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Monday, February 23, 2026
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OakNorth named on Fintech City’s Fintech50 – a list of the 50 hottest fintech start-ups in Europe – after being selected from over 1,800 applications

  • Now in its sixth year, the Fintech50 features the 50 hottest fintech start-ups in Europe, including 23 that are new to the list this year such as OakNorth;
  • Fintech City received applications from over 1,800 fintechs across the continent – its largest ever pool of applicants;
  • Over half (27) of the companies selected are based in London – evidence that the capital has managed to maintain its pole position in the fintech sector, despite ongoing Brexit uncertainty;
  • The judging panel included senior representatives from venture capitalist firms, tier-one investment banks, policy makers, and global corporates such as Microsoft, Amazon and AMEX.

OakNorth – the bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs – has been named on the Fintech50, a list of the 50 hottest fintech businesses from across Europe. The list, which was launched at a drinks reception hosted at Silicon Valley Bank’s London offices last night, includes companies from across the fintech spectrum – insurtech, regtech, wealthtech, lendtech and cryptocurrency – and was whittled down from over 1,800 applications.

The judging panel included senior representatives from: Silicon Valley Bank UK, Standard Chartered Bank – Hong Kong, the Department for International Trade, the European Parliament Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, Microsoft, American Express, Amazon, JP Morgan, Accel, Motive Partners and SoftBank, amongst others.

Joel Perlman, co-founder of OakNorth, said: The UK’s fintech sector is made up of unique ecosystem of incumbent institutions and start-ups; forward-thinking policy makers; a skilled talent base with deep expertise in both financial services and technology; and scale-up businesses such as OakNorth that are attracting large, later-stage investments such as the £250m we raised last year.

We launched less than three years ago, so to be getting this recognition from such a high-profile judging panel is incredibly humbling. We’re extremely grateful to all the customers, investors, partners, and of course our brilliant team who have helped us get to this stage in our journey, and we look forward to continuing to build on this success in the future.

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