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Top 1% Workplace Awards 2025

Only the Best Make the Top 1%
Celebrating FinTech’s standout workplaces since 2016.
Recognising the Best of the Best in FinTech

Nominations Now Closed!

These awards spotlight the FinTech companies getting it right, whether that's building standout cultures, leading transformative change, developing cutting-edge technology, or empowering world-class teams.

From start-ups to global powerhouses, payments to trading, technologists to talent professionals, this is your chance to be recognised as a true leader in the industry.

Are you creating a workplace where people can do their best work? Driving innovation with real impact? Leading with purpose, performance, and progress?

Winning companies don’t just succeed, they set the standard.

The Top 1% Workplace Awards are more than a badge. They’re a benchmark, honouring excellence across culture, leadership, delivery, innovation, inclusion, and more.

The Top 1% Workplace Award 2025 Finalists

The Team Excellence Award

Finalists: BMLL, Quantifi, Traderoot International, Millennium Advisors, LLC, Upvest, TransFICC, Sterling Trading Tech, SteelEye, Rapid Addition.

The Best Workplace for Talent Investment Award

Finalists: Corlytics, Football Radar, CoBa, Caplin Systems, Checkout.com, Andor Holding Group.

The Best Employee Onboarding Experience Award

Finalists: Feedzai, FlexTrade, iPushpull, Ozone API
 

The Best Workplace Culture Award

Finalists: Caplin Systems, Bitpace, Alpaca, Ozone API, Flagstone, Transaction Network Services (TNS), BCB Group, Delta Financial Systems, Ecommpay, Swift, payabl., Muinmos, GSS - Global Screening Services, Sterling Trading Tech, Banqora, Andor Cards Ltd, Primer, Atom bank
 

The Best Sales Professionals Award

Finalists: Deutsche Börse, SteelEye, Transaction Network Services (TNS), Edenred, Aquis Exchange

The Top 1% Leader of the Year Award

Finalists: Tim Renew, Deputy CEO at BCB Group, Ruth Fletcher, COO/CFO at GSS - Global Screening Services, Amanda Mocellin, COO at Traderoot International, Shriyanka Hore, Managing Director at Swift

The Best Workplace for Product Innovation Award

Finalists: AutoRek, Unbiased, iCapital, Taskize, Aquis Exchange, Upvest, ipushpull, payabl.

The Best DE&I Initiative Award

Finalists: Ecommpay, Stable

The Best Workplace for Technologists Award

Finalists: Flagstone, LMAX Group, InTick, Taskize, Eventus, Quantifi, BMLL, Embat, Muinmos, Millennium Advisors, FlexTrade, TransFICC

The Best Emerging FinTech Award

Finalists: SIGMA AI, Imandra, FinCrime Dynamics, Alpaca, North One, Embat, Stable, SilverTide, Corlytics, Tokenovate

The Best Workplace for Data and AI Professionals Award

Finalists: Aiviq, Feedzai, Banqora, Atom bank, AutoRek, Eventus, Sporting Solutions, Synechron, Imandra, SIGMA AI

The Best Workplace for Digital Assets

Finalists: Tokenovate, Archax, LMAX Digital

The DE&I Champion of the Year Award

Finalists revealed on 10th October 2025.

The Best Cyber Team Award

Finalists revealed on 13th October 2025.

The Best Internal Talent Team Award

Finalists revealed on 14th October 2025.

The Best Workplace for Sports Trading Award

Finalists revealed on 15th October 2025.

Winners Announced

The Financial Technologist Magazine will be released on 20th October 2025.
Recognising Excellence Across FinTech

Award Categories

With 16 categories available, you can choose the one that best reflects your company’s strengths, or nominate across multiple areas.
the-best-workplace-for-technologists-award

The Best Workplace for Technologists

Celebrating firms where technologists thrive, whether building next-gen platforms, experimenting with AI, or solving complex problems that really matter.

The Best Emerging FinTech Workplace

For start-ups and scale-ups making serious waves, think rapid innovation, fresh thinking, and a mission that challenges the status quo.
the-best-workplace-culture-award

The Best Workplace Culture

Recognising cultures that inspire, whether through mentorship, wellbeing initiatives, CSR, or career development that genuinely delivers.
team-excellence-award

Team Excellence

For teams who are unstoppable together, excelling in delivery, collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and doing it all with heart.
the-best-sales-professionals-award

The Best Sales Professionals

Honouring the top-performing sales teams, those closing complex deals, driving growth, and creating a standout sales culture.
talent-investment-award

The Best Workplace for Talent Investment

For businesses that back their people through training, progression, mentorship and benefits that go far beyond the basics.
best-internal-talent-team-award

The Best Internal Talent Team

Recognising the talent teams who hire with care, combining structured process with a personal touch, inclusive job ads and human-first recruitment.
onboarding-experience-award

