Pulse of Fintech helps financial institutions, fintechs and organizations to understand the fintech landscape by providing a biannual analysis of global fintech investments across the globe and regionally in the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa, and across several verticals — payments, insurtech, wealthtech, cybersecurity, regtech, blockchain/crypto, AI and ESG/greentech.
In this edition we look back the first six months of 2024, which got off to a challenging start for the fintech market globally, driven by ongoing concerns related to geopolitical uncertainty and high interest rates. Total global investment declined from $62.3 billion to $51.9 billion between H2’23 and H1’24 — the lowest six months of fintech investment since H1’20. All regions experienced a noticeable drop in fintech investment, with the EMEA region experiencing the sharpest drop — from $19.4 billion to $11.4 billion between H2’24 and H1’24.
Globally, only five $1 billion+ deals occurred in the fintech space during the first half of 2024 — all buyouts. While fintech investment remained suppressed, deal volume offered a hint of optimism for the fintech market; both the Americas — including the US — and the ASPAC region saw deal volumes increase between H2’23 and H1’24.
At a sector level, payments continued to draw the largest share of fintech funding globally, attracting $21.4 billion in H1’24. Regtech, however, was the only major fintech subsector to see investment increase in the first half of 2024 — with the $5.3 billion in investment already surpassing 2023’s total. At a technology level, AI continued to be a very hot area of interest for investors, particularly in the US.
This report examines these and a number of other interesting global, regional and sector trends.
