UK financial lobby group sets up body to boost defence investment
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It comes amid a slew of moves from financiers to better recognise opportunities in defence.
TheCityUK, a financial-sector advocacy organisation in London, has launched a Defence and Resilience Group (DRG) with a view to tackling funding and investment barriers in defence.
The member organisation, previously described by Reuters as “Britain’s most powerful lobby group”, announced the move on 18 December, and has since held the DRG’s first meeting.
Its aim, while broad, is to leverage the UK’s financial sector to strengthen “defence capability and national resilience”. TheCityUK specifically highlights “start-up and scale-up firms in the defence and dual-use arena” as key to delivering this, including supporting defence infrastructure and mobilising industry expertise in areas such as cyber security.
The DRG is jointly chaired by Joe Cassidy, Head of Technology, Media and Telecoms at KPMG UK, and General (Gen) Sir Richard Barrons (Retd), who partly led the UK’s Strategic Defence Review and is co-chair at Universal Defence and Security Solutions (UDSS) consultancy.
In his comments, Barrons tied this new initiative back to the Strategic Defence Review, promoting finance’s role as part of a “whole-of-society effort”.
“This group will focus on turning that into delivery, creating the conditions for private capital to back defence and dual-use innovation”, Barrons added.
In doing this, the DRG will work with regulators, policymakers, and industry players, having already welcomed contributions from Nikhil Rathi, Chief Executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, in its inaugural meeting.
Meanwhile, Cassidy noted that the DRG will apply cross-sector solutions, whilst considering how to de-risk defence finance, which is a key roadblock for smaller companies in particular.
Elaborating on LinkedIn, he said that “a cross-section of financial and professional services, primes, critical infrastructure providers”, private equity, venture capital, and more, are leaning into supporting the defence and resilience of the UK.
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