NewAsia-Pacific financial technology investments seen quadrupling this year

Financial technology investments across the Asia-Pacific are poised to quadruple this year as venture capitalists, financial services companies and start-up incubators sow the seeds for rapid growth in this field.

A new report released today by Accenture, one of the world’s largest management consulting firms, estimated that investments in 122 Asia-Pacific financial technology deals reached US$3.46 billion in the first nine months of this year, up from US$879 million spent on 117 projects for the whole of last year, as the amount of funds being allocated in projects rose higher.

It said innovative “fintech” ventures in payments and lending took the largest share of those investments from January to September this year at 40 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively.Accenture executives said the participation of large, non-traditional financial services companies as investors in innovative payment ventures have boosted the overall value of fintech projects in the region the past several months.

 In September, e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and affiliate Ant Financial Services Group made a capital infusion in Indian mobile payment services provider Paytm, which various reports speculated to be worth between US$600 million and US$700 million.Mainland China peer-to-peer lending provider Lufax, which is backed by Ping An Insurance (Group), raised US$485 million in a funding round it completed in April.

“The increasing deal size should serve as a wake-up call to financial services companies in China and across the Asia-Pacific that if they do not offer truly useful, customer-friendly digital solutions, competitors will step into the breach not just on the retail front but also in commercial transactions,” said Beat Monnerat, Accenture’s senior managing director of financial services for the Asia-Pacific.