Two Charlotte leaders spoke to the region’s business community yesterday at LendingTree Inc.’s headquarters in South End to discuss how the city can become a top fintech market.
During the event, LendingTree (NASDAQ: TREE) CEO, founder and chairman Doug Lebda and Carolina Fintech Hub executive director Tariq Bokhari answered questions surrounding fintech and its future. The conversation, moderated by the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, focused on how fintech has evolved over the last two decades, Charlotte’s growth potential in the sector and what financial technology could look like in the next 20 years and beyond.
When Lebda picked Charlotte as LendingTree’s home 26 years ago and Bokhari entered the industry two decades ago, fintech wasn’t customary and the internet wasn't fully established. Still, Lebda said he chose the city not only because it was a top financial center, but also the tech talent he needed radiated in Charlotte.
“We had a talent pool of engineers that we could really get a lot of stuff done with,” he said to the audience. “We also wanted to build a company that was built to last. We wanted employees that were gonna really care about this place and be like a family. So, Charlotte was a great call for us.”
About two decades ago, when Bokhari and Lebda first explored fintech, experts told them financial services would not become a popular trend with the internet, the two said at the forum. That prediction proved wrong, as evidenced in Charlotte with the growth of LendingTree and other fintech companies, especially during the last five years.
Bokhari said it’s important to capitalize on the successes Charlotte has seen in the last 20 years — which started with talent.
How talent has shaped Charlotte’s fintech scene
Bokhari said five years ago, fintech was a word many people in Charlotte were just discovering. Fast forward to now, and the city is a top destination for fintech careers and innovation due to its attractive tech talent.
"The key to this global war for fintech dominance and city dominance is talent," Bokhari said. "Talent is literally everything."
To continue to draw talent in the region, he says it’s important to consistently invest and ensure talent here remains strong. Lebda and Bokhari both agreed that as long as Charlotte remains a prime spot to relocate, the city will boom with tech talent.
Between 2010-21, the number of local employees in tech fields had doubled, according to data presented at the event by the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance. Charlotte has about 50,000 or more workers in tech. The Charlotte region is a top-five market in the U.S. in terms of talent growth, which has grown 22% over the last five years, the data showed.
“Just continue to be a great city where people want to live and be that supportive nurturing community,” Lebda said. “Just make sure it’s an attractive city that people want to come to. I think that's it.”
What does fintech's future look like?
Both Lebda and Bokhari said they expect everything will be considered fintech in the next two decades. The two compared how the internet, in its early stages, was viewed by companies as necessary for anything they did. It will be the same for fintech years from now, they said.
They foresee fintech being integrated into every form of business activity. This will not only drive growth, they said, but remove barriers behind the fintech industry as a whole.
“I think in the future, you just keep removing the barriers,” Lebda said. “The barriers to homeownership, the cost that it takes for a company to underwrite a loan, and as all of that, to improve the natural evolution of technology should mean that it's going to be so much better for customers.”
Bokhari added, "It's either going to be an evolution one way or the other. Or it's going to be this absolute meteor-like event that shifts the whole market within a year.”
