A tale of 44 cities | Research findings Research Findings Where is all the activity? interesting developments from emergent Hubs across Eastern Europe, South America and Africa FinTech is a truly global phenomenon. This that have not yet been represented in our report. As the network of GFHF participants expands, the interim report is driven by the exciting growth scope of our report will become increasingly comprehensive. of FinTech hubs globally who have become members of the Federation and sets the stage Emergent themes from the regions for our full GFHF Report being launched at When we analysed the data from the 24 New Hubs we profiled and coupled it with additional desk Sibos later this year. research, a number of interesting regional themes emerged across the globe: Although level of investment is by no means • On the whole, our research found that new European Hubs (particularly those within the the only factor contributing to the strength of European Union) tended to agree that there is good access to talent in their Hubs. On the Louise Brett FinTech Hubs, it is a good indicator of activity. other hand, most of these 12 European New Hubs rated regulation in their Hub negatively and UK FinTech Lead Partner, Deloitte Therefore, a look at the investment landscape regulatory barriers were cited as a common challenge. on page 19 gives us an idea of where FinTech activity is at its hottest across the globe. Consistent with this, our research on regulatory sandboxes and regulator collaboration showed that in Europe, only the UK, Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and Norway (5 of the total 20 GFHF Our report now covers 20 Hubs in Europe, 12 in Asia Pacific and 12 from other regions around European Fintech hubs) have committed to a regulatory sandbox and only the UK, French and Swiss the world and offers a broadly representative overview of the global FinTech landscape. With that regulators have signed FinTech co-operation agreements with other regulators across the globe. said, there are still a few notable Hubs that have not yet joined the GFHF and therefore have not been featured in the current report. (For example, Beijing). In addition, we are aware that there are • In Asia Pacific, Hub Representatives were more positive about regulation in their Hubs compared to their European counterparts and with good reason too. Over the last year, we have seen very GFHF Hubs New Hubs Old Hubs Total positive developments from regulators across Asia and the pace of change has been extremely Africa 1 2 3 encouraging. For example, of the 16 regulators who have either set up or have committed to Asia Pacific 7 5 12 setting up regulatory sandboxes, seven are in Asia. Moreover, Asian regulators have also Central and South America 1 1 2 been proactive in cooperating with other regulatory bodies outside of their region. For example, as shown on the regulatory collaboration map on page 21, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Europe 12 8 20 Singapore, Australia and India have all signed international cooperation agreements with other Middle East 2 1 3 regulators; and Singapore’s MAS has signed more FinTech cooperation agreements than other North America 1 3 4 regulatory bodies in the world. Although the tangible outcomes of these agreements largely Grand Total 24 20 44 remain to be seen, cooperation between regulators globally has undeniably become a trend. 15