Leeds and West Yorkshire have established an industry-led board to guide the growth of the region’s financial and professional services sector, alongside a new £6.5 million programme intended to bring research and business closer together.
The Northern Square Mile board held its first meeting on 19 October. It brings together leaders from banking, financial technology, professional services, academia and the public sector. Organisations represented include Lloyds Banking Group, Deloitte, Yorkshire Building Society, FinTech North and the University of Leeds.
The board is intended to provide strategic direction across innovation, investment, skills and international links. Its creation marks a move from promoting the scale of the Leeds financial and professional services cluster towards a more coordinated effort to shape its development. Leeds and the wider West Yorkshire area host financial institutions, fintech businesses, regulators and public investment bodies, alongside established professional services firms.
A first major initiative supported by the board is the Leeds Financial Innovation Exchange, or LFIX. The £6.5m programme is led by the University of Leeds and delivered through Nexus. It is designed to connect financial institutions with researchers, innovators and technology providers, helping them work on common sector challenges and apply emerging technologies.
The programme’s areas of focus include artificial intelligence, cyber security, fraud prevention and climate risk. Its funding comes through the Local Innovation Partnerships Fund, a UK Government programme delivered by UK Research and Innovation to support regional innovation economies. The exchange is intended to link university research capabilities with practical needs identified by financial and professional services organisations.
This arrangement gives the exchange a role beyond research in isolation: its stated model is to bring organisations facing shared operational questions into contact with researchers and technology providers. The identified themes range from the use of new digital tools to risks affecting financial institutions and their customers. The programme’s success will depend on how those broad themes are translated into collaborative work and useful adoption across participating organisations.
The board is chaired by Ed Whiting, chief executive of Leeds City Council. Its formation brings together organisations that already operate across the city’s finance and professional services economy under a shared structure. The stated ambition is to strengthen collaboration and help attract investment, develop skills and support business growth, while ensuring that opportunities are accessible across the region.
Leeds City Council leader James Lewis has described the Northern Square Mile as part of the city’s wider economic vision, which sets out a goal of £20bn in economic growth and 100,000 new jobs over the next decade. The board’s work is intended to contribute to that plan, although these figures are goals rather than outcomes already achieved.
The launch also coincides with West Yorkshire’s developing relationship with Gujarat in India, following a joint Yorkshire trade mission. The region’s links with Gujarat are intended to create opportunities for financial and professional services organisations to build relationships, exchange expertise and explore new markets. Gujarat is home to GIFT City, an international financial services centre.
Together, the board and LFIX provide a framework for closer cooperation between companies, researchers and public bodies in Leeds and West Yorkshire. The practical test will be whether the partnership turns shared priorities into sustained collaboration, skills development and new innovation activity across the regional sector.
