Future of Global Fintech Second Edition 2025

Type of partnerships between financial institutions FIGURE 9 API integrations Technology provider Funding agreements Co-branded products Referral agreements N/A (no partnership) Data sharing agreements Joint ventures (investment relationship)52% 41% 36% 22% 18% 16% 14% 13% 13% 11%Agent bankingOthersupporting fintech industry development, with 69% stating it was either supportive (51%) or very supportive (18%), demonstrating the importance of an enabling regulatory landscape. This factor was very supportive for 25% of fintechs in APAC and 9% in MENA, making it one of the top three factors in these regions. It is worth mentioning that 20% of fintechs in LAC and the US and Canada cited this as unsupportive for their business. In contrast, 36% of wealthtech fintechs classified the regulatory environment as very supportive, making it the top factor for this vertical. Fintech-incumbent partnerships The survey asked fintechs to provide insights into the various forms of collaboration they engaged in and the functions these partnerships served in driving operational and strategic outcomes. This data informed assessments of the partnerships between fintechs and incumbent financial institutions. A striking 84% of fintechs reported partnering with incumbent financial institutions. Survey results confirmed that several different types of partnerships were shaping the fintech ecosystem (Figure 9). Application programming interface (API) integrations led responses at 52%, reflecting the industry’s reliance on seamless technology-driven connectivity. This also aligned with the broad consensus among fintechs (noted in Chapter 6) that open banking and open finance frameworks were beneficial to business growth. A notable 12.5% of respondents with API partnerships operated in jurisdictions without an active open banking/ open finance framework. Further analysis revealed that these integrations predominantly supported payment processing, purchase transactions and cross-border remittances. Partnering for API integrations was particularly prevalent in MENA (70%), and the wealthtech (68%) and digital payment (63%) verticals. Technology providers followed as a prominent type of partnership at 41%, underscoring the role of third-party technology solutions in driving fintech operations. These trends were consistent across AEs and EMDEs. Funding agreements ranked third at 36%, signifying the importance of financial collaborations in sustaining growth and innovation This was particularly important in regions like SSA, where 56% of fintechs identified access to capital as a key challenge. 84% of fintechs reported partnering with incumbent financial institutions. The Future of Global Fintech: From Rapid Expansion to Sustainable Growth 16