Financial technology investments balloon to US$3.5b in the first nine months of 2015

40% of these deals were in payments.

More financial services companies are finding themselves investing heavily in technology as the market becomes more demanding. According to Accenture, investments in financial technology (fintech) across Asia-Pacific skyrocketed in 2015 – from about $880 million in all of 2014 to nearly $3.5 billion in just the first nine months of 2015.

According to the report, “Fintech Investment in Asia-Pacific set to at least quadruple in 2015,” the largest share of 2015 Asia-Pacific fintech investment deals were in payments (40 percent) and lending (25 percent), which have traditionally been the sole domain of banks.

“We are seeing the convergence of two trends: venture capitalists are clearly signalling fintech is a growth opportunity and simultaneously financial services companies are waking up to the vast opportunities created by the current wave of fintech,” says Jon Allaway, senior managing director of Accenture’s Financial Services group in ASEAN and executive sponsor of the FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific.

“Financial services institutions are embracing cloud technology, mobile wallets and blockchain to fundamentally redefine their business and operational models. We are seeing this in the increased investments from banks in fintech venture capital funding, incubators and startups.”

According to the report, the volume of deals is set to increase slightly – at 122 as of October 1, compared with 117 for all of 2014 – but the value of deals has increased substantially due to larger investments in and from China. They include investments from Alibaba Group Holding and its Ant Financial Services Group subsidiary into Paytm, a mobile payment and commerce platform in India, as well as fundraising efforts by Ping An Insurance Group venture Lufax, which has been developing multiple alternative financing and investment platforms, including peer-to-peer and business-to-customer platforms.