Continent is home to some of the world’s fastest growing fintech hubs
Supportive business ecosystems having an effect – South Africa has five fintech cities in the index
Four African cities are in the top 100 fintech hubs globally
Many of the cities which traditionally top the lists of leading financial centres are conspicuously absent from a new league table of global fintech hubs. Four African cities – Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos and Cape Town – are listed in the top 100 cities worldwide for fintech businesses. South Africa and Kenya make it into the top 50 fintech countries in the world with Nigeria and Ghana close behind.
Top of the worldwide list is the San Francisco Bay area, followed by London, New York and Singapore. The United States also tops the list for fintech countries followed by the United Kingdom and Singapore.
The Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020 identifies emerging hubs, fintech companies and trends. The Index algorithm ranks the fintech ecosystems of more than 230 cities across 65 incorporating data from our global partners including StartupBlink, Crunchbase, and SEMrush, together with a consortium of regional partners such as the Africa Fintech Network.
Simon Hardie, CEO and Founder of Findexable – the company behind the Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020 – explained: “This is the inspiration of a thousand hours of interviews, surveys and internet searches – and the product of four months of algorithm development to create, for the very first time, a fully global ranking of fintech countries and cities.
“The rankings in the report are proof of how much, and how fast, the world is changing.”
Fintech is the electricity of the global digital economy – making connections and finding the path of least resistance to make it easier and cheaper to transact. For more people, in more parts of the world, than was ever possible before.
Keeping up with the pace of change, and keeping track of progress, however, is essential if fintech’s innate digital difference is to be successfully converted into real-world value.
For the purpose of the Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020 algorithm, fintech is any business that applies a technologically enabled innovation specifically geared for the provision or distribution of financial services. Given that, over time, fintech companies are as likely to become large standalone businesses as they are to be bought by existing market players, the Index takes less account of the individual size of the company.
The country and city rankings are calculated from a total score comprised of a combination of three metrics:
Quantity – Size of fintech ecosystem and supporting structures – number of fintechs, fintech hubs, co-working spaces, accelerators, global influencers and population (countries only)
Quality – Impact/performance – size and growth of fintechs (eg number of unicorns), investment, events, value generation, international collaboration, website ranking
Environment – ease of doing business, critical mass, regulatory environment – regulatory interventions to improve competitive environment, incentives for start-ups, internet censorship, payment portals, fintech courses.
Simon Hardie added: “The rankings are evidence of a worldwide de-coupling between the financial strength and the commercial domination of traditional financial centres. Financial wealth is no guarantee of a city’s status as a fintech hub. You might call this the rise of non-traditional finance.
“There are some common features of winning fintech hubs around the world. Fintech-friendly regulations incentivise entrepreneurship and encourage investment. A strong talent pool is also key to fintech success together with an ecosystem where people can connect easily.”
Download the Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020: https://findexable.com/gfi-download/