Only Two Korean Fintech Companies Make It to World's Top 100

Only two Korean companies made it to the world's top 100 fintech companies. The small number of Korean companies in the list is attributed to the slow pace of the Korean government's push for deregulation.

One of the two companies is VivaRepublica, which developed the simple money transfer application "Toss." It ranked 28th in the list of the world's top fintech companies made jointly by KPMG International, a global accounting and consulting firm, and H2 Ventures, a fintech venture investment institution.

Every year, KPMG International announces its list of 100 "Best Fintech Companies of the Year.” The list is comprised of the “50 leading companies,” which are highly innovative, financed and diversified, and the “50 emerging companies” that pursue business innovation with new fintech technology.

VivaRepublica's ranking was seven notches higher than last year. KMPG explained that it provides the simplest peer to peer (P2P) mobile payment platform in Korea through the mobile app Toss. 

Among the domestic companies, Daily Financial Group, which has a number of fintech companies specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, was included in the top 50 emerging companies, ranking 63rd.

The first place in the list was taken by Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Chinese Alibaba Group, followed by China’s JD Finance (second), Singapore’s Grap (third), and China's Du XiaomanFinancial (fourth). By country, the U.S. and the U.K. accounted for the largest number of 12 companies each, followed by China (11), Australia (7) and Singapore (6).