Young financial firms want to stir up the banking and insurance world. Often they do this from Berlin. Stuttgart as a location has not played a role for them so far. Those responsible at Stuttgart Financial, the association of local players in the financial center, want to change that. You are starting a new type of initiative called fintogether to attract young companies in the financial services sector to the location, as Dominik Schütz, Head of Stuttgart Financial, announced. It should also actively support the emergence of new start-ups in the region and prevent migration to other fintech hotspots in Germany. The departure of Cashlink's payment service provider from Karlsruhe to Frankfurt years ago was cited as an example.

There are around 50 fintechs in Baden-Württemberg: for example, the digital insurance provider Getsafe, based in Heidelberg, or FinMatch AG, an online platform for corporate financing. It networks medium-sized companies with selected financing partners. In the past year, more than 350 million euros have already been processed via the platform, as co-founder Martin Hipp, once CFO at the mechanical engineering company Manz in Reutlingen, reported. “We expect a significant plus in 2021.” The financial start-up now has 40 employees.

It benefits from the strong economic environment in the state.

Schütz also referred to this.

"There is good access to medium-sized companies and to industry." According to him, a major trend among fintechs is currently embedded finance, i.e. the integration of financial services into a non-financial value chain.

One example is the production facility that independently reorders material and processes payment.

There are enough customers and cooperation partners in this area for fintechs due to the strong real economy in Baden-Württemberg.

Even start-ups with a focus on corporate finance would therefore find the best conditions here.

Replenishment of young skilled workers

And Jürgen Junker, CEO of the financial group Wüstenrot & Württembergische AG said: “The Stuttgart region not only has, but also an outstanding university landscape. This is an important prerequisite for ideas, innovation and entrepreneurial initiative. ”The company maintains close contact with universities, founders and the associated microcosm. In 2017, W&W AG was one of the first financial service providers in Germany to buy a majority stake in a corresponding start-up and integrated its offer into its own business model.

Financial start-ups want to use intuitive technology to make transfers, savings, loans or insurance faster and more convenient. They were quickly traded as a threat to banks. Recently, however, it became clear that only a few prevail - typical for a young industry. Schütz said that the new fintech initiative aims to be the first point of contact for founders in the financial services sector in Baden-Württemberg. "The offer ranges from network events to individual advice and help with investment rounds, recruiting or regulatory issues to our support program for early-stage start-up teams in the field of smart finance, the fintogether accelerator."

With the latter, start-ups receive coaching, individual mentoring, technological support, a job, access to the Stuttgart Financial network and support in the search for venture capital in a three-month program. Schütz does not see the lack of large international financial companies as a disadvantage for settling in the Swabian metropolis. He pointed out that the financial sector in Baden-Württemberg has over 140,000 jobs subject to social security contributions, has a market share of over 50 percent in the building society business in Germany and is home to 17 banks and 29 insurance companies. In addition, the Stuttgart Stock Exchange is the second most important stock exchange in Germany and the largest Landesbank, LBBW, is based here.