The investments in technological innovation in the financial sector is booming. In the first half year of 2016 there was a massive global increase in fintech investments.In the first quarter of last year 4,9 billion dollars was spent on fintech, compared to 13,8 billion in the entirety of 2015. The undisputed leader in this field is China. The United States and Europe are still lagging enormously, although the European venture investments in the second quarter of 2016 increased sharply.
Fintech in China
In 2015 fintech investments in Asia quadrupled to more than 4 billion dollars. Of that amount almost half was invested by China. It’s no surprise that a number of Chinese companies belong to the most important fintech-companies of the world, like Lufax (online platform for loans) and Zhong An (completely digital insurer). The growth of Chinese investments will certainly continue this year. The Chinese company Ant Financial for instance expects to raise an amount of 3 billion dollars this year.
European investments increased
The European countries don’t come near the amounts that are being spent in China. Nonetheless, there has also been a strong increase of fintech investments here. In the second quarter of 2016 an amount of 369 million dollars was invested. A growth of 20% compared to the investments in the first three months of this year. This is partly due to the following investments:
- Starling, British online bank: 70 million dollar.
- Spotcap, an online lender: 34 million dollar.
- Future Finance Loan, Irish provider of student loans: 27 million dollar.
- Finanzcheck, Duits German loanplatform: 46 million dollar.
- N26, bank with complete online service: 40 million dollar.
In the Netherlands there are more and more entrepreneurs who occupy themselves with developing technologies related to fintech. In this infographic you can see a nice overview of the Dutch Fintech Scene, where among others SimpledCard, the sister company of GlobalOrange, is mentioned.
Value of fintech
It seems as if the European financial institution more and more realize what the possibilities and value is of fintech. Because of the uncertain market conditions venture capitalists have become careful. They focus more on fintech-companies with a good businessmodel and a lot of experience.
Noncommital advice?
The financial sector is known territory for GlobalOrange. Take a look at our business cases or have a conversation with us.
