The disruption is well underway and big money is flowing into the space. CB Insights recently released their quarterly tracking of this segment, Trends in Fintech: Q2 2017.  VC-backed investment in global Fintech companies was $13.5b in 2016.  Up from $2.6b in 2012, a CAGR of 51%.  In the US, VC-backed investment was $5.7b in 2016.  Up an average 33% per year (CAGR) from 2012’s $1.8b.

While these are hefty investment numbers, they beg the question, how large is the addressable market for Fintech?  Public estimates of the “market size” are surprising scarce and difficult to reconcile.  One reason may be that the definition of what constitutes “fintech” has been a moving target.  With new platforms and software services evolving over time, the amount of potential revenue Fintech vendors are chasing has been changing as well.

Fintech market sizing

As a first step, we take a simple macro approach to sizing the market.  Starting with US census data on total revenue earned by two key sectors targeted by Fintech vendors – banking and securities investment – we estimate and decompose the market geographically.  We accomplish this using ZIP Pointe Market Sizer, a Tableau-based market sizing tool based on ZIP Code-level Census data on over 7 million private sector business locations in the US.

US financial services sector

The US Census (NAICS) data defines the financial services sector as consisting of 3 primary sub-sectors: Banking (522000), Securities and Investment (523000) and Insurance (524000).  Since our interest (KDD Analytics is partnering with Boulder Equity Analytics (BEA) in the development of a Fintech offering) is in the sectors primarily involved with financial reporting, analysis and investor relations, we will focus our analysis on the Banking and Securities sub-sectors. The 2015 US Census data for Banking and Securities recorded total revenue of $2.2t.  So how much of that is Fintech, where are those customers located and how fast is the market growing?

Published estimates of Fintech market

As suggested above, public estimates of the US Fintech market size are scarce and difficult to reconcile.  Working from the research we found, the current market is likely between 0.5% and 1.5% of total financial services revenue as reported by the US Census.  Below are several sources we used for our first pass at the market.

An Ernst and Young report commissioned by HM Treasury (UK) estimated the California and New York markets for Fintech were $7.1b and $8.4b in 2015.  Given that the US Census reported total revenue for NAICS 52 (all US Finance and Insurance) to be $432.5b and $568.1b in 2015, the EY estimates for Fintech represent a share of total revenue of 1.6% and 1.5%.

A 2016 Citibank report came in a bit lower with an estimate that 1% of North American banking revenue has migrated to a digital model.  Citibank projects that by 2020, this share will rise to 10%, then 17% by 2023 (see figure).

At the low end of the range, in their Annual Report, JPMorgan Chase disclosed it spent $600m on Fintech in 2016 out of a $9.5b technology spend, or 6.3%.  Extrapolating to the US banking sector, this implies a Fintech market size of $5.3b or 0.33% of 2015 banking sector revenue.

Additionally, JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon commented on relationships with several independent Fintech companies highlighting the difficulty in separating its share of traditional banking revenue.  We believe this will become even more challenging in the future as large banks absorb “Fintech” business models and technology into their operations.  As Fintech gets more press, there will be even more marketing pressure to talk up the initiatives while it is unlikely that they will report them as separate line items on financial disclosures.

Fintech market size

Based on our initial survey of the research, we propose to use a revenue weighted average of the two sectors of .86%, 1% of revenue for Banking and .5% of revenue for Securities. We applied this percentage of .86% to the 2015 US Census Total revenue of $2.2t.

Conclusion: our baseline assumption for the Fintech share of the 2015 Banking and Securities market is $18.8b.

We invite the Fintech community to chime in on whether our assumptions make sense.  We will include any updates in future articles as we delve deeper into the Fintech market.

