India defeats China to lead investments in fintech among APAC nations: S&P

CioreviewIndia team | Friday, 05 March 2021, 04:18 IST

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FintechIndia has mastered among Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries in fintech investment, bagging deals worth over $2 billion in 2020 when the funding ecosystem was disrupted by Covid-19.  

Investments into the fintech landscape of India was nearly double than China (more than $1 billion), a report by S&P Global Intelligence said.

Countries like Japan and Australia expended much lower on the investment index.

India’s burgeoning smartphone user base, deeper internet penetration and cheapest data has paved the road for fintech revolution led by digital payments like UPI.

The tech startups have also stretched their financial services offerings to insurance, micro-credit or loans, investments and payment banks to tap the underpenetrated markets beyond tier 1 and tier 2 towns. 

Lately, the Reserve Bank of India invited applications for granting licenses to set up an alternate digital payment framework called National Umbrella Entities (NUE).

Currently, only National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) executes this role.

Sources said companies like Reliance, Tata Group and Ola are keen in securing licenses to own an entity with powers at par with NPCI.

The S&P’s report suggested that the payment companies have attracted the most investments during 2020.

As per the report, the total number of deals in India’s fintech sector stood at 120 last year whereas for neighbouring China, there were a total of just 70 transactions within the segment.

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