Asia-Pacific is home to some of the most developed FinTech markets around the globe, and tough competition may help keep things that way.
First thing first, anyway. FinTech (Financial Technology) is an umbrella term pertaining to software, mobile applications, and other innovations aimed at enhancing and automating traditional forms of finance for businesses and consumers. Simple mobile payment apps and complex blockchain networks that hold encrypted transactions are all examples of FinTech.
Modern day consumers in the APAC region seek convenience in all aspects of their lives, that’s why technology plays a huge role in their day to day transactions. Moreso, there’s also the wide use of technological tools for basic and complex functions, including the adoption of FinTech services in the said area.
In just two years, consumers in several important Asia-Pacific economies have increased—and in some cases tripled—their use of services powered by FinTech. Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea all have a 67% acceptance rate for FinTech, whereas Australia has a 58% adoption rate.
FinTech Hotspots in the APAC: Singapore and Hong Kong
Singapore is the leading Asia-Pacific financial center. In the Global Financial Centre Index 2022, it ranks third, trailing only New York and London. It has also surpassed Hong Kong in the last year, despite Hong Kong’s recent changes hurting its ranking.
Hong Kong fell into the 4th rank after being battered by strict COVID restriction. Now, it’s struggling to bring back its role as global financial hub, continuously following China’s lead in its efforts to keep COVID cases to a minimum while the rest of the world resumes its operations.
Despite being a small city, it’s one of the most productive startups for FinTech startups to scale up rapidly. A rival to Singapore, It is home to over 800 FinTech companies and over 3,700 startups, and has one of the highest consumer FinTech adoption rates (67%), ranking above markets like USA, France, and Japan.
In addition, it also has a high B2B FinTech adoption rate, with a total of 66% focusing on the B2B market.
It already has a large and diverse FinTech ecosystem and exports FinTech developments internationally due to its location at the junction of China, Asia, and the rest of the world.
It is one of the most technologically advanced and well-connected cities in the world, with a populace that is highly educated and has a long history of entrepreneurship.
Singapore, on the other hand, is a leading global financial center housing 1,580 operating FinTech firms as of September 2022. With its attractive taxation rules and digitalization breakthroughs, the country was able to draw in many companies.
Among the segments wherein FinTech investments are experiencing tremendous growth, blockchain has the most remarkable growth, reaching a total funding of US$1.48 billion over 82 deals.
Singapore, being a global financial hub and having many international partners with regional offices in the said area, is aiming towards cross-regional accessibility to connect with more markets internationally.
These two cities are vying for the position of Asia’s premier financial hub. Looking forward, we expect to see the efforts of both areas as they emerge in the FinTech industry, with Singapore serving as a pan-Asian center with a concentration on Southeast Asia and Hong Kong solidifying its position as the entry and exit point for China.
APAC FinTech Market Analysis
Despite the difficulties brought by the year 2020 to economies, governments, and the people in general across Asia Pacific, the FinTech industry is a hopeful one. Its rise is attributed to the digital movement that was born during the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift gave FinTech the spotlight.
The FinTech industry is expected to scale at lightning speed in the Asia-Pacific. In the constantly evolving APAC FinTech market, numerous opportunities are emerging. Take for example open banking wherein the financial services market is redefined. Modern technological breakthroughs in the financial sector allow external providers to access data from previously-owned bank customers.
In terms of area, financial services are significantly more widely used in China and India. The greatest mobile payment options are already available in Singapore, helping to increase acceptability on the islands. In developed nations like Australia and Japan, cutting-edge FinTech technology is quickly ingrained into the fabric of daily life.
Moreso, let the numbers speak:
There were over 1230 fintech apps accessible in the Asia Pacific as of 2020, and marketers spent USD 244 million to attract new users in 2020 alone. As a result, the Asia Pacific is quickly overtaking other areas in terms of popularity of fintech apps. Between Q1 2019 and Q1 2021, there were 2.7 billion installs in this region overall. About half of all downloads of fintech apps worldwide come from India, Indonesia, and Brazil.
Installs of banking apps are often 70% higher in developing economies than in developed markets. Demand for fintech apps increased in 2020 in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
In general, the region’s quick increase in financial app installations reflects changing financial and banking environments, as well as customer preferences in the region.
Drive FinTech firm growth in APAC with these strategies
The capacity of new technology to gather and process data in real time is transforming how businesses perform, how products and businesses are conceptualized in the new economy, and how customers take part in the process. In an increasingly cashless society, platforms and apps were created to create better finance management experiences. FinTech, or Financial Technology, powers this transformation.
FinTech refers to new technology that aims to enhance and automate the supply and usage of financial services. FinTech, at its heart, is used to assist corporations, company owners, and consumers in better managing their financial operations, procedures, and lifestyles through the use of specialized software and algorithms that are used on computers and, increasingly, smartphones.
FinTech lead generation is challenging since users can rapidly switch to the next rival offering the highest reward, unlike other businesses. Despite this, it becoming increasingly obvious that FinTech will lead the economic sector in the APAC region.
Take a look at these emerging trends:
Event Marketing
FinTech businesses usually depend on events to generate leads. Today, the events space evolved and marketing teams revised their approach to drive high quality leads. When you think about bringing your brand to life and creating an engaging strategy to attract your customers both online and offline, you should consider event marketing.
