Nery Alaev writes about fintech around the world.
Despite a slowdown thanks to global macroeconomic factors, the financial technology industry has seen large sums of capital investment in recent months, alongside further diversification of the already-strong sector.
I’ve chosen to write further about these developments and conclude.
Diverse sectors
The fintech industry at large experiencing a growth phase, but one area that is taking off in particular is insurtech.
Singapore has begun fintech regulation.
Insurtech is, according to Business Insider, “an area of fintech that uses technology to innovate and disrupt in the legacy insurance industry.”
The insurtech sector has, so far at least, attracted less investment than sectors such as payments and banking – this has changed recently however as funding has quadrupled for the sector in Q1 2016 when compared to the same quarter a year ago.
The reason for insurtech sudden gains are a combination of increasingly popular wearable technology that is capable of gathering data for insurance purposes alongside insurtech filling of a gap in the insurance arena – the digital experience for customers.
Insurance is notorious for its poor digital presence as an industry – this isn’t a good position to occupy in 2016, insurtech companies are clearly taking advantage.
Funding rallies
Continuing on the theme of increased funding, an article from Payment Week indicates how fintech rallied in regards to funding at the end of Q1 2016 – large amounts of funding went to firms in Asia and Europe. Asia, in particular, is seeing tremendous growth in the fintech field.
A good example of Asia’s interest in fintech comes from Business Insider’s article, which points out how the powerful city-state of Singapore has begun regulating fintech companies based on their size. Such a move legitimises the sector as it shows the state is paying enough attention to begin a regulatory process.
Nery Alaev
Nery Alaev is the current Director of ESN Investments GmbH, which engages in acquisition and development of commercial and residential property in Germany and Austria.