China leads in fintech, but India may have slightly more enthusiasm for it

China is the world’s leader in adoption of new financial technology (fintech), which allows users to make payments and borrow, save, or invest money on the internet or by mobile phone. Less than a third of the country does not use any form of fintech or digital payment service. But a study by accounting firm EY shows that China may soon have competition for this title from India, TechNode reports.

• Currently, 69 percent of China’s population has transitioned to fintech, while India has 52 percent adoption. The world average — also the rate in the U.S. — is 33 percent.
• After gathering that data from 22,000 respondents, EY did an interesting thing: It “asked respondents about their future anticipated use,” and found that in India, 80 percent said they anticipated themselves becoming fintech users in the future, while in China, 77 percent said the same. EY argues that “although statements about future intent have limited reliability, they are nevertheless directionally indicative of consumer sentiment” (see page 20 in report).

Note that EY defines fintech as “organizations combining innovative business models and technology to enable, enhance and disrupt financial services,” and its criteria for someone who has “adopted” the use of fintech is having “used two or more Fintech services in the last six months” (see pages 5-6 in report).

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