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Visualizing the Current Landscape of the Fintech Industry

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visualizing the world of fintech

Visualizing the Current Landscape of the Fintech Industry

Since the introduction of the first credit card with a magnetic stripe in 1966, financial technology has come a long way. Silicon Valley may not have birthed the term “fintech”, but it has certainly helped catapult its applications into the mainstream.

Leveraging everything from basic apps to the blockchain, the changing dynamics of fintech are creating new investment opportunities everyday, growing its appetite with every new megadeal.

Today’s graphic from Raconteur highlights the global growth of the fintech industry, the services with the most staying power, and major M&A developments of the past year as traditional institutions scramble to deal with this digital disruption.

How Fintech Levels the Playing Field

Over the past five years, digitally-enabled financial technology services have delivered convenient and cheaper access to financial services to millions of consumers.

What draws consumers towards using fintech?

  • Attractive rates and fees (27%)
  • Easy access and account setup (20%)
  • Variety of innovative products and services (18%)
  • Better service quality and product features (12%)

This new implementation of technology is democratizing financial services for the masses, a strong contrast to accessing them through traditional brick-and-mortar institutions.

How Fintech Fares Across Borders

On average, 64% of the world’s digitally active population has used at least one fintech service. But China and India surpass this benchmark by a mile—in a survey of 27,000 consumers across 27 markets, both countries demonstrated a 87% fintech adoption rate.

Russia and South Africa are in close second, with 82% adoption respectively. On the other hand, France and Japan are tied at the low end of the spectrum with only 35% fintech adoption.

The trajectory of mobile payments and digital wallets in China can help put high Asian adoption rates in perspective. Thanks to services like Alipay and WeChat, 890 million unique mobile payment users are essentially transforming China from a cash economy to a digital one.

Which Services Have Caught Consumer Attention?

Just like “Googling” is synonymous with looking up information online, the term “Venmo-ing” has become an American verb for paying someone back via a digital wallet.

That’s why it’s no surprise that money transfer and payments are by far the most rapidly growing fintech services, shooting up from 18% to 75% global adoption in just four years. Here’s how global average adoption rates differ by fintech service, across time:

Fintech Category201520172019
💸 Money transfer and payments18%50%75%
💰 Savings and investments17%20%34%
📋 Budgeting and financial planning8%10%29%
🛡️ Insurance 8%24%48%
💳 Borrowing6%10%27%

Source: EY Global Fintech Adoption Index 2019

Insurtech has steadily gained traction in the market. Digital insurance solutions provide personalized and on-demand coverage plans for clients, using bots and machine learning to assess risk levels. As a result, this sub-segment has been attracting large funding rounds due to the time—and money—it helps free up for firms.

According to CapGemini, incumbents in the financial industry see wallets and mobile payments from fintech providers as the most significant offerings impacting their companies. That may be why they’re resorting to big moves to protect their business.

Deals and More Deals

Major financial institutions made some serious plays in 2019, in the way of mergers and acquisitions of fintech companies:

  • FIS bought the payments processing company Worldpay for $35 billion, valuing the company at $43 billion when debt is included. (Reuters)
  • The London Stock Exchange Group plans to acquire financial markets data provider Refinitiv for $27 billion, in the hopes of rivaling Bloomberg. (Reuters)
  • Global Payments bought the payments processing company Total System Services for $21.5 billion, planning to provide services to over 1,300 financial institutions. (Bloomberg)
  • Fiserv acquired payments processing company First Data for $22 billion—the two companies combined are a backbone of Wall Street’s financial technology. (WSJ)
  • Visa purchased the payments authentication company Plaid for $5.3 billion in January 2020, in hopes of strengthening its relations with financial institutions. (CNBC)

As billions of dollars exchange hands, it’s been noted that many of these plays were made by established incumbents to curb the threat posed by fintech startups.

At the same time, however, it’s also clear that traditional institutions want to tap into what fintech startups are doing right.

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Mapped: Internet Download Speeds by Region

North America and East Asia have the speediest internet.

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Map illustrating median download speeds in each global region.

Mapped: Internet Download Speeds by Region

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In today’s fast-paced world, internet speed isn’t just a convenience—it’s the driving force behind how we work, play, and connect.

In this map, we illustrate median download speeds in each global region, based on data from the World Bank’s Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023.

North America and East Asia Have the Speediest Internet

According to the World Bank, download speeds in high-income countries increased significantly between 2019 and 2023, while speeds in lower-income countries stagnated.

As of 2022, North America and East Asia have the speediest internet.

RegionMedian mobile download speed (Mb/sec)Median fixed broadband download speed (Mb/sec)
East Asia & Pacific90171
Europe & Central Asia4485
Latin America & the Caribbean2674
Middle East & North Africa3636
North America83193
South Asia2743
Sub-Saharan Africa1615

This difference in broadband speeds can mainly be attributed to investment.

In 2020, nearly 90% of global telecommunication investment came from East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, and North America. These regions not only concentrate the highest-income population but also the top technology hubs.

Meanwhile, low- and middle-income regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for less than 10% of total investment.

Most of the investment is directed towards fiber optic and 5G mobile networks. According to the mobile industry association GSMA, mobile operators alone are projected to invest more than $600 billion between 2022 and 2025, with 85% of the total allocated for 5G.

In 2023, broadband speeds in high-income countries were 10x faster for fixed connections, and 5x faster for mobile connections compared to those in low-income countries.

Fixed broadband connections, which provide high-speed internet to residences or businesses, reached 38% of the population in high-income countries. In comparison, fixed broadband penetration was only 4% of the population in lower-middle-income countries and almost zero in low-income countries.

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