The financial services ecosystem in Catalonia is made up of 628 companies from diverse fields. This is 178 more companies compared to the previous report from the Generalitat in 2017, representing a growth of 40%. These companies employ 99,760 workers and have 1,096,242 million euros in assets.
This is confirmed by the sector map in Catalonia presented by the Ministry of Economy and prepared by Cluster Development. One of the main conclusions of the study is that fintech and insurtech startups are gaining weight, having increased from 50 in 2017 to 140, with data corresponding to the end of 2022. These are mostly international companies that have established themselves in Barcelona during these six years.
These emerging companies are part of a digital and innovation ecosystem with the capacity to attract talent that aligns with the Government's desire to promote Catalonia as a financial hub. The study also highlights the presence in Catalonia of leading companies in advanced solutions for the financial sector, especially in the digital and data fields related to AI.
The study underlines Barcelona's capacity to attract international talent, and its potential to become a financial digital hub.The map highlights the weight of the insurance segment as a whole, with 201 companies, representing 32% of the total. It is followed by the Venture Capital & Private Equity, with 92, and the auxiliary industry, with 80. The universal banking sector, with 17 entities, is the one that employs the largest number of workers with a total of 63,249, 63%.It does so ahead of the auxiliary industry and insurance, with 14,527 and 13,974 workers respectively.
These data confirm that "the financial sector in Catalonia is broad, diverse and robust, which is why it should be seen as a productive sector in itself," according to the Minister of Economy and Finance, Natàlia Mas Guix. In this sense, the study highlights Barcelona's capacity to attract international talent, and its potential to become a financial digital hub and one of the leading poles in technological innovation in Europe.
"We have to position Catalonia as a financial center in Europe and in the world," she concluded in an event at the Barcelona Stock Exchange, where precisely the Government wants to launch a financial hub. This future center aims to act as a driver for companies linked to new technologies, sustainable finance and investment entrepreneurship.
It highlights the presence in Catalonia of leading companies in advanced solutions for the financial sector in the digital field and that linked to AIIt also falls within this strategy of positioning Catalonia in the international financial sphere the recently inaugurated Barcelona Finance School, which wants to position itself as a benchmark in the promotion of financial knowledge. It has done so hand in hand with the Institut d'Estudis Financers (IEF) and the Ministry of Economy, with the participation of entities from the sector, which aims to position Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia in the international financial sphere.
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