short term work visa for a selective cohort of people that have graduated in the past five years from approximately
the top 50 universities around the world. It is focused on people in the early stage of their career who demonstrate high potential, and it’s a highly flexible visa so people don’t necessarily need a job before they come to the UK.”
- New Global Business Mobility Sprint: “The New Business Mobility Sprint will simplify and improve the integration system for businesses wanting to improve their presence in the UK. It will provide a consolidated, simplified integration route for
overseas businesses who want to send their employees to the UK, and it will bring together a number of existing groups and expands on them streamlining how businesses are able to bring their people from around the world”.
- Innovator Visa: “The Government recognises how important it is to make the UK a really good place to start a business so we’re reforming the innovator route to make sure its best placed to attract the best entrepreneurs from overseas into the
UK. For the current innovator route, there is a minimum investment threshold and we're taking that away, and through a commercial exercise we are selecting some endorsing bodies to assess innovation and entrepreneurism. We should be delivering these reforms
in Autumn.”
Commenting on the news that the Home Office will be delaying the rollout of the Scale-Up Visa from April 2022 to August 2022, Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance, said: "The Kalifa Review recommended the creation of a new visa stream more than 12 months ago. This is an unfortunate delay which will have a material impact on the growth of UK FinTech companies. As we have heard repeatedly from FinTech companies over the two days of IFGS, competition for top talent is fierce. Without easier routes UK tech companies will miss out on hiring the best and brightest people from across the world. This delay is disappointing, but we will be working with industry and government to ensure FinTech companies can hit the ground running when the visa launches in August."