APAC fintech market to be worth over US$70 billion by 2020

The Asia-Pacific financial technology (fintech) landscape is witnessing unprecedented growth with fintech solutions and services expected to gross more than US$70 billion in revenue by 2020, at a CAGR of 72.5%, forecasts Frost & Sullivan.

The emergence of new business models is enabling players to innovate and invest in technologies such as Blockchain, digital payments, cloud services, cyber security, product lines and solutions. Players must rethink strategies and align their business vision with technology goals to define their value proposition to customers and survive in the rapidly evolving digital ecosystem.

Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney are innovation hubs due to favourable government regulations, startup ecosystem and the 18-34 demographic driving consumer demand, says Frost & Sullivan.

"Asia-Pacific Fintech investment increased exponentially in 2015. There was a fourfold increase of investments in APAC fintech companies from 2014 to 2015 which shows growing investor confidence in the Asia-Pacific region. Forty-two percent of the investment deals concentrated on digital payments," said Ajay Sunder, Frost & Sullivan VP – Digital Transformation.

According to new analysis from Frost & Sullivan's Digital Transformation Growth Partnership Service programme, Growth Opportunities in APAC Fintech Market, new services providers such as BitSE, Canopy, Coinsecure, DxMarkets, Freecharge, HedgeSPA, MOLPay, Otonomos and TranServ are addressing unmet needs, embracing new technologies and gaining a disruptive advantage by leveraging diverse opportunities. The report discusses fintech under three segments, digital payments, personal and business finance, as well as financial infrastructure such as Blockchain

The report suggests that players tap the following growth opportunities:

• Disruption and collaboration: Players should research and develop new product capabilities and user experiences enabled by analytics, personalisation, automation, and integrations.
• Connected communities: Players need to collaborate with startups to have a scalable impact and pass on the benefit to consumers.
• Foreign exchange and remittance: Improve and differentiate offerings and unique value proposition through broader and deeper third-party integrations.
• Organic/inorganic growth: Many mergers and acquisitions are expected as the market consolidates.
• Untapped market opportunities: Make financial services available and affordable to unbanked people.
• Industry collaboration: Potential investors and leaders must nurture incubation and fintech ecosystem development.
• Big data analytics capabilities: Harness big data opportunities to generate new profit sources by exploring new, innovative applications.

"Digital payment will remain the largest segment, primarily driven by mobile payment solutions, while Blockchain will not remain limited to financial services; there will be new use cases for Blockchain, and traditional ICT vendors will start offering Blockchain-as-a-service," noted Sunder.