A new report ranks the Yangtze River Delta as the world’s leading fintech industry hub ahead of Silicon Valley, Greater Beijing and London.
The Global Fintech Hub Index (GFHI) recently produced by the Sinai Lab of the Academy of Internet Finance (AIF), Zhejiang University in collaboration with the Zhejiang Association of Internet Finance seeks to rank the world’s leading fintech regions using a range of criteria.
According to the report authors “Asia and America are leading the global Fintech race, while Europe seems to be falling behind.
“Developing countries are leapfrogging, and the dream of inclusive finance is closer to reality.”
The three criteria employed by GFHI include:
– Fintech industry, which measures regional fintech development based on metrics including the number of leading firms and total venture capital investment;
– Fintech consumer experience, which measures the rate at which fintech is adopted and the acceptance of fintech services;
– Fintech ecosystem, which measures prospects for future development of the fintech sector as well as government support measures.
The researchers used these criteria to produce a list of the top 17 regions and the top 30 cities for the global fintech sector.
The Yangtze River Delta came first on the list of leading fintech regions, followed by Silicon Valley, Greater Beijing, Greater London, the Guangdong HK-Macau Region and Greater New York.
According to the report the three Chinese regions are “tier 1 regions,” and “China seems to be on its way to transcend other countries in financial development by developing its Fintech industry.
GFHI Regional Rankings for 2018
| Region | GFHI | Fintech industry | Fintech consumer experience | Fintech ecosystem | ||||
| Rank | Score | Rank | Score | Rank | Score | Rank | Score | |
| Yangtze River Delta | 1 | 81.2 | 2 | 84.7 | 1 | 79.5 | 2 | 77.2 |
| Silicon Valley | 2 | 79.7 | 1 | 93.2 | 6 | 39.8 | 5 | 74.9 |
| Greater Beijing | 3 | 76.8 | 3 | 80.0 | 2 | 67.9 | 4 | 75.4 |
| Greater London | 4 | 73.9 | 4 | 76.1 | 5 | 50.8 | 1 | 78.3 |
| Guangdong – HK – Macau region | 5 | 72.9 | 6 | 73.2 | 3 | 66.9 | 6 | 74.3 |
| Greater New York | 6 | 71.6 | 5 | 75.8 | 7 | 39.1 | 3 | 76.2 |
| Greater Sydney | 7 | 58.7 | 7 | 59.6 | 9 | 35.9 | 10 | 64.6 |
| Singapore | 8 | 53.9 | 8 | 54.1 | 14 | 22.3 | 11 | 63.4 |
| Greater Boston | 9 | 52.7 | 12 | 44.7 | 11 | 34.0 | 8 | 68.4 |
| Benelux | 10 | 50.7 | 13 | 41.6 | 15 | 17.1 | 7 | 72.3 |
| Greater Tokyo | 11 | 50.6 | 9 | 52.5 | 16 | 16.5 | 12 | 58.6 |
| Greater Mumbai | 12 | 50.4 | 10 | 49.0 | 4 | 50.9 | 14 | 52.0 |
| Greater Sao Paulo | 13 | 45.4 | 11 | 48.4 | 8 | 38.8 | 16 | 43.6 |
| Greater Paris | 14 | 43.2 | 14 | 35.1 | 12 | 29.1 | 13 | 57.7 |
| Israel | 15 | 31.9 | 15 | 23.8 | 16 | 16.5 | 15 | 47.0 |
| Switzerland | 16 | 29.9 | 16 | 0.0 | 12 | 29.1 | 9 | 67.8 |
| Greater Frankfurt | 17 | 21.0 | 16 | 0.0 | 10 | 35.6 | 17 | 42.9 |
The top five entries on the list of leading fintech cities were:
- Beijing, China;
- San Francisco, USA;
- Shanghai, China;
- London, UK;
- New York, USA.
