Asia-Pacific Is Poised to Outpace the US, Becoming the World’s Largest Fintech Market by 2030, According to New Report
NEW YORK, May 3, 2023 — Financial technology revenues are projected to grow sixfold from $245 billion to $1.5 trillion by 2030, according to a new report released today by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and QED Investors. The fintech sector, which currently holds a 2% share of the $12.5 trillion in global financial services revenue, is estimated to grow up to 7%, of which banking fintechs are expected to constitute almost 25% of all banking valuations worldwide by 2030.
The report, Global Fintech 2023: Reimagining the Future of Finance, provides a comprehensive overview of fintech’s future landscape globally and explores the latest trends and opportunities in the global fintech market. It also examines the regulatory environment for fintech companies and the impact of emerging technologies. In 2022, fintechs on average lost more than half of their market value, but according to the research, this plunge was merely a short-term correction in an otherwise long-term positive trajectory.
“The fintech journey is still in its early stages and will continue to revolutionize the financial services industry as we know it,” says Deepak Goyal, BCG managing director and senior partner and co-author of the report. “Customer experience remains poor. More than half the world’s population remains unbanked or underbanked, and technology continues to unlock new use cases in leaps and bounds. All stakeholders must therefore seize the moment. Regulators need to be proactive and lead from the front. Incumbents should partner with fintechs to accelerate their own digital journeys.”
“This report highlights clearly something that, anecdotally, QED has witnessed firsthand: that fintech’s story is in Chapter 2, not Chapter 8, and that much of this powerful narrative is still to be written,” says Nigel Morris, QED Investors managing partner and coauthor of the report. “Fintech sits within financial services which is a massive, profitable industry, and the opportunity ahead of us to democratize access to these services on a global scale is tremendous. We expect to see continued growth not only in developed markets in the US and Europe, but also in developing fintech markets in LatAm, Asia, and Africa, where the inertia and friction is even greater. QED remains more bullish than ever about the future of fintech and its promise to improve the lives of billions of people across the world.”
APAC to Become the Largest Fintech Market, Led by Emerging Countries
Historically an underpenetrated market with nearly $4 trillion in financial services revenue pools, Asia-Pacific (APAC) is poised to outpace the US and become the world’s top fintech market by 2030, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27%. This growth will be driven primarily by Emerging APAC (e.g. China, India, and Indonesia), as it has the largest fintechs, voluminous underbanked populations, a high number of small and medium-sized enterprises, and a rising tech-savvy youth and middle class. North America, which currently has the world’s largest financial-services industry, will remain a critical fintech market and innovation hub, projected to grow fourfold to $520 billion in 2030, with the US accounting for a projected 32% of global fintech revenue growth (a CAGR of 17%).
The UK and European Union combined represent the world’s third-largest financial institution market and are expected to witness major fintech growth through 2030, estimated at more than fivefold over 2021 and led by the payments sector. Similarly, Latin American markets, led by Brazil and Mexico, which have established fintech landscapes, are projected to show a revenue CAGR of 29% over the same time frame. The report projects a fintech revenue CAGR of 32% until 2030 in Africa, with South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya being the key markets.
While Payments Led the Last Era, B2B2X and B2b Will Lead the Next Era of Fintech Growth
The first part of the fintech journey was led by payments, accounting for roughly 25% of cumulative equity funding ($120 billion) since 2000. And according to the report, the sector will grow fivefold to $520 billion, driven by cross-border payments, “payment-plus” models (bill pay and payment apps offering adjacent services such as wallet services), and the proliferation of use cases driven by real-time payments.
While payments led the last era, B2B2X and B2b (serving small businesses) will lead the next. B2B2X is made up of B2B2C (enabling other players to better serve consumers), B2B2B (enabling other players to better serve businesses), and financial infrastructure players. The B2B2X market is expected to grow at a 25% CAGR to reach $440 billion in annual revenues by 2030, supported by growth in embedded finance and financial infrastructure; while the B2b fintech market is expected to grow at a 32% CAGR to reach $285 billion in annual revenue by providing solutions to credit-starved and poorly served small businesses.
Spread Businesses in the Developed World Will Face Challenges While Playing a Critical Role in Emerging Markets
Spread businesses in developed markets (which include banks and neobanks, lending platforms, mortgage lenders, and credit unions) will face challenges scaling up profitably and will need to start lending on their own balance sheet while accessing lower-cost funds, one method of which is by acquiring a banking license. One significant challenge is incumbent banks are investing heavily in technology to improve their customer experience and value chains, making it difficult for neobanks to differentiate themselves.
With roughly 2.8 billion underbanked (50% of which reside in emerging economies) and an additional 1.5 billion unbanked (75% of which reside in emerging economies) adults in the world, neobanks will play a key role in expanding financial access.
