UMass Boston's waterfront campus as seen from Morrissey Boulevard in 2018. File photo

UMass Boston, the University of Rhode Island, nonprofit defense consultancy MITRE and fintech LoanSpark have joined Mass Fintech Hub to be a part of the financial technology community in the state.

Mass Fintech Hub said academic institutions like UMass Boston join the hub to boost their programming in the area of fintech. Other organizations join the organization to learn about raising capital, how to attract and retain talent in the industry and networking and supporting each other in terms of innovation.

Since its launch in 2021, the Massachusetts fintech community grew to over 50 members, including banks active in the state like Citizens, Eastern Bank, Reading Cooperative Bank, M&T Bank and BankProv.

“Fintech is a strategic focus area in the College of Management at UMass Boston, Boston’s only public research business school. In line with the growing demand for professionals trained in quantitative financial models, especially using AI and machine learning, we are investing heavily in the development of undergraduate and graduate programs in fintech,” Professor Venky Venkatachalam, dean of the College of Management at UMass Boston, said in a statement. “We look forward to partnering with Boston’s fintech industry to bring cutting-edge curriculum to develop professionals in this arena.”

MITRE, a nonprofit giving engineering and technical guidance to the United States Air Force, has expertise in digital assets, identity, fraud and cyber vulnerabilities, and said it is looking to partner with a like-minded nonprofit within the community, “devoted to advancing public interest.”

Carolyn Kirk, executive director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the agency behind Mass Fintech Hub, said that the fintech community will benefit from the both the public and private sector “to contribute new knowledge, expertise, and insights that push us to think big” and spur innovation.

Since its launch, Mass Fintech Hub has encouraged the growth and expansion of the fintech community by hosting initiatives such as student career fairs, fintech career bootcamps, student mentoring, angel investor courses, corporate-startup collaboration events and other panels and networking sessions for more than 2,000 participants.