“Charlotte is not full of 50-year-old white people only,” said Tariq Bokhari, the executive director of Carolina Fintech Hub at the Southeast Fintech Venture Conference.

Bokhari is also a first-term member of the Charlotte City Council, elected in 2017 as the representative from district 6.

“There is something special here,” he said of Charlotte.

In October, tech association Comp TIA named Charlotte the nation’s top tech city. Raleigh came in second.

Charlotte, a banking hub, is an ideal city for the development of a fintech cluster. A study of the history of the banking system shows that it has been virtually unchanged since about 1804, said Bokhari, though the industry started to change within the last decade.

Fintech companies are those that seek to disrupt or enhance financial services through the use of technology.  That’s the definition used by the Carolina Fintech Hub, an organization focused on investing in programs and resources that enhance fintech innovation and train and develop workforce talent for success in fintech careers across the Carolinas.

According to Bokhari, the current reality in the fintech industry is that there are thousands of new fintech startups every month, and there are large, institutional companies.  Both are still operating from a mindset and mentality of fear, said Bokhari, and that is not conducive to an efficient market.

“Everyone is in a silo,” said Bokhari, which often stymies true innovation that disrupts the industry and improves communities.

“That’s the current state of innovation in fintech.”  Most financial institutions are “spearfishing,” said Bokhari, meaning that they’re working to identify one specific company to acquire and lock up technology and intellectual property to protect their current operations, rather than casting a wide net and incubating fintech startups.

“We need capital,” said Bokhari, “but capital follows deal flow.”  That’s the purpose of the Carolina Fintech Hub: to accelerate deal flow across the region by focusing on preparing and training the workforce, including university students in the region, and increasing opportunities for innovation to occur and then remain in the area.

“Investors,” said Bokhari, “we should be on your radar.”