Regulators Must Be Proactive, Not Indifferent
Regulation of fintechs has traditionally been relatively light, non-proactive, fragmented, and, in some cases, even lagging behind. While recent bank crises have made them more sensitive to asset/liability management, in addition to creating guardrails, regulators must ensure they are not overregulating the industry and thereby stifling innovation.
Regulators should consider leveling the playing field via such actions as enabling faster pathways for banking and payment institution licenses, supporting digital public infrastructure, and facilitating an open banking ecosystem.
Fintechs Need to Focus on Fundamentals and Play Offense; Incumbents Should Accelerate Their Own Digital Journeys by Embracing Fintechs
The landscape today is much different than it was in 2021 and early 2022 when so many fintechs were able to attract higher funding. Today, fintechs need to conserve cash and stretch their runways to get through the “funding winter” without resorting to raising money at lower valuations. They should therefore consider strengthening their competitiveness and pursuing aggressive strategies such as talent acquisition, gaining market share by entering new geographies/markets, and exploring M&A opportunities—while also taking an active role in shaping and embracing forward-looking regulations that enhance customer confidence and drive higher valuations.
Historically, incumbents have tried to buy capabilities by acquiring fintechs. To avoid failed acquisitions and shorten fintechs’ time to market, incumbents and fintechs should form “Value-based Partnerships,” which allow the fintechs to remain independent but with a clear commercial arrangement that is to the benefit of both partners.
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Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.
About QED Investors
QED Investors is a global leading venture capital firm based in Alexandria, Va. Founded by Nigel Morris and Frank Rotman in 2007, QED Investors is focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies worldwide. QED Investors is dedicated to building great businesses and uses a unique, hands-on approach that leverages its partners’ decades of entrepreneurial and operational experience, helping companies achieve breakthrough growth. Notable investments include AvidXchange, Betterfly, Bitso, Caribou, ClearScore, Current, Creditas, Credit Karma, Flywire, Kavak, Klarna, Konfio, Loft, Mission Lane, Nubank, QuintoAndar, Remitly, SoFi, Wagestream and Wayflyer.
SustainCERT, a global leader in climate impact verification, has launched a pioneering platform that will accurately verify and track the decarbonization impact of Scope 3 (value chain) projects.
A world first, this platform of software and services combines climate and environmental accounting expertise with industry leading technology to accurately verify, track and co-claim emission reductions and removals from a value chain project (also known as ‘an intervention’). This concept will allow companies to co-invest in reductions and removals in their supply chains, share costs of decarbonization and scale action faster.
This solution will help companies tackle the largest source of their carbon footprint – value chain or Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. These account for 75% of a company’s carbon footprint on average (rising to as much as 99% for some sectors). The lack of clear guidance and rules around claiming, the complexities of many supply chains and the challenge of collecting on-the-ground data are some of the issues preventing the acceleration of value chain decarbonization to date.
The platform provides companies with the ability to account and claim GHG impact from interventions in their value chain. It also enables the transfer of GHG impacts – verified by SustainCERT’s auditors – between supply chain partners and other eligible entities. This allows ‘co-claiming’ of shared Scope 3 intervention outcomes, which when verified can be used to show progress towards reporting a company’s Science-Based Target Initiative commitments.
To provide transparency, information on the intervention is available on a public database that provides details on validated and verified projects as well as information on impacts that have been claimed from those projects.
Marion Verles, CEO of SustainCERT said:
“We need significant progress in Scope 3 action to address emissions to reduce global warming as called for in the Paris Agreement. Substantial scaling of market and policy mechanisms that incentivize decarbonization – and collaboration between market players – is key. The regulations to drive Scope 3 action are increasing – but we need scalable action now.”
“We have been committed to bringing credibility to climate action since 2018, and we are excited to offer corporations the ability to be recognized for their co-investments in the same value chain decarbonization program, while maintaining environmental integrity and ensuring the intervention impact reporting is accurate, credible, and representative of on-the-ground impact.”
“We believe this will be a game changer in Scope 3 action and we look forward to working with companies to credibly scale their value chain climate impact action.”
SustainCERT has been innovating digital verification solutions for value chains and carbon markets since its inception and this new offer builds on its established Scope 3 services. SustainCERT supports corporates pursuing Scope 3 impact verification and its emission factor software accounts and tracks the impacts from climate action.
It also builds on leading guidance from the Value Change Initiative, a multi-stakeholder forum that brings together some of the world’s largest companies, leading civil society actors and internationally recognized frameworks to collectively focus on defining best practice for Scope 3 emission reductions at scale.
Notes to editors
SustainCERT is a climate impact verifier, bringing credibility to climate action. Our offer combines established independent climate expertise with innovative, cutting-edge digital verification solutions.
