2018 is on pace to be a record-breaking year for fintech transactional activity. In the first 6 months of 2018, global investment in fintech was exceptional, driven in part by two massive deals – the USD12.9 billion acquisition of WorldPay by Vantiv and the USD14 billion VC funding round raised by Ant Financial. Funding to date has already exceeded the total amount of fintech funding seen in 2017 and is well on pace to exceed 2015’s peak.
Looking ahead, the global fintech market is expected to remain strong over the remainder of 2018. Investments in insurtech and regtech are expected to grow over the next few months, alongside AI, RPA, and blockchain capabilities. In mature areas like payments and lending, we expect to see consolidation increase over the next 12 months as the largest platforms become bigger and others fail to achieve scale.
Besides examining global and regional trends, we discuss the following questions driving interest in the fintech market: