A tale of 44 cities | Research findings • Although our research only included two Hubs from the Gulf region, both Hub Representatives Closing remarks presented very similar self-assessments. For one, both Hubs claimed excellent government As we have seen, FinTech ecosystems continue to evolve at pace across the globe. and regulator support for FinTech and these are evidenced by the range of initiatives that the government and regulatory bodies are driving together. For example, the RegLab in Abu Dhabi, As these ecosystems evolve, so too will the report and its methodology for assessing and the FinTech Hive and 2020 blockchain ambition in Dubai and the FinTech work driven by the EDB presenting the FinTech developments in these Hubs. in Bahrain. As identified within the Readers’ Note section, we are pleased to be working with the Global • In Africa, FinTech developments continue to be concentrated around mobile and social payments. FinTech Hubs Federation to review and refine the methodology and improve the robustness of the Highly successful FinTechs are rare as low levels of government and regulatory support and lack assessments currently being completed by each Hub. of quality infrastructure continue to be barriers to scaling. Without giving away too much, we are very excited about the new Full Report that we will be • In the Central and South America region, Brazil leads the pack by way of investment and number releasing at Sibos in October and look forward to working closely with ecosystem participants of FinTechs and much of the activity is concentrated in Sao Paulo. Broadly, across the region, across all the GFHF Hubs over the coming months. corporates and investors are the ones proactively developing the local FinTech ecosystems. However, there are positive signals that government and regulator support for FinTech is increasing. For example, Mexico’s new financial inclusion strategy is expected to promote FinTech growth. • Finally, we complete the map with North America. While Silicon Valley and New York continue to be the indisputable top FinTech Hubs in the USA, and Toronto in Canada with 80% of the Canadian FinTech activity in this Hub, over the last year we have seen a number of other emerging Hubs: Chicago, which has been included in this Interim report; and Charlotte, North Carolina, which will feature in the next GFHF report. Another interesting development in the USA in recent months has been regulation, particularly in regards to the OCC’s FinTech charter. As the USA’s complex and fragmented regulatory environment has been cited as a challenge by US FinTech Hubs in our research, it will be interesting to review these developments again in our full Sibos report which will be launched in October. 16