Northern Ireland's Role Inside The Fintech Landscape

As of 2024, Northern Ireland as a nation holds the prestigious place of being in the top three areas for the future of fintech, only behind giants like London and Singapore. In many areas, it outperforms many major American and European cities, and investment is only increasing. We're looking today at just some of the areas where Northern Ireland is winning in the fintech world.

Payment Processing

There are few elements of the digital economy more vital than ensuring that payments are made both quickly and securely. Payment platforms effectively make certain industries like online casinos or e-commerce possible, and in the former case, the fact that payment speed and safety are major features of casino site reviews on places like Casino Alpha shows just how much importance their customers put into this aspect.

Northern Ireland plays host to a wide variety of companies that make these payments happen. Big international names such as CyberSource and TSYS hold offices in the country, as well as companies like ShopKeep which employ dozens of local specialists. More local companies like SLA Digital develop software with specialties in mobile payments, plus several start

Accounting

It may have a little less glamour than some other parts of fintech, but there's no denying just how important accounting is and how much more important it's set to become. Keeping track of all payments going in and out of a major company is a monumental job; just imagine being on a team that keeps track of Apple's half a trillion USD each year. The largest companies have entire teams of dozens of accountants on staff, but even then it's a huge undertaking.

It is all made possible by layers upon layers of dedicated accountancy software, and this is where Northern Ireland's fintech sector comes into play. Businesses based in the country include Lightyear in Belfast, working with payment systems and e-commerce sites across the world, as well as internal tech development at big names like Deloitte and KPMG.

Cybersecurity

While everything above keeps the face of the business going, there are thousands of experts around the world behind the scenes keeping all of it safe and secure. Cybersecurity is a massive industry with applications across the entire business world, but unsurprisingly, fintech gets a lot of attention from it. After all, trillions of pounds each year move through digital sources.

There are several local businesses specialising in cybersecurity for fintech, with the most notable being Ampliphae who are experts in implementing security solutions for SaaS businesses and who were hand-picked to be part of the European Defence Accelerator programme by Amazon Web Services. Outside of this are companies like LoughTech and Cyphra amongst a long list of others, showing that cybersecurity is probably Northern Ireland's most dominant fintech industry.

In every aspect of fintech, Northern Ireland is punching way above its weight and the future is bright. With a few more years and lots of investment, we could be seeing true fintech capital being created.