Ahead of London Fintech Week next week, the organisers have on Thursday put out some research into global fintech (financial technology) investment over the last 5 years.
The research, from consultancy William Garrity Associates, shows pretty clearly that Britain is a huge hub for investment.
Over 10% of global fintech investment has gone to the
William Garrity Associates/London Fintech Week
The UK's $5.4 billion (£3.5 billion) of total investment is still dwarfed by the US though, which pulled in $31.6 billion (£20.5 billion) of the total $49.7 billion (£32.3 billion) invested globally as the above map shows.
The research also points out that fintech investment is exploding right now - 25% of the entire $49.7 billion invested over the last 5 years has been just in the first half of this year. That's $12.7 billion (£8.2 billion) being pumped into fintech companies around the world just six months.
Big deals for UK fintech companies include international money transfer business TranferWise raising $58 million (£37.7 billion) from Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz at the start of the year and peer-to-peer small business loan platform Funding Circle raising $150 million (£97 million) in April.
The William Garrity research shows the three biggest areas of investment globally are payments, loans, and finance-specific cyber security.