China and USA battle for FinTech lead, UK close behind

Industry experts now believe that China and the USA will ultimately become the global hubs of FinTech.

A book called FinTeck is on sale in a book store in Jiangsu province. [Photo: IC]

Last year, we reported that two front-runners had emerged in the battle to be the future home of the FinTech industry, China and Britain.

The latest research shows that China continues to lead when it comes to FinTech, whilst the UK has had a turbulent year and the USA now also challenges to be a future home of the industry.

Firstly, for readers who are unfamiliar - FinTech, short for financial technology, is a fast-growing area of start-up development, based on using software to provide financial services.

The technology has the potential to revolutionise banking, to the extent that some analysts are comparing the threat to established banks to the battle between Blockbusters and Netflix, or Yellow Pages and Google.

The use of 'blockchain' software in FinTech could ultimately enable much more efficient and secure transactions directly between consumers, bypassing the need for traditional banks altogether.

New data from CB Insights shows that global FinTech firms have raised over $12 billion in 2017 to date, in some 818 deals.

The majority of this investment has occurred in China and in the USA, and it is now thought by industry insiders that these two countries will ultimately become the global hubs of FinTech.

However, the research also revealed that investment in UK FinTech companies hadn't suffered from Brexit as much as had been feared. 

Depending on future trade agreements reached as part of the Brexit process, the UK isn't out of the FinTech race yet.