The pulse of Fintech 2015 in review

2015 was the year that fintech entered the mainstream. With respect to VC funding in particular, over US$13.8 billion was deployed to a wide variety of fintech companies globally, more than double the value of VC investment in fintech in 2014.

One key to fintech’s growing prominence in the VC community is the diversity of interests considered ‘fintech'. Almost every major process within banking and insurance is being targeted by fintech companies globally, either to disrupt the incumbents or, increasingly, to enable them to serve their customers better or reduce costs.

While many big banks and insurers have set up their own fintech corporate venture funds, they’ve also increasingly looked to partnership models with fintech companies to find an edge over their competitors. In effect, these banks have moved from unbundling services to re-bundling them – from disruption to co-creation. Part of the competitive advantage banks have over new market entrants is trust. But to fully become the real-time, innovative and modern trusted adviser, they have to be willing and able to plug and play with fintech companies to provide customers with an amazing, personalized, secure, easy and inexpensive experience to better manage their financial lives.

Unlike some other investment areas, fintech is gaining momentum in every region of the world – with hubs developing across Asia, Europe and North America. There are many unique factors driving interest in different regions, from diversification and sub-sector diversification to growth in deal size and an enhanced focus on fintech as an enabler rather than a disruptor.

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