The Top 10 FinTech Milestones of 2014 (Slideshow)

2014 was the biggest year in FinTech by far with billions being invested globally, which is to be expected in a global growth sector. But how much was invested globally in FinTech this year? It depends on how you classify FinTech. StrategyEye estimated that there was $2.8Bn raised in 2014 via venture capital investments in FinTech. However, this doesn't sync with the fact that Crunchbase and MarketsMedia calculated that in the first quarter of 2014 alone $1.7Bn was invested in 167 deals. These metrics also don't include the IPO of LendingClub, which raised over $800m alone, or the plethora of $100m+ investments that banks like HSBC, Sberbank, BBVA, Santander and others have committed to FinTech. Just in Bitcoin related startups alone, more than $400m was invested in 2014. At Money2020 this year a venture capital panel predicted that venture capital deployment in FinTech will top $20Bn in 2015, whereas Accenture recently predicted FinTech investments would reach at! least $8Bn by 2018 in New York alone.

So whether you believe the FinTech investments this year were $6Bn or whether you believe the bigger estimates of upwards of $18Bn, one thing is clear - FinTech is really hot right now. But it's only going to get hotter.

Top 10 lists are always tough, but if you think there are better candidates for the Top 10 let me know in the comments! Bring on 2015 - it's sure to be an even bigger year for FinTech...

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• 2014 was the biggest year in FinTech by far, but how much was invested globally in FinTech this year? StrategyEye estimated that there was $2.8Bn raised in 2014 via venture capital investments in FinTech. However, this doesn't gel with the fact that Crunchbase and MarketsMedia calculated that in the first quarter of 2014 alone $1.7Bn was invested in 167 deals. These metrics also don't include the IPO of LendingClub, which raised over $800m alone, or the plethora of $100m+ investments that banks like HSBC, Sberbank, BBVA, Santander and others have committed to FinTech. Just in Bitcoin related startups alone, more than $400m was invested in 2014. At Money2020 this year a venture capital panel predicted that venture capital deployment in FinTech will top $20Bn in 2015, whereas Accenture recently predicted ! FinTech investments would reach at least $8Bn by 2018 in New York alone.

• In February it was announced that FinTech poster child Simple was acquired by Spanish banking giant BBVA for $117m. Despite some fairly significant upgrade problems since the acquisition, Simple has still set the benchmark for the FinTech industry in terms of showing that customer experience matters and that traditional banks can't innovate as fast as lean startups.

• Slowed by a sluggish US payments ecosystem, the launch of NFC payments by Apple was being talked about in 2012 as a possibility. Finally Apple announced the launch of Apple Pay at their WWDC in October 2014 to much fanfare. Apple's announcement put paid to the debate versus mobile payment standards at the POS (Point-of-Sale). QR Code, iBeacon, Coin, nope - NFC has been chosen by every major handset manufacturer as the mobile payment enabler and it provides interoperability across Visa and Mastercard networks globally.

• Lending Club became the biggest FinTech IPO in 2014 with a $800m-$1Bn IPO (depending on whether you count starting offering or end of day price). A $9Bn valuation might scare some 'bubble' commentators, but the reality is that in a $900Bn lending market, Lending Club is one of the fastest growing players in the US with $1.2Bn in loans just in Q3 of 2014. These guys have showed that not only can a pure play FinTech make it to IPO, but they can take on the traditional lending business and do it more efficiently and less riskier (lower default) than the biggest banks and lenders in the US today

• In just a year, Yu'e Bao—which is owned by Alipay, the online payment platform that Alibaba Group spun off in 2011—amassed 574.1 billion yuan (approx. $93 billion) in assets. That makes it the Zeng Libao, the actual money-market fund in which Yu'e Bao invests its customers deposits, the biggest in China, and the fourth-largest in the world. However, more critical is understanding that Alipay raised $92Bn in deposits via MOBILE. No bank branch network in the world raised this level of deposits in 2014 - so tell me why we need branches again?

• London is taking on New York and Silicon Valley for title of the #1 FinTech capital in the world, and while it trails in overall venture capital deployed, it has already exceeded both New York and Silicon Valley in terms of job creation with 44,000 FinTech specialists employed in London City alone. If you'd like to hear the case for New York vs London check out our podcast Radio Show from earlier this year.

• Visa was first out of the gate with their tokenization and host card emulation standards, trialed first in the Google Wallet reboot. Why is this important? Apart from creating a standard that app developers, handset and POS manufacturers can get behind, it attacks an emerging problem with plastic cards - the 16 digit card number. The Home Depot and Target card breaches (amongst others) in the US this year not only means the US carries 51% of card fraud globally, but that the slow EMV adoption now is costing the US more each year in fraud than what it would cost to replace every POS terminal in the US. We realize that the 16 digit card number is no longer secure or secureable, so emerging payments tech needed to come up with a better way - tokenization is it.

• In 2013 Bitcoin was HOT, but regulatory moves from the US, China, India and Russia all put a big damper on BTC's growth as a currency in 2014. It didn't stop the FinTech industry investing more than $400m in Bitcoin Startups alone. In the midst of this turmoil, Second Market launched the very first US regulator approved Bitcoin exchange.

• The so-called "Unicorn Club" is the magic $1Bn valuation target metric applied by Silicon Valley to hot new startups. While that list of start-ups grew to 40 in 2014, apart from Lending Club 4 new FinTech giants exceeded $1Bn in valuation terms including Square, Credit Karma, Stripe, and China's RenRenDai.

• In 2014 Four Major global banks joined the $100 million club, or announced they were investing more than $100 million in start-ups, incubators and innovation outside of their bank. Those include Sberbank, BBVA, Santander and HSBC. It is telling that US banks have resisted this approach, and many believe that the biggest banks in the world in 10 years time won't be represented by US majors for this reason.

• When it comes to Assets under Management and investment advice, it turns out that humans don't have an exclusive on this space anymore. Robo Advisors like Betterment, Wealthfront, LearnVest and others took in more than $16Bn in Aum this year, putting them on target to seriously disrupt the RIA industry in the US in particular.

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Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brett-king/the-top-10-fintech-milest_b_6387574.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business