Top Fintech metro areas

Since BEA is a Fintech vendor, we want to know where the $18.8b in customers are located.  It is not surprising that, based solely on absolute numbers, the usual metro areas are at the top of the list:

Rank – Top Ten Metro Areas by Fintech Market Size

1.    New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA
2.    Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
3.    Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA

However, there is a fair amount of geographic variation as shown below:

Moreover, this variation becomes even more interesting when we drill into the data and examine Fintech markets by size of company, by revenue per employee, by growth rate, by region, by financial sector, etc.  Over the course of several articles we will be sharing our findings.

So stay tuned!

This post was written with Tom Marsh, CTO at Boulder Equity Analytics (BEA).

The post Sizing the Fintech addressable market appeared first on KDD Analytics.

Interactive investment dashboard

The interactive dashboard below shows IT investment for a group (1 or more) of user-selected, 3-digit NAICS industries (blue).  The rest of the US market is shown in gray.  The default selections are the 3 healthcare sub-industries of Hospitals, Ambulatory Care and Nursing Facilities (see “Select industry” in the dashboard).  The top chart shows investment over time in 2009 $; the bottom chart shows CAGR over time.

As you read our analysis below, we invite you to follow along by making changes to the dashboard to show the trends we are discussing.  Changes are made in the “filters” “Select industry”, “Select years” and “Select investment type” found at the top of the dashboard.

Healthcare information technology investment

In 2015 (the last year for which BEA data are available), the Healthcare industry invested $10.6 billion (2009 $) in computers, software and communications equipment (e.g. phone systems, internet and networking equipment).  62% of this was invested by Hospitals, 32% by Ambulatory Care providers and 6% by Nursing Facilities.

Note that Healthcare industry spending on information technology consists of more than equipment and software.  A sizable share is spent on IT services (such as system integration and consulting) and IT outsourcing.  Forrester estimates that the Healthcare industry spent over 3.5 times what it did on equipment on IT services and outsourcing in 2016.  Over 70% of this additional spending is on outsourcing alone.  The BEA data only cover “fixed asset gross investment”.

Of the three “equipment” components of Healthcare information technology investment, software has exhibited the strongest growth (see “Select investment type” in the dashboard).  Since 2000, software investment has grown by a compound annual rate of 7.6%, mirroring the growth seen by rest of the US market (7.9%).

Pop quiz: Using the dashboard above, of the three healthcare sub-industries, which one had the highest rate of growth in software investment over the 2000 to 2015 period? It may not be what you first suspect.

As of 2015, Healthcare investment in communications equipment has grown by 4.0% per year while computer (hardware) investment has grown by 3.6% per year.  Nursing Facilities exhibited the strongest growth in hardware investment at 5.7% per year.

Note that this is total investment which can rise due to higher demand at each facility and/or an increase in the number of facilities over time.

Computer hardware investment

Digging deeper into computer (hardware) equipment investment reveals some startling trends.

Both PC and server investment have been growing at 6.7% and 4.3% per year since 2000.  However, the annual rate of change in PC investment has been negative since about 2007.

Also, the annual rate of change in physical server investment has been essentially flat since about 2005.  This latter trend is consistent with movement towards virtual and cloud-based servers.

The real standout is investment in physical storage equipment.

Physical storage investment by the Healthcare industry has actually declined by 1.6% per year since 2000.  The most likely reason for this trend is again the movement towards “cloud” storage solutions.  Physical storage investment peaked in 2007 in the Healthcare industry.  Selecting “Select years” in the dashboard to show “1980 to 2015” and the “Select industry” to display to “All” reveals that the peak in physical storage equipment investment in the total, private US market occurred 7 years earlier in 2000.

Printers have also apparently lost their luster.  Healthcare investment in printers has declined by an annual rate of 1.7% since 2000.  Again, looking over the entire 1980 to 2015 time frame, printer investment peaked in 2002 and has been in a downward trend every since.

Healthcare investment in displays increased by 3.0% per year since 2000.  However, since 2004, the trend in annual investment has been flat.  Nursing Facilities exhibited the strongest growth in display investment at 5.3% per year over the 2000 to 2015 period.

What have been the IT investment trends in other industries?

