Sydney is challenging Singapore as the region’s fintech startup hub
The number of fintech startups in Australia has increased to 579 companies from less than 100 in 2014, according to a study by KPMG launched today.
Australian fintech investment is strong with $US675 million invested across 25 deals in 2016 despite an overall global decline in investment in the sector.
And about 60% of fintech companies are based in Sydney, which has been the major recipient of fintech venture capital investment at $US171 million between 2014 and 2016.
The report, Scaling the Fintech Opportunity: For Sydney and Australia, has been produced by KPMG for the think tank, Committee for Sydney.
The report finds, based on interviews with the Australian fintech industry, that Sydney is seen as ahead of Hong Kong but slightly behind Singapore when it comes to being a leading global centre for fintech.
The report says Sydney could “potentially challenge Singapore”.
Tim Williams, chief executive of the Committee for Sydney, says internationally, the city’s financial services sector has been benchmarked and is rising.
“Apart from its sheer quantum — Sydney’s financial services sector creates 9% of national GDP and is bigger in scale than the financial services sector in either Hong Kong or Singapore — a key element in its emerging global reputation is the speedy progress we have made in Fintech in Sydney,” he says.
Fintech is mostly driven by local companies, with 512 Australian and 67 offshore companies operating locally.
The range of sectors has also diversified substantially, with 10 Fintech categories having more than 20 Fintechs operating locally.
The two largest sectors by number of Fintech companies and capital investment are payments (128 companies) and lending (80 companies), with substantial growth in both categories.
Wealthtech (77 companies) ranks third highest for number of companies.
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Source: Sydney is challenging Singapore as the region’s fintech startup hub | Business Insider
