China led 2018 fintech funding, with the UK still punching above its weight

Global investments in fintech more than doubled in 2018, reaching a whopping $55.3bn and led mainly by surging Chinese investments.

The country accounted for 46% of all fintech investments last year according to Accenture, a total of $25.5bn in funds raised and led by Ant Financial’s record-breaking $14bn funding round last May and Du Xiaoman Financial, which raised $4.3bn across two funding rounds.

“Even if you discount the massive Ant Financial transaction, we’d still have a record year for global fintech fundraising,“ said Piyush Singh, Accenture’s managing director for its financial services practice in Asia-Pacific and Africa.

Despite the torrid political environment in the UK, fintech investments continued at pace according to Accenture’s research.

Investments jumped 56% to $3.9bn, led by the funding rounds of digital banks, like Revolut which raised $250m in April and Atom Bank which raised $200m in March, and Prodigy Finance which raised $1bn in September to increase its cross-border student loan business.

“There was much talk about how uncertainty due to Brexit would grip the success of fintech from the UK. However, our analysis shows that London, a pioneer in Open Banking, remains the fintech capital of Europe,” said Richard Lumb, the group chief executive of financial services at Accenture.

Elsewhere Japan’s fintech investments jumped fivefold to $542m, Australia doubled to $757m, and Canada grew 53% to $961m.

Overall the total number of investments didn’t grow quite so quickly as the financial value, rising 19% to 3,251 globally.