Sydney fintech hub now 7th in global rankings
Sydney's Stone & Chalk moved up in Deloitte's rankings, which included twice as many fintech hubs this year.
Sydney fintech hub Stone & Chalk has been ranked seventh in Deloitte's Global Fintech Hub Review 2017. Sydney's Index Performance Score (IPS), showing the hub's conduciveness to the growth of fintech, dropped four indices to 45, placing it one spot above the Frankfurt Main Finance hub.
Deloitte ranked hubs from 44 cities across the world this year, up from 21 in 2016 when Stone & Chalk ranked ninth and received an IPS of 49. This score is based on three key business indices; the Global Financial Centre Index 2016, Doing Business 2017 and the Global Innovation Index 2016, with a lower score equaling a higher ranking.
The highest ranked fintech hubs were located in Singapore and London, both garnering an IPS of 11. These were followed by New York (14), Silicon Valley (18), Hong King (22) and Zurich (41).
According to the report, the features of the Stone & Chalk hub include big data, cloud computing and APIs but the challenges it faces include Sydney's high cost of living, low access to capital, the small size of the market and a technology skills shortage.
Sydney's proximity to Asia is one of the key advantages, as well as programs such as the regulatory sandbox which will allow for further innovation.
While Stone & Chalk's performance isn't indicative of Australia's entire innovation ecosystem, the improvement in its ranking could be taken as the ecosystem heading in the right direction as a whole. As Australia works towards projects such as Sydney's supersized startup hub, it may look towards improving the ranking even further and competing with the likes of Singapore, London and Silicon Valley.
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