Experts reveal the top 10 countries with the highest rate of fintech adoption, with South Africa having the 3rd highest.

A new study, conducted by Tipalti, analysed factors such as global Fintech adoption rates, Google searches for Fintech by country and the regions that have the highest virtual capital funding to uncover the world’s biggest Fintech adoption hotspots.

Editor's note: Although this may seem unrelated to the insurance/ financial planning industries that I normally distribute information for, these results have significant insights for our industry. On the one hand it is an indication of South African businesses' adoption of Fintech to reach and service its clients and on the other hand it confirms the readiness and general ability of the local market to adopt new technologies and fintech innovations.

The insurance and financial planning industries should follow this lead in making greater use of insurtech for great inclusivity in an industry where insurance penetration sits at around 7%. Insurtech and Fintech combined have massive potential.

You can view the full research here: https://tipalti.com/fintech-adoption-hotspots/

Top 10 countries with the highest rate of Fintech adoption:

China emerges as the country with the highest Fintech adoption rates. As of 2019, 87% of China’s digitally active population has adopted the use of Fintech. Tied with India, these two countries have been leading the fintech market for years.

India, tied with China for first place, has an 87% adoption rate. Between 2021 and 2022, India had around 6,600 Fintech startups with a total market value of 31 billion US dollars, making India the third largest Fintech ecosystem in the world. Though, in the first half of 2023, the investment into Fintech startups in India dropped by 67%. Despite this massive dip in investment, it is still the third-highest funded country for Fintech in the world as of 2023, trailing only the United States and the UK.  

South Africa has the third-highest adoption rate of Fintech, with 82% of the digitally active population now using it. South Africa is internationally recognized as a small Fintech market that is highly sophisticated and fast-growing, making up 40% of all Fintech revenue in Africa.‍

Further research shows:

• Across the six markets that were researched, there are just three that are above the 60% average for Fintech adoption rates as of 2019: the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. In fact, despite having one of the largest Fintech economies in the world, the US has just a 46% fintech adoption rate, the lowest of the six markets.

• North America is the region with the highest amount of venture capital funding into its fintech industry as of 2022. Of the global capital funding that has gone into Fintech in 2022, 56.3% has gone specifically to the North American Fintech market.

• Japan had the lowest adoption rate of Fintech amongst the country’s digitally active population, at just 34% as of 2019. This sees Japan lagging behind other countries in Asia, such as China and Singapore. However, this is largely due to the innate nature of Japan’s financial environment, which is extremely conservative and risk-averse. As a result, Fintech investment is very low in the country.