London’s reign as an international Fintech center is being threatened by the Asia-Pacific (APAC) ) region, which has managed to secure a groundswell of investment and seed funding during H1 2016 – to date, the region has garnered $9.6 billion more than twice the $4.26 billion invested in the region in all of 2015, according to data from Accenture.
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The APAC region has long since been the site of numerous global financial centers. However, relative to London or the US, the APAC region has outperformed its competition in H1, besting North America as a whole, which managed to see $4.58 billion in fintech investments over the same period. By extension, Europe managed $1.85 billion over H1, lagging well behind both North America and APAC.
China Fueling Growth
One of the main drivers of this trend has been the number of fintech companies in China, though deals volume lags well behind North America and Europe. However, funding in a few select companies in China has helped buoy investment trends overall – this was quantified at 192 fintech deals for APAC YTD, compared to 509 in North America, and 230 in Europe.
The destination for fintech funding is also not evenly distributed, with China and Hong Kong corporations soaking up 90% of all APAC investments, which totaled $8.75 billion in H1.
According to Beat Monnerat, Accenture’s Senior Managing Director, Financial Services Asia-Pacific, in a recent statement on the data: “China’s established companies, rather than nascent startups, are at the forefront of the fintech trend in the region. This is transforming China’s financial services industry and is consistent with the global ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, which is bringing innovation from non-traditional competitors to the financial services industry.”
