The rise of the fintech sector in Singapore has been highlighted once again as the investment in this field has doubled to USD365 million (SGD492 million) in 2018 as compared to USD180 million (SGD242 million) in 2017, revealed the latest Accenture’s analysis of CB Insights data.
This has placed the island country amongst the top five fintech markets by funds raised last year in Asia Pacific, behind China, India, Australia and Japan,
In addition to this, the number of deals in the country rose to 71 from 61 in 2017, making it the third busiest market in the region, behind only China and India.
Among the utilisation of the fund, about 28 per cent (USD102.2 million – SGD137.7 million) of the total funds raised last year went to fintech companies in lending, whilst those in payments took 26 per cent (USD94.9 million – SGD127.9 million) and insurtechs 20 per cent (USD73 million – SGD98.4 million), the data showed.
Various important deals were conducted in Singapore in 2018 including the USD60 million (SGD80.8 million) cloud company Deskera raised in November, the USD52 million (SGD70.1 million) insurtech Singapore Life raised in December and the USD32 million (SGD43.1 million) cryptocurrency and blockchain startup Terra raised in August. Eight of the top 10 deals were conducted in the island country.
“The fintech market in Singapore is going from strength to strength. It’s great to see it reaching this level of activity and diversification, which just goes to show how much it’s matured the past years,” said Divyesh Vithlani, managing director at Accenture and ASEAN Financial Services.
“The size of the market and the value of deals still have a lot to catch up to regional giants such as China and India, but Singapore is already the third busiest fintech market in the region and this level of activity bodes well for the future expansion of new technologies in many of the different areas of finance,” he added.
If we look at the overall picture, global investment in fintech ventures has more than doubled in 2018, to USD55.3 billon (SGD74.54 billion), led by a surge in funding in China and strong gains in several other markets as investors placed larger bets in more mature startups.