Emerging Europe has seen significant foreign direct investment (FDI) in the financial services and fintech arenas over the past five and three quarter years, as banks and fintechs have looked to take advantage of the highly skilled and well-educated workforce, recent investments in information and communications technology infrastructure, and lower operating costs.
Poland is the top destination in emerging Europe for financial Services and fintech FDI, with 89 projects launched between January 2016 and September 2021, according to FT-owned greenfield data monitor fDi Markets. These projects have brought in $926m in investment and generated more than 14,000 jobs.
Some distance behind sit Lithuania and Romania, which attracted 61 and 41 projects, respectively, over the same period. Across its projects, Lithuania pulled in $454m in FDI and created 4750 jobs, while Romania saw investment of $668m and 4358 new jobs.
Despite pandemic conditions, Poland has attracted 11 new projects in the first three quarters of 2021, four in financial services and seven in fintech. Noteworthy investors include two ‘buy now, pay later’ firms: US fintech Affirm, which opened a research and development engineering site in Warsaw; and Klarna, the Swedish fintech unicorn, which opened an office in the capital. In addition, French social investment platform, Shares, has expanded in Kraków. The European entity of large US bank, Citi, expanded its shared services operations in the county.
The top destination city for projects in Poland was Warsaw, attracting 20 projects over the past almost six years, followed by Kraków with nine projects.
The top source country for these projects across number of projects, capex and job creation was the US, with American companies funding 21 projects, investing $215m and creating 6214 jobs over the same time period. The UK was the second source country across the three metrics, with 14 projects investing $145m and generating 1359 jobs.
