Silicon Valley Bank's Free Future of Fintech Report

Thanks to our Gold Sponsor Silicon Valley Bank for this free Fintech industry report:

The Future of Fintech 2023

SVB's Future of Fintech report provides an outlook on innovation in the fintech industry based on their unmatched proprietary data and deep sector knowledge.

A New Era Begins

When the graphs are all up and to the right, that’s an easy story to tell. For a long time, they didn’t go any other way. More than a decade of US expansion lifted the innovation economy to new heights year after year as technology moved from a niche segment into the mainstream. Perhaps no tech sector was more favored than fintech. In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, near-zero capital costs and the emergence of smartphones allowed fintechs to flourish by building the banking apps people wanted.

The unbundling of financial services brought every financial product out of the bank lobby and onto a phone screen — from insurance policies and stock trading to debit payments and credit monitoring. By 2021, at the peak of VC investment, fintech companies accounted for one-fifth of US VC dollars invested and unicorns created (page 15).

Now, two years into a VC slowdown, the fintech sector is feeling the effects of the tougher macro conditions. The low-cost funding that opened the door for business models like buy now pay later (BNPL) and alternative consumer lending has grown more expensive, while
regulators, who once overlooked technology providers, are placing fintechs under increasing scrutiny. All of this adds up to a more complicated picture for fintech founders and investors.

In this latest edition of our Future of Fintech report, we leverage SVB’s unmatched proprietary data and deep sector knowledge to provide an in-depth look at the health and productivity of the fintech sector. Our findings show that while fintech companies are facing
obstacles to growth, they are also finding opportunity. For example, the demand for regulatory technology is growing as federal agencies set new rules for financial technology (page 8). Payment companies are primed for growth as the shift toward embedded
finance continues (page 11), and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is driving efficiencies across fintech subsectors (page 7).

These trends are already showing up in the data. While VC investors are pulling back on deployments generally, fintech valuations still hold a premium compared to tech overall, an indication of the long-term promise for the space (page 12). The same can be said for
blockchain and digital assets. While this space has weathered challenges in the last year, rising asset prices and commitments by institutional investors suggest that blockchain technology may be entering a new phase of development (page 17). While it’s easy to get
distracted by the hype of short-term volatility, we remain committed to the lasting viability of the fintech space. Innovation isn’t always a straight line, but our enduring view remains optimistic...