IDC Financial Insights today released the 2020 update of its FinTech Fast 101 research which details a list of fast-growing FinTechs in Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) from 11 key markets.
IDC’s FinTech Fast 101 research refers to fast-growing fintech players based on extensive on-ground analysis of fintech players from China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, and Australia.
5 Fast Growing FinTechs in South Korea
KAKAO PAY
Kakao Pay is the fintech subsidiary of Kakao, the South Korea firm that runs the country’s largest messaging app. Kakao Pay operates a mobile payments and transfers service built-in on the KakaoTalk messenger app which it launched in 2014. Since its inception, the service has added QR code, bar code and offline payment functionalities. In 2018, Kakao Pay surpassed 20 trillion won, or US$17.7 billion, worth of transactions, cementing itself as the undisputed sector leader in South Korea.
NAVER FINANCIAL
NAVER Corporation is Korea’s premier Internet company, operating the nation’s top search portal. NAVER has rolled out a wide range of innovative and convenient online services that enable people to enjoy their lives. A number of surveys demonstrate that the company is regarded as an undisputed leader in the online services industry worldwide. Naver pay allows users to pay for an item online only with their Naver IDs.
RAINIST
Established in 2012, Rainist is the South Korean startup behind Banksalad, a leading mobile app for personal finance management that counts more than 1.5 million monthly active users. The app pools a user’s financial information from different banks and financial institutions into a single platform. This consolidates data for bank accounts, investments, savings bonds and more.
TERA FUNDING
Tera Funding is a “Domestic First ” Real Estate P2P Financial Tera-funding in Seoul, South Korea.
VIVA REPUBLIC
Viva Republica is the provider of P2P money transfer service ‘Toss’ based in South Korea and has been marking aggressive growth ever since the application launch in 2015. We have recently raised capital of USD48mn from a consortium of Paypal and Venture Capital firms and in total, successfully raked a sum of USD78mn from leading investors including Goodwater Capital and Altos Ventures.
Note: The list is arranged alphabetically. Source: IDC, 2020
