SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 28 August 2026 – Singapore's fintech sector drew over US$499 million in investment across 53 deals in the first half of 2026, according to KPMG's Pulse of Fintech H1'2026 report. This marks a drop from the roughly US$1.45 billion across 97 deals recorded in H1 2025. It also represents the most subdued first half the country saw in about close to a decade. The moderation was uneven across the half. After a notably quiet first quarter of about US$88 million across 26 deals, activity rebounded to some US$411 million across 27 deals in the second quarter. That recovery rested almost entirely on a single US$320 million round for a cross-border payments platform in June, which alone accounted for close to two-thirds of Singapore's total fintech investment for the half. Anton Ruddenklau, Partner, Head of Financial Services, KPMG in Singapore said: "The headline number tells only part of the story. What we are seeing in Singapore mirrors the global market — investors are being far more selective, consolidating capital behind a small number of scaled, high-conviction platforms rather than funding behaviour we saw in prior years. A single deal carrying most of the half is a signal of that concentration. However, the fundamentals that make Singapore a strategic hub for fintech — a trusted regulatory environment, deep cross-border connectivity, and strength in payments and digital assets — remain intact, and these remain the stronghold areas where capital is still flowing." Investment clustered around three familiar verticals: payments, digital assets and cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence and machine learning. Most investments clustered towards earlier-stage companies building tokenisation, digital-asset and AI-enabled infrastructure, pointing to a market that is still forming at the foundations even as growth-stage funding thins. Globally, the picture ran in the opposite direction on value. Fintech investment across venture capital, private equity and M&A rose from US$72.2 billion in H2'25 to US$103.1 billion in H1'26, putting the sector on pace for its strongest annual performance in four years. Deal volume, however, remained soft at just 2,100 deals globally in H1'26 against 2,500 in H2'25, as investors concentrated capital on large transactions centred on mature fintechs with well-proven business models. Singapore's half was a local expression of that same dynamic, fewer deals, larger concentration, and a clear premium on proven models. Figure 1: Singapore's half-year fintech deal value and volume, H1 2019 – H1 2026

Period	Deal value (US$M)	No. of deals
H1 2019	610	85
H1 2020	578	100
H1 2021	1,234	170
H1 2022	3,540	234
H1 2023	1,609	126
H1 2024	624	155
H1 2025	1,449	97
H1 2026	499	53

Source: KPMG Pulse of Fintech, PitchBook. Figure 2: Singapore fintech investment by vertical, H1 2026

Vertical	No. of deals	Disclosed deal value (US$M)
Artificial intelligence & machine learning	18	365.9
Payments	3	332.0
Cryptocurrency / blockchain	27	95.5
RegTech	2	19.1
ESG / greentech	1	14.0
InsurTech	4	12.3
WealthTech	1	—
PropTech	0	—
Cybersecurity	0	—

*Deals are frequently tagged to more than one vertical Payments remains one of Singapore's anchor verticals Cross-border payments proved to be one of Singapore's anchor verticals, although it was largely supported by a US$320 million deal in June. That single transaction accounted for nearly all of the US$332 million recorded across the three payments deals in the half. Two of the three deals belonging to the later stage even in a tighter funding climate reflects sustained investor appetite for scaled platforms that can move money across borders while managing compliance, currency conversion and settlement – capabilities that only grow more valuable as global trade and commerce fragment. Digital assets and cryptocurrency continue to drive deal activity Digital assets and cryptocurrency again accounted for the largest share of Singapore's deal count, even if individual cheque sizes were relatively modest. The larger, later-stage names were built around regulated...