Fintech in Switzerland: Fewer companies, more volume

The development of the Swiss fintech sector has only known one direction in recent years: upwards. After the size of the sector, measured by the number of active Swiss fintech companies, increased year after year in the past, a decline is now being recorded for the first time for the year 2021. According to the IFZ FinTech Study, Switzerland was home to 384 fintech companies as of the end of 2021, which corresponds to a decline of 21 companies compared to the previous year, or around minus five percent from a relative perspective.

From the technological perspective, a lower number of companies applying concepts from the categories of Process Digitisation / Automatisation / Robotics (-20 companies) and Distributed Ledger Technology (-7 companies) is observed in a year-over-year comparison. For the latter category, this trend of decreasing numbers of companies has already manifested itself in the years following the emergence of the “Crypto Valley” in 2018 and 2019, while for the former category, it is the first time that a decrease has been recorded. In contrast, Swiss fintech companies seem to be increasingly using technological concepts from the field of Analytics / Big Data / Artificial Intelligence. This development has been evident since the first edition of the IFZ FinTech Study and continued last year (+6 companies), despite the overall decline in the number of fintech companies in Switzerland.

More employees and higher investment

Despite this negative development at first glance, there are also positive trends regarding the companies' business models. For example, the median number of employees and the median total funding of Swiss fintech companies increased last year. The median total funding amount in the Swiss fintech sector is CHF 3 million, while the median number of full-time employees is 20. This is after these key figures stagnated or even declined in 2020. In addition, venture capital activity in the Swiss fintech sector reached a record level in 2021, both in terms of the number of financing rounds and volume. According to the report fintech companies raised CHF 446 million in 86 financing rounds.

Apart from the results of the empirical analysis of the business models and perceived challenges of Swiss FinTech companies, the study also analyses the quality of the surrounding factors that are relevant for the sector and compares different locations in this respect. Additional deed dives focus for example on the view of Swiss banks on fintech or on developments in sustainability and cyber security in the sector.

IFZ FinTech Study 2022

The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts publishes an annual IFZ FinTech Study. This year, for the seventh time, the study provides a comprehensive overview of the Swiss FinTech sector. The research was made possible through the support of Finnova, Inventx, SIX, Swiss Bankers Prepaid Services, Swisscom and Synpulse.

You can order the study from ifz@hslu.ch.

(Press release / SK)