Four down and four to go! The time has come to see what Tunisia, Australia, Denmark, and France bring to the fintech scene. Let’s go!
Tunisia
Tunisia, Tunisia, Tunisia… the country that didn’t only set off the Arab Spring but it’s also the first African country to pass a Startup Act in April 2018. The 2018 Act created a legal framework to encourage innovation and creating startups. That was the beginning of Tunisia’s fintech revolution.
It is a long and slow process, but isn’t this how everything starts? Tunisia’s Central Bank (TCB) announced in 2020 the launch of the regulatory sandbox. Not only that, but it established a fintech committee, a TCB Lab, and regional and international cooperation. So far, there are about 38 fintechs in Tunisia. One memorable company is Kaoun which came in like a knight in shining armour during COVID. The companyimplements identification and automation products to make financial services faster and more accessible to everyone.
But being the first doesn’t mean being the best. Tunisia is far from that title, the main challenge is the lack of flexibility with its regulations, which can hinder fintech development. Either a Tunisian Fintech focuses exclusively on markets outside with friendlier regulations, or it invests more time in developing solutions in local environments and then leverages that expertise to expand to other similar environments.
Australia
Everybody wants to rule the fintech world and Australia has a really good chance in it. This year about 78% of fintech startups have passed both the emerging and growth phases and have entered the post-revenue stage. That means they’re making money and getting bigger. It makes sense since the number of paying customers has increased.
Also, just this year about 45% of fintech companies managed to raise capital valued at a little over $10 million. And as usual, payments, wallets and supply chain fintechs came on top with 21% of this segment raising more than $100 million. Despite the optimistic outlook, there are a few significant challenges that faces Australia. Mainly retaining talent, recruiting skilled domestic talent, and of course competing with big tech.
Denmark
Even though Australia seems to have a very impressive fintech landscape, but Denmark remains way ahead of it. Denmark’s fintech journey started in 2015 with the goal of becoming -yup! You guessed it- a fintech hub in the global financial services sector. Since then, Copenhagen has attracted about 250 startups.
Trying to keep up with its goal, the Danish government established a fintech Lab, and a regulatory sandbox as part of its initiatives to promote innovation within the financial sector. What really pushed the Danish fintech scene to the forefront is Copenhagen Fintech, a startup-driven cluster organization. They helped in generating an enormous number of investments, jobs, and partnerships. That, of course, positioned Denmark as a leading global FinTech hub that supports a robust, value-creating financial sector both internally and internationally.
France
Times have changed and France has become a bit iffy to the majority of us, but does it fintech scene resemble its now-natural ambiance? Let’s see! As of 2022, France has 1,564 fintech startups, a pretty big lump of brains. So, it’s no surprise that it has a diverse portfolio of fintech businesses in the area. From payment services, to wealth management and robo-advisory, crowdfunding, lending platforms, and cryptocurrency. Not just that, but it has support system companies such as; regtech, Risk Management and Cybersecurity, accounting, data management and insurtech.
For 2022, it’s projected that the country will earn $6.4 billion in fintech investments. As we learned from Australia that attracting and retaining talent could be a challenge, France has come up with a solution. Government programmes like the Station F and the French Tech Visa Program have helped Paris become a global tech hub. These programmes give foreigners and investors a four-year visa that allows them to relocate to Paris with their families. Oui, c'est la vie.
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