News Snapshot:
Financial technology firms in Asia Pacific struggled to raise funding from venture capital and private equity investors last year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, with deals falling to a six-year low of US$11.6 billion, according to KPMG. That was a 31% decline from $16.8 billion in 2019. Globally, fintech fundraising fell over 36% to $105 billion. Market volatility caused by the pandemic “drove a large amount of investment away from emerging markets like Southeast Asia, particularly in the second half of the year”, KPMG says in a statement on February 27. In Singapore, for instance, fintech fundraising plummeted...