London a fintech “behemoth”, says Plaid leader

Last month, Singapore-based Nium announced that it had chosen London as its European HQ while US fintech Plaid has dual European headquarters in London and Amsterdam.

The two executives discuss the virtues of their international fintechs having European headquarters and why they chose the cities they are located in.

Sandhofer says: 

“London is proving to be one of the best ecosystems for fintechs overall.”

Lambert says: 

“The two top priorities for us are, one, being very, very close to our customers and the people we think should be our customers and then, two, being very, very close to hiring pools of super talented people that want to work directly with those customers in both markets.“And London and Amsterdam were pretty obvious choices for us.”

Lambert adds that London and Amsterdam stand out for their “fintech presence”, adding that London is “a kind of a behemoth”.

Sandhofer says that in European cities outside of London and Amsterdam, where Nium also has a hub in, it is “harder to find talent which is willing to work only in English”.

On having dual headquarters, Lambert says:

“The challenge of a dual headquartered set up is obviously when teams are physically disparate it might be difficult to foster conversation.“I think that has been very untrue for us, particularly because we are aware of the risk.”

The pair also discuss their current working practices, the benefits of hybrid working and whether they plan to open further European offices.