New Delhi, Feb 20 (TIWN) India became world's third largest financial technology (fintech) centre -- behind only the US and the UK -- in 2019 as fintech investments nearly doubled to $3.7 billion from $1.9 billion in 2018, an Accenture study said on Thursday.

"Fintech investments in India nearly doubled to USD 3.7 billion in 2019 from USD 1.9 billion the previous year, putting the country as the world''s third largest fintech centre, behind only the US and UK," an Accenture analysis of data from CB Insights said.

The number of deals was up slightly to 198 last year from 193 in 2018, it added.

Investments in payments companies more than tripled to USD 2.1 billion from about USD 660 million in 2018, while funding into insur-techs rose 74 per cent to USD 510 million.

The vast majority of funds raised last year in India went into payments startups (58 per cent), while insur-techs raked in 13.7 per cent of the investments and fintechs in lending accounted for 10.8 per cent of the total, as per the data.

One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm, raised USD 1.66 billion from two separate transactions, while PhonePe tapped investors for about USD 210 million and Razorpay raised USD 75 million.

Other large transactions included USD 282 million raised by PolicyBazaar and USD 120 million from credit card payments company CRED.

Investment in fintech companies rose sharply in most major markets in 2019 led by gains in the US and UK and emerging economies such as India and Brazil, it said.

Despite those gains, the total value of fintech deals globally dipped 3.7 per cent to USD 53.3 billion in 2019 from USD 55.3 billion in 2018, when totals were boosted by a record USD 14 billion from Ant Financial and three other multi-billion-dollar transactions from Chinese companies, it added. PTI SR SHW SHW