Technological innovation has been shaking up finance for so much of the past decade that financial technology (fintech) firms — once the upstarts of the industry — are becoming part of the establishment. Fintech venture funding doubled globally to $210bn in 2021.

As a result, fintech job opportunities — at online-only neobanks, payments companies, and “invest-tech” robo-advice providers — are springing up in financial and tech capitals around the world, from Silicon Valley to London, Beijing, Stockholm, and S?o Paulo. And it seems that innovators such as Revolut, Stripe and Nubank are proving as attractive to jobseekers as they are to venture capitalists.

“We received more than 250,000 applications in the first quarter of this year [for 576 positions], which makes getting a job at Revolut more competitive than [gaining a place at] Harvard,” says Alexandra Loi, global head of human resources at the neobank. “We seek graduates who are top of their class at the top universities in each of the 30-plus countries where we operate.”