Switzerland’s fintech trade is exhibiting indicators of saturation, with the variety of corporations comprising the market stabilizing. Nevertheless, progress alternatives stay, significantly in worldwide markets and rising verticals reminiscent of sustainable finance, in accordance with the most recent IFZ Fintech Research by the Institute of Monetary Companies Zug (IFZ).
Switzerland’s fintech trade stagnates
The 2025 IFZ Fintech Research, launched in March 2025, shares the most recent developments within the Swiss and Liechtenstein fintech sector, sharing rising tendencies and key developments.
Based on the report, the Swiss fintech trade has reached a plateau by way of the overall variety of corporations. On the finish of 2024, the market comprised 483 fintech corporations, the identical quantity as a yr earlier. Though new gamers entered the market in 2024, the identical variety of corporations exited on account of liquidations, mergers, or shifts away from fintech actions, leading to no internet progress for the sector.
This stagnation has been seen since 2019. After experiencing the strongest progress between 2017 and 2018 when the overall variety of fintech corporations surged from 220 to 356, progress slowed significantly with the overall hovering between 356 and 437 via 2022.
These findings recommend a possible market saturation, the place home growth alternatives have gotten more and more restricted.
A deal with implementation
Market saturation is additional underscored by a shift from innovation to implementation, with Swiss and Liechtenstein fintech corporations more and more transitioning from pure innovation to the sensible implementation of superior applied sciences.
Notably, the adoption of synthetic intelligence (AI), distributed ledger expertise (DLT), and high-performance sustainable computing is outpacing extra conventional course of digitization, automation, and robotics options.
This implies that companies are shifting past prototyping to deploy superior applied sciences that meet real-world market calls for, adjust to regulatory requirements, and handle evolving buyer expectations.
During the last decade, the analytics, massive knowledge and AI class has expanded quickly, rising from 37 to 145 corporations, with significantly robust progress since 2020. DLT additionally skilled fast early progress, surging from 41 corporations in 2017 to 173 in 2024. One other notable current growth is the emergence of the primary fintech firm within the quantum computing class in 2024.
Conversely, the expertise class of course of digitization, automatization and robotics grew comparatively steadily from 100 corporations in 2015 to 189 in 2020, however stalled from there, reaching 192 in 2024.
A shift in direction of worldwide markets and B2B fintech
Regardless of market saturation, the research discovered that progress alternatives nonetheless exist, particularly in worldwide markets and within the business-to-business (B2B) sector. This response displays Swiss and Liechtenstein fintech corporations’ adaptation to restricted home growth prospects.
On the finish of 2024, B2B fintech represented the most important phase of Swiss and Liechtenstein fintech corporations, comprising 295 companies, or 58% of the overall. Corporations serving each enterprise and shopper clients (B2B and B2C) adopted with 184 corporations, comprising 36% of the overall, whereas business-to-consumer (B2C) corporations remained a minority, with solely 32 corporations or 6% of the overall.
These outcomes current a pointy distinction to 2015 when B2B and B2C corporations held the most important share at 42%, adopted by B2B-focused corporations at 36%. By 2020, a shift occurred as B2B corporations elevated their share to 52%, turning into the dominant class.
Geographic orientation additional highlights that worldwide shift. In 2024, 414 corporations or 81%, have been internationally centered, demonstrating the sector’s important emphasis on increasing past home markets. Conversely, solely 97 corporations, or 19% of the overall, have been nationally centered.
Sustainable fintech as an rising fintech vertical
One other key development highlighted within the report is the rise of sustainable finance, a growth that’s mirrored within the fast progress of the vertical.
Between 2022 and 2024, the overall of variety of sustainable fintech corporations in Switzerland and Liechtenstein grew considerably, rising from 32 in 2022 to 59 in 2024. This represents an 84% improve over two years, underscoring the sector’s growth. This progress outpaces the broader fintech sector, which grew by solely 17% between 2022 and 2024. In consequence, the share of sustainable fintech corporations throughout the trade elevated from 7% in 2022 to 12% in 2024.
Inside the sector, distribution has additionally developed. Digital environmental, social and governance (ESG) knowledge and analytics options grew from 16 corporations in 2023 to 22 in 2024 to change into the most important class final yr and surpass inexperienced digital funding options, which had 18 corporations. This progress underscores the rising significance of data-driven ESG insights, regulatory reporting, and sustainability analytics, as monetary establishments deepen their integration of ESG issues into enterprise operations.
Corporations specializing in blockchain-based sustainable finance throughout the inexperienced digital asset options class additionally skilled important progress, doubling from 4 corporations in 2023 to eight in 2024. This implies rising adoption of blockchain applied sciences for sustainability functions, reminiscent of inexperienced tokenization and tokenized carbon credit score buying and selling.
The class inexperienced digital danger evaluation and insurtech additionally expanded, rising from one firm in 2023 to 3 in 2024, whereas a brand new class, inexperienced lending and deposit options, emerged with 2 corporations final yr, signaling the rising prevalence of sustainable financing fashions, together with inexperienced loans and impact-driven credit score options.
Conversely, the inexperienced digital fee and account options class noticed a slight decline from 3 corporations in 2023 to 2 in 2024, indicating slower growth or decreased market traction on this phase.
Following world fintech tendencies
Fintech tendencies within the Swiss fintech sector displays world developments. Regardless of year-over-year (YoY) declines in enterprise fintech funding in 2024, the sector confirmed resilience and continued to dominate fintech funding.
Based on a PitchBook report, enterprise fintech corporations captured 64.4% of whole fintech enterprise capital (VC) deal worth in This autumn 2024 and 59.5% for the total yr. This means that traders continued to favor B2B fintech fashions.
Enterprise fintech corporations raised a complete of US$17.4 billion in VC deal worth throughout 1,250 offers in 2024, representing YoY declines of 33.4% and 16.9%, respectively.
Equally, Switzerland’s sustainable fintech sector is following world tendencies. In 2024, local weather fintech investments reached US$2.7 billion, up 17% YoY, in accordance with a brand new report by CommerzVentures, the company VC arm of German banking group Commerzbank. This progress outpaces the broader fintech sector, which, in accordance with CB Insights, declined by 20% YoY.
Featured picture credit score: edited from freepik
