Innovate Finance, the body representing the UK’s fastest-growing fintech companies, has called on the government to scrap stamp duty on shares entirely to revive London’s struggling listing market.
The group, whose members include Revolut, Monzo and Zilch, is urging the Treasury to eliminate the 0.5 per cent levy on UK stocks to boost British equity ownership and restore the London Stock Exchange’s appeal as a destination for IPOs.
Former Chancellor Rachel Reeves introduced a three-year stamp duty holiday for new listings in her 2025 Budget, a move Innovate Finance described as “welcome” but one that has so far failed to trigger a meaningful wave of new listings in the City.
“Now is the time to abolish stamp duty on UK listed shares in entirety,” Innovate Finance said in a newly published report, signalling growing impatience within the sector.
“Abolishing stamp duty on UK shares would remove this competitive disadvantage, encourage greater domestic investment, strengthen London’s attractiveness for IPOs and help reverse the decline in British ownership of UK companies,” the group added.
Total tax receipts from the shares levy rose 35 per cent in the 2024 to 2025 financial year, with HMRC collecting approximately £4.3bn despite Reeves’ intervention in her final Budget.
Innovate Finance argues the tax makes raising capital in the UK more expensive and actively dissuades domestic investors from putting money into British-listed companies.
“It exposes UK listed firms to a reliance on overseas capital, takeovers and relocation,” the group warned, highlighting the broader risks of maintaining the charge in an increasingly competitive global market.
Officials have courted the fintech industry, many of whom are openly ambitious about pursuing a public debut, in hopes of securing high-profile London listings rather than losing them to New York or Amsterdam.
The boss of fintech unicorn Thought Machine previously said that Reeves’ changes were not “big enough to really change anybody’s mind either for or against” listing in the UK, reflecting a wider sense of frustration among founders.
Foreign takeovers have continued to sweep the London market, with September seeing a trio of City firms accept bids to be taken private in a single morning alone.
FTSE 250 members Bodycote and Gamma Communications, alongside energy firm Capricorn, each agreed to be taken private in deals worth a combined £3bn, underlining the scale of the challenge facing policymakers.