The Spanish market is currently looking to be a boon for the FinTech market.
Spain is the main market for existing FinTechs in Southern Europe, FinTechs are also about to benefit from the country’s new Startups Law that is aimed at the unique needs of the country’s small FinTechs. It is due to be approved by the end of the year.
Spain’s FinTechs have increased six-fold since 2015, making Spain the sixth-largest global market in terms of Fintechs per capita. They have also benefitted from over €600 million invested between 2020-2021, putting them in a great position to build on their existing ecosystem.
A combination of tech innovation and investment caused Spain’s FinTech market to triple between 2015 and 2019. Several companies that came from that period still dominate the B2C sector, which is increasingly influenced by Millennial and Gen Z consumers.
Spain’s neobanks Bnext and Rebellion Pay, UK-based Revolut, and Germany’s N26 have, together, a 30% market share of Spain’s digital banking market. Other successful Fintechs from this period, such as Verse, Goin and Housers give people easy to use financial tools that are particularly attractive to Gen Z and Millennials.
The EU’s Payment Services Directive came into effect in Spain in 2019. This, Currencycloud remarked, accelerated banks taking up specialist FinTech solutions – subsequently boosting the FinTech sector.
Due to be enacted by the end of 2022, the Startups Law aims to make Spain a more entrepreneurial country, attractive to international investors and talented innovators. With this considered, the law can be seen as very good news for Spain’s FinTech startups.
Spain can be a gateway to other EU countries, who, by using Spain as their base, can access the LATAM market. Spain, despite its relatively modest population of 47 million is in a unique position thanks to culture, its rapidly developing Fintech sector and a government actively promoting entrepreneurs, to interact with a continent almost ten times its size in population.
Spain’s Fintechs can expand further outward too – tapping into the opportunity-rich market of Latin America making the most of new regulations, historic cultural ties, and a common language and business culture.