Tillväxtanalys fintech
Fintech companies offer financial products and services that have been developed through new digital technologies. The number of companies in this sector has grown rapidly, and new players are challenging established financial actors, which are in turn developing their own fintech solutions. The financial sector is in transformation. There are many potential benefits to this transformation.
Fintech companies offer increased competition and create innovative and often more user-friendly products. They also make financial services available to a wider range of consumers. The rise of fintech companies may also lead to gains in transparency and sustainability. At the same time, these developments may pose risks to financial stability and individual customer security.
Tillväxtanalys
These developments present a challenge for regulators and decision-makers: how to facilitate innovation while minimizing risks. In our study, we have excluded established financial companies, such as large banks and large tech companies. Our study therefore focuses on "clear" fintech companies. When we began the study, no comprehensive inventory of the Swedish fintech population based on scientific methods was available.
The inventory therefore became one of the sub-studies of the project. An algorithmic method to identify the Swedish fintech population was developed and used in this study. The results indicate that during the period — there were just over fintech companies, of which a good were active in The company population has had strong growth in both employment and in contribution to GDP, especially in the last ten years.
This is a median growth of 21 percent.
This means that the sector continues to be a small phenomenon in the Swedish economy but with a high growth rate. The number of employees has increased from just over employees in to almost 9 in This is a median growth of over 18 percent per year. Compared to other countries, Sweden ranks highly when it comes to general innovation and in terms of how easy it is to start and maintain a company.
We are a country that rapidly adopts new technologies and the degree of digitalization is high in both the private and public sector. The general public is also quick to adopt new digital technologies.
Svensk fintech
These factors have contributed to making Sweden, especially Stockholm, an early fintech hub and given rise to several large internationally successful fintech companies. However, fintech development has gained momentum in many countries in recent years too. This development has often been backed by national fintech strategies and measures to promote the development of local fintech companies.
Sweden's position in international fintech rankings varies, but Sweden is often considered to offer good preconditions e. In order to investigate obstacles and opportunities in the Swedish fintech sector, we surveyed the known fintech population. The over representatives that answered said that the biggest challenges were financing and recruitment. These are challenges they share with startups in other industries.
About a quarter of the companies stated that both obtaining a financial license and understanding whether, and how, to comply with financial regulations was challenging.
Labor and skills shortages
Those surveyed were not critical of the regulations themselves, which they believe are important for trust in the industry. However, they wanted better guidance around regulations and a better overview of how long the licensing process would take. Unclear processing time, in particular, was highlighted as being problematic as it led to high costs in a phase where financing and staff are scarce resources.
Some companies also pointed to problems accessing basic financial infrastructures like bank accounts, Swish and the digital identity service BankID.