We invite you to play with this dashboard to conduct a similar analysis for any one (or multiples) of 60+ industries.  The limitation, as alluded to above, is that the investment shown is total or aggregate investment.  On a per business or employee basis, trends may be quite different.  We will pick this up in a future article.

The post Healthcare Information Technology Investment Trends appeared first on KDD Analytics.

Why does information technology investment per worker matter?

While information technology (IT) investment per worker has grown over time across all industries, there clearly are industries that use IT more intensively in their production of goods and services.  Knowing how this intensity varies across industries can inform public policy decisions.  For example, the demand for labor may be impacted by the amount of IT workers have to work with.  Thus any policy (e.g. tax) targeting business investment decisions can have a differential effect on labor markets depending on the intensity with which IT is used.

Knowing how IT intensity varies across industries is also useful from a micro perspective.  How much ABC Corp located at 100 Main Street, Any Town USA spends on IT is probably unknown to B2B marketers.  However, knowing in which industry ABC Corp plays and how many employees work at the 100 Main Street location can yield a ball park estimate of how much ABC Corp can potentially spend on IT.

Such information would be quite useful for IT vendors selling into ABC Corp.

Where does one find data on IT intensity?

The big IT market research houses, such as Forrester and IDC, provide industry-level estimates of IT spending.  But usually at an aggregated industry-level (e.g. 2-digit NAICS or 1-digit SIC).  And they are unlikely to provide employee counts.

Fortunately, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) provides estimates of investment in IT “equipment” (computers, software and communications).  While they do not provide estimates of spending on IT services (e.g. IT consulting, system integration and outsourcing), the BEA data provide insights into how much businesses are spending on the three other main components of IT.

Moreover, the BEA provides these data at the sub-industry, 3-digit NAICS level; they provide estimates of employment at this same level of disaggregation; and they provide these data every year.

What more could a data junkie want?

Information technology investment per worker (IT intensity)

IT intensity is defined as gross investment in hardware, software and communication equipment per worker.  In 2015 (the last year for which data are available), IT intensity averaged about $3,100 per US private sector worker (in 2009 $).  This is 3 times what it was in 1998.

However, this national average hides the dramatic variation across industries.  Below is an interactive dashboard which shows IT intensity expressed as an index (industry intensity/average intensity) for 2015.  Not surprisingly, the Information Services industry invested over 8 times the national average; the Agriculture industry just .03 times.

Drilling down into the Information Services industry (click on the bar chart) shows that it is the Data Processing and Broadcast and Telecommunications sub-industries that account for the lion’s share of Information Services industry investment (see the bottom chart).  Again, not too surprising.

The dashboard allows one to select the type of IT investment.  Selecting “Communications” reveals the intensity of investment in communications equipment (phone systems, internet and networking equipment).  Again, the Information Services industry leads the pack as a result of heavy investment in the Broadcast and Telecommunications sub-industries.

However, the bottom chart shows the ranking of all sub-industries (3-digit NAICS).  Interestingly, the Water Transport and Pipeline Transport industries are relatively intensive users of communications equipment.

If anyone knows why, drop us a line, we would like to know!

Other interesting findings…selecting “HW – Servers” reveals the intensity of investment in physical servers.  The top three sub-industries are Federal Reserve Banks, Rental and Leasing and Credit Intermediation.  At the 2-digit NAICS level, it is the Finance industry that is the top investor in servers, followed by the Wholesale industry.

We will leave it to the reader to play with the dashboard and uncover other interesting stories (e.g. in the Manufacturing industry, which sub-industry invests the most in storage equipment? in printers?).

Takeaway

Our takeaway is that although the “usual suspects” appear as high intensive users of IT, at the sub-industry (3-digit NAICS) level, there is wide and not always predictable variation.  Especially when drilling into the different categories of IT investment.

What is your takeaway?

In a future article, we will take up this subject again and examine in more detail how information technology investment per worker (IT intensity) has changed over time.

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