Event marketing refers to the planning, organizing, and executing an event to promote a product, service, or brand. It pertains to a variety of events like tradeshows, conferences, seminars, summits, VIP events, webinars, Q&A sessions, and virtual events.
In this case, FinTech firms can fully benefit from event marketing especially this year when the said industry is focusing more on events. Events have the potential to be among your most effective marketing tools if handled properly. Keeping updated on FinTech events gives you an edge among competitors by being updated with the latest trends and industry updates.
Webinars
Webinars are extremely helpful tools in FinTech B2B lead generation, most especially because it provides opportunities for client interaction while giving you the chance to demonstrate your expertise. Most importantly, it helps build your brand authority and position yourself as a thought leader.
The leads generated by webinars are, by definition, of high quality. By signing up for the webinar, they have already demonstrated an interest in your industry and your company. That alone elevates them above randomly generated leads.
The goal of hosting webinars is to establish an authoritative voice and position yourself as a thought leader while collecting client information.
LinkedIn Networking
Having 756 million members and being the world’s most influential social media network and largest platform for professional networking, LinkedIn provides you with a lot of potential contacts for your FinTech business.
Members use this site to connect with clients, co-workers, and business associates. Moreso, it can help you boost your profile, build your brand awareness, and help you recruit the right people for your business.
What makes this social network unique is that it’s focused on professional connections. One feature of this app is called LinkedIn Groups wherein sharing of expertise, seeking and giving advice, and building meaningful relationships.
Joining this feature will help you find, reach out, and expand your network of connections for your FinTech business since it represents a targeted opportunity, both to help you build your professional community and establish your personal brand on this app.
Account-based marketing (ABM) Approach
ABM is a type of marketing strategy that’s focused on crafting hyper-personalized messages directed at a predetermined target, most-likely to purchase, and high-value set of accounts. This makes it a highly-efficient lead generation strategy for leading B2B FinTechs and financial services.
One of the most trusted B2B lead generation experts that has helped FinTech companies generate high-quality leads is Callbox Singapore. It offers a multi-touch ABM solution that combines both inbound and outbound channels to support the different stages of your business’ ABM program.
Take a look at this case study handled by our team:
The Client is a rapidly expanding FinTech company with offices in Singapore and with more than six years of experience collaborating with large companies in Southeast Asia.
The said business runs a cloud-based platform that provides a comprehensive range of supply chain finance alternatives to large businesses to assist them improve cash flows and access a pool of working capital through the following supply chain financing options, including reverse factoring, invoice financing, inventory financing, payable extension, payable discounting, and supplier payments.
The company started implementing ABM program in the previous year to help them identify high-priority accounts in their target markets. The ABM program for the client also outlines the necessity of outsourcing their top-of-the-funnel tasks, such as prospect research and first outreach.
The said company believes that a third-party will augment its understaffed team and outsourcing to a B2B lead generation company will free up a huge part of its sales and marketing team’s schedules, allowing more time for follow-up and focus on promising deals.
Callbox’s multi-touch multi-channel ABM helps address the Client’s problem. A dynamic outreach cadence was used to plan and carry out the phone, email, and LinkedIn touches that were incorporated into the lead nurturing channels.
The various outreach initiatives were coordinated and the Client was kept informed of the campaign’s progress using Callbox’s own CRM platform, Pipeline. In the end. The client was able to generate 181 Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs), 223 Marketing-Qualified Leads (MQLs), 4,978 Accounts Touched, and 3.3 Contacts per Account.
Considering the results of the case study, it can be concluded that ABM helps companies reach their business goals by directing their efforts towards the right targets. And besides, outsourcing to trust-worthy B2B lead generation service providers helps you gain high-quality leads and increase revenue. You can read more of our success stories here.
Outsourcing lead generation efforts
FinTech is an industry that’s increasingly getting crowded. For companies that want to thrive, get ahead, or are wanting to scale their business, lead generation must be at the center of their vision.
However, lead generation for FinTech businesses doesn’t follow a one-size-fits-all approach. Accumulating enough leads is grueling and time-consuming, given the fierce competition among FinTech brands, financial service providers, and well-established traditional banks. In this case, traditional marketing strategies won’t make it to the cut.
FinTech companies will have to decide whether to employ and train an in-house lead generation team, or to outsource these efforts to a team of experts.
Outsource your lead generation efforts, only with the experts
Callbox Singapore is a close and reliable ally to many FinTech companies in the APAC region and has played a huge role in B2B business’ lead generation and client research strategy.
Our team’s multi-touch multi-channel approach account-based marketing (ABM) to lead generation helps FinTech businesses reach their target customers and that each opportunity is prepared as it moves to the next step in the sales cycle.
By concentrating on the buyers and the processes they comply with, Callbox’s Account-Based Lead Generation and Appointment Setting Process enables you to overcome these customer acquisition issues.
Be one step ahead of your competitors and generate high-quality, high-converting FinTech leads in providing cutting-edge financial solutions including mobile payments, money transfers, loans, fundraising, cryptocurrencies, asset management, and blockchain.
Reach your FinTech business goals with us today!
