This October, the Bulgarian Fintech Association(BFA), in collaboration with Innovative Sofia delivered the very first Fintech Mapping. This year’s mapping represents the Fintech Landscape in Sofia and its main characteristics. This initiative is the first step of an ongoing initiative to promote Bulgaria as a Fintech Destination, welcoming innovative companies in the financial innovation sector.
The official release of the 2020 Sofia Mapping was done during a virtual event, organized by the BFA and Innovative Sofia, accompanied by the President of the European Digital Finance Association who shared her thoughts and experience on the European Fintech Landscape.
What does the Mapping 2020 reveal?
Although in 2020 the world is going through an unprecedented crisis devastating for many companies, Fintech has proven comparatively resilient the pandemic crisis. In 2020 the Bulgarian Fintech ecosystem consists of about 100 Fintech companies, operating in 9 different Fintech segments which cover the whole range of products and services The ecosystem includes an ever-growing number of startups as well as venture capital funds, angel investors, and more than 90 IT companies, providing software products and services for Fintechs. The Sofia Fintech Mapping 2020 shows the healthy diversification of the Bulgarian Fintech industry. As it could be seen on the Mapping, the payments/billing segment is the largest contributor to the Fintech in Sofia, followed by lending and capital markets. Other booming segments are blockchain/crypto, insurance, and personal finance business, which accumulates to about ¼ of all Fintechs in Bulgaria.
Sofia – The SEE Fintech Hub
The capital of Bulgaria – Sofia is the most preferred location with 83 of the Fintech companies being headquartered there. According to the 2020 Global Fintech Index1, three countries in the region were among the 60 best Fintech ecosystems in the world – Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania. At a city level, Sofia is the leading Fintech location in SEE, according to the same ranking, followed by Ljubljana, Bucharest, and Cluj-Napoca, all of them in the Top 50 in Europe.
With innovation and digitalization at its core, Fintech companies significantly contribute to boosting any country’s potential for innovation and new technologies. For developing countries such as Bulgaria, the Fintech industry is one of a few opportunities for catching up and developing a highly efficient economy. In this sense, although Bulgaria’s Fintech industry is a comparatively small contributor to the GDP, it is very important for the overall efficiency and modernization of the economy. Ultimately, creating and developing more Fintech business models in Bulgaria puts the country on the map of Future Finance.
If you want to download the Sofia Fintech Mapping for free you can do so here.
You will find the webinar with the Release of the Sofia Fintech Mapping here.
Disclaimer: When creating this mapping we applied the definition for a “fintech” coined in the Bulgaria Fintech Association’s Statute. We do understand that some companies and personals might consider this subjective and we embrace the risks following it. If you have any concerns about the mapping address them to [email protected]
Sources: 1. Global Fintech Index 2020, Findexable, available on: https://findexable.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Findexable_Global-Fintech-Rankings-2020exSFA.pdf
