In 2015, when the EY Fintech Adoption Index was first published, one in seven digitally active consumers used FinTech. Today, it is one in three and regulators are playing an important part.

The accountancy giant has drawn its research from 20 markets and more than 22,000 online interviews. Its definition of the word 'FinTech' is "organisations combining innovative business models and technology to enable, enhance and disrupt financial services." The definition refers to an industry that includes not only early-stage start-ups and new entrants, but also scale-ups, maturing firms and even non-financial services firms.

All FinTech firms, EY believes, share two characteristics: a laser-like concentration on "the customer proposition" and a willingness to apply technology in novel ways. Its latest report predicts that regulatory support will continue to play a part in 'stabilising' the development of the FinTech industry, to the benefit of HNW consumers and others.

EY says that money transfers and payments are causing the greatest number of new people to use FinTech. 50% of its digitally active consumers have used this type of service in the last six months. Insurance services have also seen significant increases, overtaking both savings and investments, and borrowing, with 24% adoption.

EY thinks that one potential influence may be attributed to the greater activity from regulators and policymakers in some markets that support FinTech, especially in the aforementioned services. These involve new business models and technology of which regulatory regimes are struggling to take account. Regulators are responding by setting up initiatives such as steering groups and sandboxes, updating licensing regulations, and introducing infrastructural changes that facilitate open APIs (publicly available application programming interfaces that provide developers with programmatic access to proprietary software applications or web services). There are, of course, regional variations in the development of services.

Regulation plays a part in helping new entrants and offerings in FinTech and particularly in money transfer, payments and insurance services. In some markets, new regulation creates opportunities for new FinTech firms and services, such as the European Union's Payment Service Directives (PSD) and PSD2 in Euroland, which led to the development of so-called open banking. New regulation also led to new “payments banks” in India. In China it has helped in the development of mobile banking.

Even before 2015, forward-looking regulators were considering FinTech’s potential. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority set up Project Innovate in that year, eventually inspiring other countries to follow suit. Policymakers in almost all of the 20 markets in the survey have taken FinTech ecosystem-boosting initiatives. EY claims that FinTech firms do not see new regulations as an unwanted burden; instead, they see them as an acknowledgement of their legitimacy by the authorities.