We provide impact validation and verification services for carbon markets and value chains. Founded as an independent standalone organisation in 2018 by Gold Standard, SustainCERT’s approach aligns with and contributes to leading international sustainability frameworks – including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Gold Standard and Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi).
In 2023 SustainCERT is launching the world’s first software platform for digital verification and management of climate claims across carbon markets and value chains. Verifying against globally recognized standards, the digitization of this process will accelerate the speed, accuracy and quality of data measurement used for carbon credits and GHG impacts.
SustainCERT is also the co-founder of the Value Change Initiative, a multi-stakeholder forum bringing together some of the world’s largest companies, leading civil society actors and internationally recognized frameworks to collectively focus on defining best practice for Scope 3 emission reductions at scale.
Mesh Payments Expands its unified spend management platform to support global multinational businesses operating in Europe, UK, and Asia in local currencies
Today Mesh Payments announced expansion of its unified spend management platform to support global multinational businesses operating in Europe, UK, and Asia in local currencies. Mesh now enables companies to operate globally across international entities, issue local cards and settle in local currencies all from one unified platform.
The global expansion comes after 3X growth in 1H 2023, new product capabilities to help companies save money and increase finance team productivity, and competitive customer wins across technology and financial services sectors, including Fortune 100 companies.
Globalization and remote working trends have led to an increase in complex multinational structures and distributed workforces. Unlike Mesh, most spend management platforms have yet to address the needs of companies with international entities. Automating manual tasks, receipt collection, and spend workflows with a unified spend management solution across multiple entities accelerates productivity of finance teams by more than 30%.
“As the industry leader in mobile and marketing measurement solutions, it’s critical for AppsFlyer to take any friction out of the back office so we can keep the focus on serving our thousands of customers worldwide,” said Yuval Levinson, VP Finance of San Francisco-based AppsFlyer. “Spend management across multiple international entities can be challenging for accounting, specifically to maintain a high level of internal control. With Mesh, we are able to eliminate all our manual and time-consuming processes around international subsidiary spend management and focus on our strategic finance operations.”
Mesh unified dashboards summarize activity across all entities and automatically sync all transaction details to the associated general ledger. Other specific global capabilities include:
Localized operations, local currency — Manage spend by provisioning cards in local currency, including EU countries, the UK, Singapore, and Hong Kong with embedded policy enforcement for enhanced control for entity, individual, and business unit transactions.
ERP integrations — Automatically code and post transactions to local instances of the ERP by leveraging robust ERP integrations.
Global compliance — Local compliance, with the ability to itemize VAT and taxation across all entities. Subsidiary-level tax compliance and reporting capabilities. Receipt matching automation and itemization compliant with direct integrations for leading ERP and HRIS systems.
Localized and embedded policy enforcement — The ability to set and enforce local spend policies and rules happens before any transaction is made.
Fund reimbursement locally — Entities can fund reimbursements from local bank accounts for employees in local currency.
“Managing spend for remote workforces and global operations can be complex, but Mesh offers a unified platform for global enterprises to handle local operations in local currency at scale,” said Oded Zehavi, co-founder and CEO, Mesh Payments. “Mesh Payments is thrilled to help businesses increase their finance efficiency and solve the pain points of global spend.”
With precise controls, embedded spend policies, reporting on every transaction, and the most robust ERP integrations available, Mesh increases finance team productivity, steers spend decision-making, and helps companies save money.
About Mesh Payments
Mesh is the fastest-growing spend management platform in the US and uniquely meets the needs of distributed workforces and multi-entity companies. Finance teams rely on Mesh to power global spend, automate manual accounting tasks, and optimize finance workflows.
Mesh was named to the CB Insights Fintech 250 and powers some of the world’s fastest-growing brands, including Monday.com, Hippo Insurance, Sezzle, and Snyk. Mesh is headquartered in New York and venture-backed by Alpha Wave, Tiger Management Global and others.
The InnoVEX exhibit for startups at COMPUTEX 2023 will be held at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Hall 2 from May 30 to June 2. As a global platform for startups, InnoVEX 2023 will integrate 5G, AIoT, healthcare technology, metaverse and XR, electric vehicles and smart mobility, green technology, and other innovative solutions. A total of 400 participating startup teams from 22 countries and 8 pavilion countries, including France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Japan, Brazil, and Israel, will showcase diverse creativity.
InnoVEX Forms a New Global Village Gathering National Pavilions
Every year, InnoVEX brings together startups and ICT experts from many countries, connecting rich creative industry resources and funds worldwide. This year, in addition to inviting the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to lead startups from emerging markets such as Eastern Europe and Africa to participate in the exhibition, there are also several national pavilions. As a result, the global innovation ecosystem is expected to spark business energy at InnoVEX.
This year, there are many European pavilions. The four main themes of the French Pavilion include power supply and management, consumer electronics, human-computer interaction, and information and communications security. Among them, leading battery manufacturers’ solid-state micro battery fast charging technology attracts much attention. Flanders Pavilion of Belgium leads an interdisciplinary team of system integrators, blockchain technology, submarine cable monitoring and maintenance through machine learning, and Belgium’s fastest-growing silicon photonics semiconductor company. The Italian Pavilion participates in the exhibition for the first time as a national pavilion, showcasing research and development of the first integrated query algorithm for vessel-sharing transactions and innovative construction site monitoring. The Dutch Pavilion returns with the tagline “The Orange Accelerator,” which focuses on the futuristic and sustainable blockchain space and promotes the new application of blockchain authentication solutions. Finally, architectural design software, screen protection, and software development teams are presented in the Poland Pavilion, hoping to use mature technology and experience of successful business model experience to communicate with innovations from all walks of life.
Moreover, 10 new startup teams will be in attendance, expecting closer cooperation between Taiwan and Japan at the Japan Pavilion. The Brazil Pavilion hopes to use mature technology and business models to communicate with the world. And the Israel Pavilion is world-renowned in the field of information security technology.
The Technology and Creativity of the Startup Teams
In addition to the country pavilions, startup teams supported by accelerators or government units are also exciting. The Garage+ leads 37 technology startups selected from over 200 startups from 38 countries worldwide to participate in the exhibition. Far EasTone Accelerator, participating in the exhibition for the first time, used InnoVEX to promote communication between its cloud and Internet of Things startups and international startups.
The TREE Innovation Theme Pavilion of the Ministry of Economy’s Technology Department responds to the government’s three innovation development visions: Connecting the Future, Connecting the World, and Connecting the Local Area. The focus is on applying scientific research innovation in semiconductors, information security, AI, smart life, biotechnology, and more.
Taiwan’s latest accelerator TAcc+, in conjunction with “Linkou Startup Terrace”, ” Yawan Startup Terrace”, “National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University Accelerator A2T Program”, “Hsinchu Biomedical Industry and Incubation Center” and other units, exhibit together in the small and medium-sized enterprise department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The Innovation Theme Pavilion showcase in the fields of smart healthcare, smart life, smart manufacturing, and green technology.
The first-timer Tainan’s New Startup Pavilion establishes local innovation as the theme and combines with teams such as zakka & cafe and Taiwan Pure Culture & Education Development Association to demonstrate the achievements of industrial transformation and the endless possibilities of cross-field innovative applications.
Forums and Presentations to Create a Global Exchange Platform for Startups and Venture Capital
To connect Taiwan to the global startup ecosystem, a series of activities will also be held in the InnoVEX exhibition area, such as: What’s New: The future technology and the next startup trend 2023 hosted by TAITRA will be held on May 31. In addition to imec.Xpand partners and WIEC to share global investment trends, professionals from multinational companies such as Barco, a leader in Belgian visualization solutions, and ITEN, a leading French battery manufacturer, were invited to share information on AR, VR, and smart healthcare, as well as the advantages of creative applications in smart homes and other fields and the trend of international venture capital.
The all-day Global Demo Day event is expected on June 1st. Teams from France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and teams organized by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Far EasTone Accelerator, will present application products and solutions for innovative industries, interact with local startups and discuss their strengths to discover potential investment opportunities.
For more updated InnoVEX 2023 information, please check the official COMPUTEX website: www.computextaipei.com.tw. Online registration is welcome.
About COMPUTEX
COMPUTEX was founded in 1981. It has grown with the global ICT industry and become stronger over the last four decades. Bearing witness to historical moments in the development of and changes in the industry, COMPUTEX attracts more than 40,000 buyers to visit Taiwan every year. It is also the preferred platform chosen by top international companies for launching epoch-making products.
Taiwan has a comprehensive global ICT industry chain. Gaining a foothold in Taiwan, COMPUTEX is jointly held by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council and Taipei Computer Association, aiming to build a global tech ecosystem. COMPUTEX uses cross-domain integration and innovation services as the most powerful driving forces for achieving the goal of becoming a new platform for global technological resources.
About TAITRA:
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) is Taiwan’s foremost trade promotion organization. TAITRA is a public-benefit corporation founded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs by uniting industry and commerce groups from the private sector with the purpose of helping them expand their global reach. Currently, TAITRA has a team of more than 1,300 trade professionals, both domestically and abroad. Headquartered in Taipei, TAITRA operates 5 local offices in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung, as well as 63 branches worldwide. It has also signed cooperation agreements with 319 sister organizations that promote international trade. By forming a comprehensive trade services network that provides zero-time-difference and borderless real-time services, TAITRA continues to work with enterprises to jointly pursue the steady development of Taiwan’s economy. It is the best partner for your success in business expansion.