JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Does Jacksonville’s personality change over time? Does its reputation?
In the 20th century, Jacksonville was known as the banking headquarters for the state, and there were three major bank headquarters in downtown.
According to News4JAX news partner the Jacksonville Daily Record, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation database shows there have been 72 banks with a main office in the River City.
What about fintech, which refers to any company offering financial services or service products that rely heavily on technology?
Jacksonville could become the fintech hub of the region… if not the country.
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“I think a lot of American companies in financial services are innovating,” Joe Testa who joined the discussion on This Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition said. “It’s growing. It’s exploding all the different opportunities there are today for consumers to connect with merchants and for financial institutions of all kinds to be a part of that value chain.”
Testa thinks Jacksonville is an “increasingly important hub of the industry.”
H. West Richards and Testa are part of the American Transaction Processors Coalition.
“You have insurer tech, which is related to fintech,” Richards said. “Making insurance products easier to use for the consumer and so forth. So fintechs are really broad term and it’s technology supporting financial services.”
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The payments industry qualifies and seems ready to expand in the area.
“People don’t really think of it as an industry. They don’t think of it as a business. They think of it as just a utility,” Testa said. “You pay for something in a store or online. You don’t think about the work that goes behind performing that transaction. And there are tens of thousands of people in the United States and a disproportionate number here in certain hub areas, including here in North Florida, who are responsible for making that work happen.”
In this episode, we look specifically at the payments industry, but also more broadly at the region’s workforce, the future of Stablecoin, and other related issues.
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