Payments still the sun in the fintech universe
AI, crypto, ESG, regtech are all attracting interest from fintech investors but the critical mass in the sector still sits within a single market: payments.
There’s no shortage of fintech ladders out there but for argument’s sake consider CFTE’s live ranking of the biggest. Half of the top 20 are payments related, “paytech”. Even more than half of the top 50.
Admittedly some of the biggest — Visa, MasterCard, Tencent, Ant — wouldn’t generally be talked about in this context but nevertheless the theme is clear. From the earliest days of financial technology, payments businesses have dominated.
Bitcoin, mythology has it, started as a way for a model train enthusiast to dodge hefty bank payment fees. Buy now, pay later was just a credit card with marketing lipstick. But payments, from the days of PayPal to Stripe and Block, continue to drive fintech. Even today when AI has all the glitter.
According to the latest KPMG Pulse of Fintech report, payments continues to be the dominant category for funding — even though both deal number and value have cratered this year with the broader uncertainty in the funding environment.
