The fintech revolution has completely transformed how people buy, sell, and trade in the modern era, with companies that offer safer and more convenient digital-first services quickly generating record growth and profits. However, despite the success found by fintech companies on national or regional scales, no fintech has yet achieved a truly global scale.
The digital payments space in particular is still largely fragmented between continents, while no true global leader has emerged in any fintech space.
In hopes of solving the mystery of the missing global fintech giant, McKinsey’s 2022 Global Banking Annual Review analyzed a wide variety of factors facing fintechs around the world. Among other key insights, McKinsey found six major issues holding companies back from achieving a wider scale: market structure and maturity, access to capital, regulatory and legal frameworks, talent availability, requirements for scaling, and customer trust.
McKinsey outlined the origins and implications of these factors in its report, characterizing the stakes of overcoming these obstacles as existential if fintech is to continue to grow.
“In the coming months and years,” McKinsey wrote in its report, “it will be critical for all stakeholders — including public institutions, established financial industry players, and fintechs — to combine their strengths by establishing the enabling structure and mechanisms the sector needs to reach its full global potential.”
