Investment globally in financial technology revived in the first three months of this year, KPMG said in a quarterly overview of a sector that is increasingly important for wealth management.

There was a recovery in quarterly funding to the financial technology sector around the world in the first quarter, with total investment in fintech firms reaching $5.7 billion, while global venture capital-backed firms drew $4.9 billion, with 218 deals, up from $1.9 billion in the final three months of 2015. Total fintech funding was $3.1 billion in Q4 2015.

The data, from the Pulse of Fintech quarterly report of KPMG, showed that larger deals also spurred fintech funding growth in Q1. The first three months of this year saw 13 $50 million-plus rounds to VC-backed fintech companies, a slight rise from the 10 $50 million-plus rounds in the previous three months. The report is created by KPMG Enterprise and KPMG Fintech along with CB Insights.

The report adds to the weight of data about how fintech - a term covering areas as varied as Blockchain distributed ledgers to mobile platforms - is changing financial services including private banking and wealth management.

Q1 funding to VC-backed fintech companies in Asia jumped to $2.6 billion from $0.5 billion in the previous quarter on the back of $1 billion-plus mega-rounds to JD Finance and Lu.com. At the current rate, Asian fintech deal activity in Q1 2016 puts deal activity on pace to match 2015’s high of 144 deals, the report said.

In Q1, the two largest fintech deals occurred in China, representing almost half of all global investment. The second quarter of this year is expected to bring more of the same given the already announced $4.5 billion funding round to Ant Financial, which closed in April.

In North America, the $1.8 billion registered to VC-backed fintech companies in the first quarter put 2016 on pace for a 10 per cent funding drop at the current run rate. VC-backed fintech deal activity in 2016 is on track to top 500 deals at the current pace.

European fintech deals rose to five-quarter highs, with deal activity in Europe rising 27 per cent on a quarterly basis. Seed deal share in Europe fell, however, after rising for three straight quarters.

In analyzing the figures, the report sets out the following areas for classification purposes:

• Lending tech: lending companies on the list include primarily peer-to-peer lending platforms, as well as underwriter and lending platforms using machine learning technologies and algorithms to assess creditworthiness;
• Payments/billing tech: payments and billing tech companies span from solutions to facilitate payments processing to payment card developers to subscription billing software tools;
• Personal finance/wealth management: tech companies that help individuals manage their personal bills, accounts and/or credit, as well as manage their personal assets and investments;
• Money transfer/remittance: money transfer companies include primarily peer-to-peer platforms to transfer money between individuals across countries;
• Blockchain/Bitcoin: companies here span key software or technology firms in the distributed ledger space, ranging from bitcoin wallets to security providers to sidechains;
• Institutional/capital markets tech: companies either providing tools to financial institutions such as banks, hedge funds, mutual funds or other institutional investors. These range from alternative trading systems to financial modeling and analysis software;
• Equity crowdfunding: platforms that allow a collection of individuals to provide monetary contributions for projects or companies provisioned in the form of equity;
• Insurancetech: companies creating new online carriers, brokerage and distributional platforms.