fintech digest
SMBs at the Center of Embedded Lending, Middle East and African Fintech, AI Program for Founders And More
Research Team
23 August 2024
Embedded Lending Puts SMBs at Center of Financial Services Landscape
The growing importance of seamless, customer-centric financial solutions has transformed today’s digital economy.
And innovations like embedded lending have revolutionized the financial services ecosystem by increasingly placing small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) at the center of this transformative shift.
Blockchain in Action: Tokenizing Real-World Assets for a New Financial Era
Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008, the growth of the private credit space has been a key theme within the alternative investment management industry. According to TPG Angelo Gordon, private credit strategies grew from $726 billion in global AUM in 2018 to ~$1.6 trillion in 2023. Surveys of market observers and participants suggest that a majority of allocators globally intend to increase or significantly increase their allocations to this space, resulting in an expected $2.8 trillion in private credit assets under management by 2028.
Payments Infrastructure Fintech Paddle Opens Applications for AI Launchpad for Founders
Paddle, the payments infrastructure provider, has opened applications for its third AI Launchpad, offering 75 ambitious AI founders the chance to participate in a 6-week program to help them build, launch and scale their AI-powered business ideas.
The potential for AI startups is huge, “with generative AI startups globally raising more than $25 billion in funding in 2023, a figure that is predicted to rise to around $45 billion this year.”
Overview of Fintech in the Middle East and Africa
The global fintech industry is estimated to be worth at least $300billion, making significant strides in MEA and contributing to financial inclusion for both unserved and underserved individuals and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) sees fintech contributing $150billion to its gross domestic product (GDP), while Israel’s fintech sector contributes around 11 per cent to its GDP. In Türkiye, the industry is valued at least $15billion, growing annually by approximately 14 per cent. Similarly, the Arab World’s fintech sector is estimated to be worth at least $15billion.
Real World Asset Tokenization and the Future of Financial Markets
The launch of the first spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the U.S. market ushered in a new era of legitimacy for digital assets by giving institutional investors a simple, familiar way to gain exposure to the asset class. But the bigger story may be the growing interest in real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, which harnesses blockchain technology to record any financial asset on an immutable decentralized ledger, introducing a new level of functionality to everything from stocks to real estate.