With the deep integration of finance and technology, a number of high-quality financial technology start-ups have emerged around the world, posing a certain threat to the development of traditional financial institutions. Therefore, developing financial technology has become an important way for traditional financial institutions to realize business transformation and enhance their competitiveness.
Financial institutions continue to increase investment in information technology.
In recent years, financial institutions have gradually realized the importance of information technology application, and technology has gradually become the core competitive orientation of financial institutions. The investment of major financial institutions in information technology has increased year by year. According to the data released by China ICT Institute, the investment in information technology by the world's leading financial institutions has increased year by year, reaching $26 billion in 20 15-20 19, a year-on-year increase of 5.9%.
At present, IT expenditure has become an important expenditure of major financial institutions around the world. From the perspective of global representative financial institutions, IT investment of most financial institutions accounts for more than 25% of profits, among which UBS IT investment accounts for 8 1.2%, State Street Bank accounts for 65.3%, and Bank of America, Citibank and other IT investments account for 30%-50% of profits.
Wealth management has become a hot spot in the layout of financial technology companies.
In addition to traditional financial institutions increasing their investment in financial technology, a number of high-quality financial technology startups have emerged around the world. According to Forbes' list of the top 50 financial technologies in 2020, there are 12 enterprises in the field of wealth management, and a number of emerging enterprises such as Acorn and Elinvar have emerged to establish digital trust mechanisms. Realizing the credibility of data, assets and contracts has become the main business direction of wealth management financial technology startups, and the field of wealth management has become a hot spot in the layout of financial technology startups. In addition, the number of companies listed in the payment field and insurance field is second only to the wealth management field, and it is also an important field for the layout of financial technology startups.
Global financial technology policies are frequent.
At present, major countries in the world are aware of the potential value of financial technology, and formulate relevant development strategies at the national level to support the development of their own financial technology. At the same time, the policy gradually covers digital banking, online payment, encrypted assets and other fields, and promotes the continuous improvement of the financial technology policy system.
A cross-regional cooperation mechanism for countries to strengthen financial technology supervision has taken shape.
Financial technology has improved the efficiency of financial services and promoted economic and social benefits. However, it is worth noting that financial technology will also bring multiple risks such as business, data and network, which will bring new challenges to financial supervision and social stability in various countries. Therefore, according to the actual situation of the development of financial technology in various countries, many countries have issued relevant regulatory policies to guide the healthy and standardized development of their financial technology.
In addition to avoiding and preventing domestic financial risks brought by financial technology, the development of financial technology may also bring the risk of regulatory arbitrage, money laundering and terrorist financing brought by encrypted assets, global network security and data governance, and increase the difficulty of global financial regulatory cooperation. Therefore, cross-regional financial technology supervision cooperation has attracted the attention of countries and relevant international organizations. Through the Financial Stability Board, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International Organization of Securities Commissions, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, the Bank for International Settlements and other international organizations, countries have continuously strengthened the field of financial technology supervision.
The digital transformation of financial infrastructure has been accelerated.
In the past, financial infrastructure could not support the development of financial technology. Countries began to speed up the digital transformation of financial infrastructure to support the development of innovative finance such as digital currency, virtual banking and smart finance. The infrastructure construction of global financial markets ushered in a digital and intelligent upgrade stage.
The scale of investment and financing in financial technology declined under the influence of the epidemic.
According to the data released by CB Insights, since 2020, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the scale of global financial technology investment and financing has declined, and the amount of investment and financing has rebounded in the second quarter of 2020, but it is still declining. In the first quarter of 2020, the number of global financial technology investment and financing was 452, and it dropped to 397 in the second quarter.
North America has become a hot spot for global financial technology investment and financing.
From the distribution of investment and financing fields, the investment and financing of financial technology in Asia continued to decline in the third quarter of 20 19, while the investment and financing scale in North America began to rise in the second quarter of 2020. In the second quarter of 2020, the investment and financing scale of financial technology in North America reached US$ 4.89 billion. Up to now, the total amount of financial technology financing in North America accounts for 40% of the world, making it the most active region in the world.
The scale of investment and financing in real estate finance has dropped significantly, and the scale of payment technology financing is the largest.
From the perspective of investment and financing segmentation, in the second quarter of 2020, the scale of investment and financing in the global financial technology real estate financial segmentation fell sharply, down by 72. 1% month-on-month, while the financing in payment technology and banking business was relatively flat, with payment technology financing accounting for the highest proportion in the global financial technology financing in the second quarter, reaching 23. 1%.