Is fintech losing its lustre for career changers?
For years, technology companies sought to woo senior staff from traditional industries, offering them both the opportunity of a leading role in the future of technology and highly competitive pay.
“The reason people wanted to [join such companies] is that they were promising high salaries and huge amounts of shares,” says Sam Burks, executive director at recruitment agency Nicoll Curtin. “Even if they didn’t end up going public, they could still end up being worth a lot more money in five or 10 years.”
And the job offers came as the valuations of these companies outpaced rivals in other sectors by multiples. San Francisco-based payments provider Stripe had a price tag of $95bn as of June 2021, while its UK counterpart Checkout.com was valued at $40bn in January. By contrast, UK high-street lender NatWest, one of the largest banks in the country, has a market cap of around $27bn.
“A lot of people [in fintechs] are moving back into the banking world,” says Burks. “They’re happy to take slightly less on total compensation to be in a safer environment, especially with everything going on at the moment.”
For employees who joined a start-up after it was already established, there are also potential benefits to joining a fresher company. “They get to be part of building something and get equity and options, and can use their experience to get a bigger piece of the pie,” Benson notes.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan
