Success Stories: Fintech - December 2021

In success stories, we profile some of the key stories in Fintech and payments this month, focusing on areas of growth, resilience and innovation.

Here’s this month’s dose of positivity, featuring fresh fintech statistics, sustainability incentives, NFT masterpieces and promising investment opportunities for bitcoin.

Fintech Fighting Spirit

UK fintech sector bounces back from the pandemic

The UK has registered a record year in annual fintech investment in 2021, exceeding $11.6bn – representing a huge 217% increase from 2020.

The funds in the UK were spread across 713 deals, making up 11% of all global deals (6,495), behind the US, but well ahead of European rivals.

The UK also experienced rapid growth, with investment outside London and the South East in 2021 reaching $696m compared to $206m in 2020 - a 237% increase.

 “Fintech is delivering on all the biggest global trends and needs, including business productivity, consumer behaviours, financial wellness and inclusion, climate change solutions and cyber security - which is why it is such a magnet for investors” says Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance.

“We are on the right trajectory in terms of levels of funding and now it’s time to also properly address the funding gap for underrepresented founders, if we are to create a truly sustainable and forward-looking sector."

Bitcoin Bonanza

Goldman Sachs says bitcoin could reach $100,000

A new report from the Wall Street behemoth shows that bitcoin outperformed all other asset classes over the past year, giving investors a 60% return. The next top performer was crude oil at 55%. The S&P 500, often compared with bitcoin, saw a 29% increase, while the top five was completed by Russell 1000 Growth and Nasdaq, both at 28%.

Gold, a classic safe haven for risk-averse investors, rose only 4% over the period, implying a market share steal by the high-riding cryptocurrency.

In a research note, Goldman Sachs’ co-head of foreign exchange strategy Zach Pandl, suggests bitcoin currently holds a 20% share of the gold/bitcoin store of value market.

“Hypothetically, if bitcoin’s share of the ‘store of value’ market were to rise to 50% over the next five years (with no growth in overall demand for stores of value) its price would increase to just over $100,000, for a compound annualised return of 17-18% (accounting for growth in bitcoin supply over time),” he writes.

New NFT Niche

The third place shifts the trajectory of art ownership with NFT sale of french masterpiece

“The Greatest Works of Art”, a collection of real masterpieces of world pictorial art, will be sold at an upcoming auction in the form of a limited series of NFT tokens by the NFT platform The Third Place.

As part of this, the platform plans to source world-famous art objects and, with the help of NFT technology, make them accessible for everyone. Each artwork will have its authenticity verified by a number of major museums.

Thanks to NFT, the rights of use for the obtained art objects will be certified in the form of several thousand unique fragments, and the platform participants will be able to buy famous masterpieces of world art in parts using tokens.

Absolutely anyone will have the opportunity to own the rights to works worth tens of millions of dollars, and art lovers will be able to enjoy masterpieces of such great artists like Van Gogh, Gauguin, and many others decorating the walls of public art spaces.

Carbon Control

TSB puts carbon tracking control in customers’ hands

UK bank TSB has teamed up with fintech startup Cogo to help customers monitor and reduce their carbon footprints.

Cogo uses open banking and data linked to electronic bank statements to analyse customers’ financial transactions and day-to-day spending to give a clear picture of the impact this has on the environment.

To calculate a person or household’s carbon footprint, Cogo first analyses their banking data and matches every transaction to a specific industry, such as fashion, grocery or insurance. It can then estimate the carbon footprint of that transaction.

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