Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1150355
01.08.19 15 FINTECH Q2 2019 fintech financing reaches $10.9bn making it the second most ac- tive quarter ever. And if you exclude the mega Ant Financial $14bn financing round in the second quarter last year, the second quarter this year represents a record quarter. We are only just half way past 2019 but so far so good. is year is on track to be the second strongest year ever for global fintech financing volume. e second quarter of 2019 includes 24 financing rounds that were $100m. is represents a 20% increase over the same period last year, according to FT Partners' Q2 2019 Fintech Insights Re- port. e largest financing of the quarter is Greensill's $800m funding round led by SoftBank. At the same time, the largest North American financing is UiPath's $568m Series D round led by Coatue. Meantime, both Europe and North America are trending towards all-time highs for total financing volume in 2019. Asia is holding steady at historical levels ( again when excluding Ant Financial's mega rounds from 2016 and 2018). Venture appetite for fintech remains strong. Nine VC firms make 10 or more new and follow-on investments during the first half of 2019. Strategic participation in fintech fi- nancing also remains strong, with four corporate venture firms making more than five new and follow-on invest- ments during the first half of the year. Global fintech M&A volume for the first half of 2019 of $148.3bn is already at a new full-year record high. is sur- passes the 2018 level of $127.8bn and the prior record of $138.3bn in 2015. 2019 mega deals During 2019, three of the four largest fintech M&A transactions ever have oc- curred. • FIS' $43bn acquisition of World- pay; • Fiserv's $41bn acquisition of First Data, and • Global Payments' $25bn acquisi- tion of TSYS. 63% of fintech M&A deals in the first half of 2019 involve acquisitions of North American companies. is ac- counts for 65% of the total dollar vol- ume. Global fintech IPO activity has been steady so far in 2019, with 12 total IPOs. Q2 2019 fintech financing volume exceeds $10 billion CONSUMER spend via digital wal- lets across Europe and North America will increase by 40% this year to nearly $790 billion, according to a new study from Juniper Research. It argued that the largest growth in 2019 would come from instore pay- ments, with mobile contactless pay- ments more than doubling across these regions. The study, Digital Wallets: Service Provider Analysis, Market Opportu- nities & Forecasts 2019-2024, found that while eRetail spend through wal- lets would remain the largest contrib- utor to consumer spend, continued migration from cash would see a surge in wallet use at POS. It argued that this was particular- ly the case amongst younger demo- graphics and in the US, where a third of iPhones are now used for contact- less payments. Banking, merchant partnerships essential The report highlighted the impor- tance of digital wallet providers es- tablishing partnerships with leading banks to maximise reach amongst consumers. Juniper Research's analy- sis found that Apple far outstripped its rivals; achieving the largest addressa- ble share of banking consumers in 7 of the 10 national markets assessed. In the online space, the study found that wallets, including Apple Pay, Am- azon Pay and Visa Checkout, had also significantly expanded their availa- bility at merchant sites, although all lagged well behind PayPal in this re- gard. Meanwhile, social payments through wallets will grow strongly both this year and beyond; a trend expected to be accelerated in 2020 by the emer- gence of Facebook's Calibra wallet and its attendant Libra cryptocurrency. Wearable-pay 'niche offering at best' However, the study was less optimis- tic about prospects for Wearable-Pay wallets; arguing that their limited ad- dressable bases and functional con- straints meant they would struggle against converged wallets – providing an extensive portfolio of online and offline payment offerings. According to Juniper Research An- alyst Nick Maynard, "Wearable-Pay solutions are still completely depend- ent on the smartphone and are ul- timately limited to a single use case. They are thus likely to remain, at best, a niche offering." Study finds spending from digital wallets in West to increase by 40% this year