Digital payments fueling FinTech investments in APAC

The APAC FinTech landscape is witnessing unprecedented growth, with FinTech solutions and services expected to gross more than $70 billion in revenue by 2020.

Market research firm Frost & Sullivan believes the market is on track to record a CAGR of 72.5% over this period.

“Asia-Pacific FinTech investment increased exponentially in 2015. There was a four-fold increase of investments in APAC FinTech companies from 2014 to 2015 which shows growing investor confidence in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile 42% of the investment deals concentrated on digital payments,” Frost & Sullivan VP for digital transformation Ajay Sunder said.

Innovation hubs have formed around Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney riding on the back of favorable government regulations, strong start-up ecosystems and heavy consumer demand among the 18-34 demographic group in particular.

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.

“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.

Frost points to innovative services providers such as BitSE, Canopy, Coinsecure, DxMarkets, Freecharge, HedgeSPA, MOLPay, Otonomos and TranServ as addressing unmet needs, embracing new technologies and gaining a disruptive advantage by leveraging diverse opportunities.