The Best Employee Onboarding Experience

Spotlighting companies who nail day one, think buddy schemes, hybrid-friendly onboarding, and feedback-led processes that make new joiners feel at home.
diversity-equity-inclusion-fintech-award

The Best Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiative

For initiatives that truly move the dial, such as inclusive language guides, disability support, psychological safety and menopause education.
dei-champion-fintech-award

The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Champion

Recognising individual trailblazers who lead by example, creating space for all voices and turning values into visible action.
the-top-1percent-leader-fintech-award

The Top 1% Leader of the Year

Celebrating exceptional leaders who lead with vision, care and courage, balancing commercial impact with a deep understanding of people.
best-buy-side-workplace-award

Best Buy-Side Workplace

For buy-side firms where people love to build, innovate and grow, whether that’s in trading, engineering, data or operations.
the-best-workplace-for-data-and-ai-award

Best Workplace for Data and AI Professionals

For the companies giving data and AI pros room to shine, working on cutting-edge models, tools and real-world impact projects.
the-best-workplace-for-digital-assets

The Best Workplace for Digital Assets

For the pioneers shaping the digital asset space, combining innovation, inclusion and a bold vision for the future of finance.
the-best-workplace-for-product-innovation-award

The Best Workplace for Product Innovation

Celebrating companies where product innovation thrives, where teams are empowered to experiment, build bold solutions, and bring transformative ideas to life.

The Best Workplace for Sports Trading Professionals

Recognising companies where sports trading talent thrives, combining cutting-edge technology, market expertise and a culture that drives both performance and passion.
the-best-cyber-team-award

The Best Cyber Team Award

Celebrating cyber teams that excel in collaboration, innovation, and resilience, defending organisations against threats while driving trust and security across the business.

Meet the Judges

Our panel of judges brings together some of the most respected voices in FinTech and Financial Services.

With deep experience across leadership, innovation, people, product, technology, and culture, they know what excellence looks like — and what it takes to achieve it.

Every nomination is reviewed independently and scored against clear criteria, ensuring fairness, rigour, and consistency across all categories.

These are the individuals helping define what a Top 1% Workplace really means in 2025.

How the Process Works

A step-by-step guide of the process

Submit a nomination for your own company or a FinTech you admire.
All we need at this stage are a few basic details, no long answers required.

It’s quick, free and open to all FinTech and Financial Services companies.

Once you’ve submitted your nomination, we’ll invite you to take part in a short video conversation.
It’s just 15 minutes, and we’ll send the questions in advance so you have time to prepare.

You’ll be asked:

  1. Why should you win this award?
  2. What makes you a top 1% workplace?
  3. Why would someone want to build their career at your company over another?

Video interviews open: 8th July
Deadline to submit: 11th September

No high production needed, just your authentic voice and story.

Our panel of industry experts will carefully review all video entries across every award category.
Each judge will score nominations against clear criteria including culture, leadership, innovation, and impact.

From there, we’ll decide on the winners, highly commended, and shortlisted companies for each category.

We’ll contact all entrants before the public announcement.
Winners will be revealed in the upcoming issue of The Financial Technologist: Top 1% Workplace Awards 2025.

Winners Receive:

Personalised promotional assets to share your achievement

Dedicated exposure acorss our plaform and social channels, with over 300,000 industry followers

A featured profile in The Financial Technologist Magazine, read by over 350,000 FinTech professionals

A spotlight in our upcoming awards content campaign 


Application Deadline: 11th September

Winner announcement date: 20th October

Ready to nominate? Leave your details below, we’ll be in touch with the next steps. Let’s celebrate the FinTechs setting the standard in 2025.

FAQs

Have Questions? We’ve Got Answers.

Absolutely. Many nominations come from people proud of their workplace culture and achievements. We welcome self-nominations from individuals or teams.
No, nominating for the Top 1% Workplace Awards 2025 is completely free. We believe great culture should be recognised without barriers.
Once we receive your details, our team will be in touch with next steps. You’ll be invited to share more about your workplace, including a short video submission.
Anyone can nominate, employees, leaders, partners or clients, so long as they have insight into the company’s culture and practices.
Yes. If you know multiple companies doing exceptional work, feel free to submit more than one nomination.
All entries are reviewed by an independent judging panel of industry experts. Finalists are assessed across key criteria including culture, innovation, inclusion, impact, leadership and more.

The full list of judges are available on this page.

Winners will be revealed in the next edition of The Financial Technologist Magazine and across our media platforms.

The Financial Technologist is Harrington Starr’s flagship industry publication, read by thousands of FinTech professionals across the globe. It features exclusive insights from leading voices in the sector and is the official platform where Top 1% Workplace Award winners are announced.

Harrington Starr's magazine, The Financial Technologist, offers insights on industry trends, thought leadership, and best practices. We support professional development and foster a sense of community within the fintech sector. Through sharing knowledge and promoting discussion, we help drive the industry's growth and innovation. Our goal is to inform, inspire, and connect professionals, driving success in the financial technology field.

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