South Africa has been ranked 37th on the world’s fintech startup ecosystem map, closely followed by Kenya at 42 and Nigeria at 52, Ghana at 58, Egypt at 60 and Uganda at 64, according to the latest Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020. 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 countries incorporating data from global partners including StartupBlink, Crunchbase and SEMrush.
“The rankings in the report are proof of how much, and how fast, the world is changing, ” noted Simon Hardie, CEO and Founder of Findexable — the company behind the Ranking
‘‘The Index is the inspiration of thousands of 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,’’ he further added.
Here Is All You Need To Know
- The ranking of 238 cities was compiled by Findexable, a fintech research firm, in conjunction with partners like Crunchbase, the global startup funding database, and the Africa Fintech Network.
- According to the report, the city of Johannesburg, South Africa is ranked the 62nd fintech city in the world and first in Africa. This is closely followed by Kenyan city of Nairobi at 63, Lagos; Nigeria at 71 Cape Town, South Africa at 87; Accra, Ghana at 123; Kigali, Rwanda at 132; and Kampala, Uganda at 168.
- The report describes Africa as the fintech the gamechanger, stating that the Africa region has the greatest need (fewer than half of all citizens there have a bank account) as it is currently still trailing the rest of the world — with the smallest number of fintech hubs in total, and only 6 in the top 100 globally.
- It however notes that Africa, which is the home of mobile payments,and which currently lacks banking legacy, is the region where the fintech’s future is likely to arrive fastest.
- With Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos all ranked among the top 100 cities for fintech ecosystems, it further conforms with a trend which sees nearly half of the top 100 cities located in emerging markets.
- The rankings also reflect that those cities are home to Africa’s most valuable tech ecosystems and typically accounting for the most startup investment received on the continent annually.
- In recent times, however, there are clear signs major Western industry leaders think so as well with PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and Stripe all investing in African fintech startups in the past 18 months. There is also strong concerted interest from the East as China has emerged has a strong player in the space over the past few months: OPay and PalmPay, two fintech companies in Nigeria have jointly received over $210 million in funding mainly from Chinese investors this year alone.
Read also: Why Lagos Is The Most Valuable Startup Ecosystem In Africa
A Look At The Global Fintech Ecosystem Globally
- Top of the Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020 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. Lithuania, a country with a population of about a third of that of London, lies fourth in the global list thanks to its active encouragement of fintech companies and regulatory approach.
- By country and region, the USA and the rest of the Americas form the biggest single area by number of fintech hubs. At the same time Europe’s diversity of centres (both old and new), its commitment to progressive regulation, and to ensure that rules are applied evenly, contribute to its position as the region with the second highest number of hubs globally.
- The rankings were compiled by scoring several factors including the number of fintech startups and hubs in cities, the scale of investment in those startups as well as the local regulatory environment — ranging from ease of doing business to startup incentives and internet censorship — where the startups operate.
- 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. Financial giants such as Frankfurt, Shanghai and Zurich have been replaced by cities including Sao Paulo, Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi.
Download the Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020: http://bit.ly/2020GFI
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world