Australia ranked second in Asia Pacific alternative finance

Australia’s alternative finance market grew by over 50% in 2016, outpacing Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore and India.

According to a new report, Australia’s alternative finance market, which includes balance sheet lending, peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding and invoice financing, grew to US$610 million over the past 12 months – an increase of 53% over the total of just under US$400 million raised in 2015.

The research was conducted by a research team from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, the Australian Centre for Financial Studies at Monash Business School and the Tsinghua University Graduate School at Shenzhen, in collaboration with KPMG and with the support of the CME Group Foundation and HNA Capital.

The report found one of the reasons for Australia’s success in alternative finance to be the encouragement of FinTech development by the Australian government, with around two thirds of respondents to the survey considering Australia’s current regulations to be “adequate and appropriate”. Looking towards the future, 53% of respondents considered Australia’s proposed regulations favourably.

Federal treasurer, Scott Morrison, said in a statement:

“This is a fantastic outcome and reinforces Australia’s leading global position in the development and use of FinTech. It reflects the hard work and dedication by those in the sector, and shows the actions of the Turnbull Government to support the FinTech sector are making an impact.”

The Federal government first introduced its FinTech statement in March 2016, and recently introduced further legislation into parliament extending the crowd sourced equity funding framework to proprietary companies and removing the double taxation on digital currency.

Compare savings accounts