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Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:

While Europe saw a banner year of fintech funding in 2019, Asia saw relatively strong funding compared to historical norms, revealed a study.

Europe set a new record for fintech funding - attracting $58.1 billion in investment compared to $43.4 billion in 2018, according to a report, 'Pulse of Fintech' by KPMG.

The single $42.5 billion acquisition of WorldPay by FIS accounted for more than half of this number. Other large deals in H2'19 included the buyout of eFront in France for $1.3 billion and the buyout of SIA (Milan) in Italy for $894 million.

In large part due to the WorldPay acquisition, fintech investment in the UK grew substantially - from $25.4 billion in 2018 to $48.5 billion in 2019.

Meanwhile, Germany saw a very strong year of fintech investment at $1.6 billion - led by the $470 million raise by N26 in Q3'19. France also saw a banner year for fintech with $1.8 billion of total investment.

Asia sees relatively strong funding

In 2018, Asia saw a massive high of fintech investment, primarily due to the record-breaking $14 billion raise by Ant Financial.

When compared to all years before 2018, fintech investment in Asia remained relatively steady in 2019 with $12.9 billion invested.

The largest deals in Asia during 2019 included the $1.2 billion acquisition of Property Exchange Australia by Commonwealth Bank of Australia in H1 2019 and the $1.7 billion Series G raised by India's Paytm in H2'19.

India saw a record-breaking $3.8 billion of fintech funding in 2019, driven by a record Q4'19 ($2.3 billion) which included Paytm's $1.7 billion raise.

Australia also saw a record of $1.9 billion in fintech funding during 2019, while Singapore saw $576 million in investment.

"2020 is going to be an exciting and pivotal year for fintech, particularly as we start to see the impact of the digital banking licensees in Hong Kong (SAR), Australia and Singapore launching and endeavoring to scale, as well as other markets the following suit," said Ian Pollari, Global Co-Leader of Fintech, KPMG International.