New data proves London is the global capital for payments startups

• FXC Intelligence has published a deep-dive report into cross-border payments startups.
• London has the greatest share of new cross-border payments startups worldwide, with 15% of all cross-border startups founded since the start of 2022, suggesting that Brexit has had less of an impact than was once feared. 
• New York and Lagos are joint second, holding 7% of the market share each, underpinning the US’s dominant position in the payments industry and Nigeria’s rapid growth as a payments hub. 

Today, FXC Intelligence has published a deep-dive report looking at the trends in cross-border payments startups, focusing on new companies launched since the start of 2022.

While the traditional dominance of the US and Western Europe remained, there was a stronger presence of emerging markets than among lists of larger, more established cross-border payments companies, such as our own Top 100. 

However, when it comes to cities that hosted a greater share of payments startups, there was one clear leader. London, UK, is home to 15% of the cross-border payments startups founded since the start of 2022. 

Lucy Ingham, Editor-in-Chief and Head of Content at FXC Intelligence said:

“It’s not really surprising that London is leading the pack for payments startups as it already has a strong established presence in the payments space, although we were surprised at how big the gap was with other cities. It does suggest that Brexit has not yet diminished its position in this industry, despite UK-based companies now needing to obtain additional licences to operate in Europe.” 

Among cities with the most new cross-border payments startups, New York, US, and Lagos, Nigeria, came in joint second at 7% respectively. 

New York’s position reflects both the US’s role in payments, as well as the greater focus on the East Coast for this industry – 50% of the US-based cross-border payment startups founded since the start of 2022 are located in this region. By contrast, there were notably few Silicon Valley-adjacent startups in the group, with only one based in San Francisco and the other two in California located in the region near Los Angeles instead. 

The high placement of Lagos reflects Nigeria’s growing importance both in Africa and globally, and this, along with the presence of several cities across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, reflects an ongoing emergence of these regions into the ranks of key players in the cross-border payments space.

FXC intelligence found that of all payments startups across the globe, most served business customers. Many also focused on the use of cryptocurrencies in payments. 

Interestingly, crypto use varied by continent. A greater percentage of non-crypto companies were located in Europe and North America, where 33% of non-crypto startups are based, compared to crypto companies, where 24% of companies are based in the two regions. 

In Latin America, crypto and non-crypto companies both accounted for 6% of the total respectively, while in Asia the crypto share was 4% and the non-crypto share was 8%.

Further information

• To read more about trends in cross-border payments startups click here.
• FXC Intelligence is the industry leader in cross-border payments data and intelligence. Our data is used by a number of intergovernmental bodies, including the World Bank and the Financial Stability Board.
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