The past year has been a bumper one for Australia’s fintech startup ecosystem according to the KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020, with more than 100 fintechs added since the last version was released in September 2019.

The KPMG Fintech Landscape 2020, which captures the breadth and depth of fintech startups active and headquartered in Australia, provides a snapshot of the innovation taking place across the financial services technology sector. It shows a total of 733 currently active fintechs, up from 629 when the landscape was last released in September 2019.

“Despite the impacts of COVID-19 on the economy, increased digitisation across financial services and new customer behaviours have created new opportunities for innovation," commented Daniel Teper, National Fintech Lead at KPMG Australia. "The overall impressive net growth in the number of fintechs illustrates both the robust market dynamics and a strong support for the fintech sector in Australia.”

Other insights from the report include:

• An increase in the number of fintechs within the lending category supported by new players in both consumer and SME lending sub-sectors who recognise the size and profitability of those segments), as well as an increase in Buy-Now-Pay-Later providers (some reclassified from the payments category since 2019).
• Growth in blockchain and cryptocurrency-associated fintechs matches the general support and interest in the technology asset class across the past year.
• The continued evolution of the neobank sector, even though a number of neobanks have been impacted by delays to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's (APRA’s) licensing process (expected to restart from March 2021).
• Insurtech maintaining momentum on the back of impressive growth in 2019.

Category	2020	2019 (reclassified)	Change (#)	Change (%)
Lending	103	77	26	33.70%
Neobank	10	5	5	100%
Regtech	47	48	-1	-2.10%
Middle & Back Office	67	65	2	3.10%
Payments	151	143	8	5.60%
Blockchain & Cryptocurrency	81	32	49	153.10%
Wealthtech	79	78	1	1.28%
Insurtech	59	35	24	68.60%
Data and Analytics	36	37	-1	-2.70%
Capital Markets	53	43	10	23.30%
Personal Finance Management	27	27	0	0.00%
Infrastructure and Platform (reclassified)	0	16	-16	n/a
Crowdfunding	20	23	-3	-13.00%
Total	733	629	104	16.50%

 

“As Australian fintechs continue to evolve, we’ve seen a repurposing and recategorisation of some businesses as they mature their monetisation strategy and business models," Teper added. "In addition, we’re seeing rationalisation and consolidation within some categories, a trend we expect to see more of as the market continues to mature and category winners, and losers, emerge. We are also starting to see increased levels of corporate M&A activity, as traditional players show an interest in fintechs’ product innovation, technology and market proposition and to help pivot their core businesses, as well as compete with some of the global fintech providers entering, or looking to enter, the Australian market.”