Mastercard today welcomes its newest wave of startups to its award-winning Start Path startup engagement program. Start Path alums share their insights into the top trends of 2021 and what they've learned from a challenging year.

The global economy continued its recovery in fits and starts in 2021, but fintech companies thrived as the digital acceleration created a wealth of opportunities for innovative thinkers and agile developers. 

Investment in fintech hit a record $98 billion in the first half of 2021, according to KPMG’s biannual report on fintech investment trends, as compared with $121.5 billion in all of 2020. The report credits pressure from corporations to speed their digital transformation and enhance their digital capabilities for the nearly $21 billion in investment over close to 600 deals globally.

“The move to a primarily digital relationship between financial institutions and customers can only accelerate in the years to come,” says Olivier Berthier, the CEO of Moneythor, the digital banking and marketing and analytics software developer based in Singapore. “We believe that the post-COVID world we’re getting to is looking exclusively rather than primarily digital.”

Moneythor is one of 260 startups across 40 countries that have participated in the Mastercard Start Path startup engagement program, which welcomed its latest cohort of 9 fintech innovators today. A key program in the Mastercard Developers portfolio, Start Path provides support to the brightest startups to co-create, gain tailored expertise and reach a global customer base.

“We’ve been partnering with fintech builders since the beginning, evolving the Mastercard Developers portfolio to ensure we have the right programs, products and tools every fintech company needs even as the sector continues to evolve,” says Amy Neale, senior vice president for Fintech & Enablers at Mastercard. “We provide the solutions and expertise to iterate with fintech companies so together we can transform the way we shop, bank and pay and ensure more people can benefit from the digital economy.”

The Mastercard Newsroom asked eight Start Path alumni to share their thoughts on the opportunities born out of the most recent digital acceleration and what they’ve learned over the course of this challenging year: