Australian fintech ecosystem continues to grow: KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020
The past year has been a bumper one for Australia’s fintech startup eco-system according to the KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020, with more than 100 fintechs added since the last version was released in September 2019.
The KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020, which captures the breadth and depth of fintech startups active and headquartered in Australia, provides a snapshot of the innovation taking place across the financial services technology sector. It shows a total of 733 currently active fintechs, up from 629 when the landscape was last released in September 2019.
Daniel Teper, National Fintech Lead, KPMG Australia commented: “Despite the impacts of COVID-19 on the economy, increased digitisation across financial services and new customer behaviours have created new opportunities for innovation. The overall impressive net growth in the number of fintechs illustrates both the robust market dynamics and a strong support for the fintech sector in Australia.”
Key insights from the KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020 include:
- An increase in the number of fintechs within the lending category supported by new players in both consumer and SME lending sub-sectors, as well as an increase in Buy-Now-Pay-Later providers (some reclassified from the payments category since 2019)
- Growth in Blockchain and Cryptocurrency-associated fintechs matches the general support and interest in the technology asset class across the past year.
- The continued evolution of the neobank sector, even though a number of neobanks have been impacted by delays to APRA’s licensing process (expected to restart from March 2021)
- Insurtech maintaining momentum on the back of impressive growth in 2019
KPMG Australian Fintech Landscape 2020
| Category
| 2020
| 2019 (reclassified) | Change (#) | Change (%) |
| Lending | 103 | 77 | 26 | 33.7% |
| Neobank | 10 | 5 | 5 | 100.0% |
| Regtech | 47 | 48 | -1 | -2.1% |
| Middle & Back Office | 67 | 65 | 2 | 3.1% |
| Payments | 151 | 143 | 8 | 5.6% |
| Blockchain and Cryptocurrency | 81 | 32 | 49 | 153.1% |
| Wealthtech | 79 | 78 | -1 | -1.3% |
| Insurtech | 59 | 35 | 24 | 68.6% |
| Data and Analytics | 36 | 37 | -1 | -2.7% |
| Capital Markets | 53 | 43 | 10 | 23.3% |
| Personal Finance Management | 27 | 27 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Infrastructure and platform (category reclassified) | 0 | 16 | -16 | n/a |
| Crowdfunding | 20 | 23 | -3 | -13.0% |
| Total | 733 | 629 | 104 | 16.5% |
Daniel Teper said: “As Australian fintechs continue to evolve, we’ve seen a repurposing and recategorisation of some businesses as they mature their monetisation strategy and business models. In addition, we’re seeing rationalisation within some categories, a trend we expect to see more of as the market continues to mature and category winners, and losers, emerge.”
“We are also starting to see increased levels of corporate M&A activity, as traditional players show an interest in fintechs product innovation, technology and market proposition and to help pivot their core businesses,” he added.
To view the full KPMG Fintech Landscape go to www.kpmg.com.au
