金融科技的下一篇章：规模化赢家与新兴颠覆者

0312 Key Highlights04Introduction05Despite Current Volatility, a Fintech SpringIs Underway09Fintech Penetration Resembles Swiss Cheese:Plenty of Holes13Forecast: Five Trends That Will Shape the NextChapter in Fintech31Where We Go from Here: Calls to Action35ConclusionContents BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP+QED INVESTORS12 Key HighlightsGlobal fintech revenuesgrew robustly at 21% in2024 (versus 13% in 2023),driven by impressiveresults from challengerbanks and trading andinvestment fintechs.The pace at whichfintechs outgrewincumbents in 2024.21%Total revenue generatedby fintechs with morethan $500 million inannual revenue—representingapproximately 60% of theglobal fintech industry’stotal revenue.Share of global bankingand insurance revenuepools penetrated byfintechs—with manyholes remaining by bothvertical and geography.$231BFuture fintech growth willbe driven by B2B(2X),financial infrastructure,and lending.The share of equityfunding AI-poweredfintechs are receivingversus their “fair share”of 23%. While onlybeginning to take root asa productivity lever,agentic AI will change thefintech game. FINTECH’S NEXT CHAPTER: SCALED WINNERS AND EMERGING DISRUPTORSIncrease in averageEBITDA margins of publicfintechs in 2024—asfintechs continued toshift from a “growth at allcosts” to a “sustainablegrowth” mindset.25%Segments out of 23 inwhich fintech successhas been concentratedso far: digital wallets,acquiring and verticalSaaS, challengerbanking, crypto trading,and BPNL.5Onchain finance has beenin search of a killer usecase for over a decade.While there is excitementaround stablecoins forpayments, assettokenization could be thetipping point use case thatbrings more economicactivity onchain. The number of fintechs,globally, founded before2016 that have raisedmore than $500 million incumulative equityfunding and that have notyet gone public.The number of profitablechallenger banks globallywith at least $500 millionin annual revenue. Theirodds of success arehigher in product andcustomer expansion thanin global expansion.The white-spaceopportunity for privatecredit funds in fintechlending. Combined withdeclining rates andmaturing customer data,there are new tailwindsfor lenders. 3 BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP+QED INVESTORSThe global fintech industry is turning the page to a newchapter—one characterized by the coming of age of aclass of scaled fintechs, the emergence and applicationof new technologies and business models, including AI,and investors’ unrelenting focus on profitable growth.This class of scaled fintechs can be seen as the “winners”of the first era of fintech. As they continue to entrenchthemselves into the financial services landscape, they willincreasingly be expected to act like mature publiccompanies, navigating increased regulatory scrutiny, publicearnings cycles, and intense competition from upstarts.This will require much sharper capital allocation andcontinuous optimization of their business models inrelatively pedestrian domains such as risk managementand pricing. Balancing these imperatives with the need tostay agile and innovative will be a key challenge as theyseek to expand into product adjacencies and newgeographies over the coming years.Success also means that up-and-coming fintechs will need toseek new competitive ground by addressing pain points thusfar unresolved by banks or established fintechs. For example,B2B workflows in areas such as payments and accounting stillinvolve many manual, slow, and costly processes ripe forautomation and streamlining. There are also opportunities inareas where fintechs have already gained a foothold. Inlending, for instance, they have made some headway inpersonal unsecured loans, but there is still significant unmetdemand for credit from both consumers and businesses.In many respects, there has never been a better time to bea fintech founder or investor. Only 3% of global banking andinsurance revenue pools have been penetrated by fintechs.Introduction FINTECH’S NEXT CHAPTER: SCALED WINNERS AND EMERGING DISRUPTORSMany holes remain, and emerging technologies andbusiness models will empower fintechs to address thesegaps. Most notably, AI, which while just beginning to takeroot as a productivity lever, promises to fuel even greaterinnovation on the product side.However, as we establishedin our 2024 report, fintechswill not be able to successfully pursue these opportunitieswith a “growth at all costs” mindset. Sustainable growthwill be the yardstick of success against which investors willmeasure them. When capital markets reopen—if perhapslater than some might hope—there will be a reckoning withthis reality. Investors will only welcome players with strongunit economics; and as they recycle capital back into theprivate markets, earlier-stage fintechs will also be requiredto demonstrate sustainable growth. While fintechs havedramatically reconfigured the financial services landscapeover the last two decades, many opportunities remain.This report is informed by conversations wi