The total value of fintech deals globally in the six months ended June 30 was $22 billion, compared with $31.2 billion in the same period of 2018, a decline of 29%.

The drop was due mostly to the lack of a giant deal like Ant Financial’s record $14 billion fundraising in May 2018, says Accenture. Discounting that transaction, global fintech investments would have climbed 28% in the first half of 2019 over the same period last year.

Investments into payments startups and those in lending took the bulk of global fintech fundraising, accounting for 28% and 25% of the total, respectively, while insurtechs raked in 14%.

The value of deals in the US in the first half of 2019 jumped 60%, to $12.7 billion, even though the number of transactions was virtually unchanged from the first half of 2018 (564 vs. 563), signaling a trend of larger deals in the world’s biggest and most active fintech market.

Fintech investment in the UK nearly doubled, to approximately $2.6 billion, and the number of deals jumped 25%, to 263, as challenger banks and payments companies continued to draw investors’ interest. For example, Monzo raised $144 million in June; Starling Bank raised $211 million from two separate transactions in February; money-transfer startup TransferWise closed a $292 million deal in May; and WorldRemit raised $175 million in June.

Other European markets also made big strides, with investments in German fintechs more than doubling in the first half of 2019, to $829 million from $406 million in the same period last year, led by the $300 million that challenger bank N26 raised in January and the $125 million investment in insurtech Wefox Group in March. Fundraising in Sweden more than quadrupled, to$573 million, while fintechs in France raised$423 million in the first half of 2019, 48% more than a year earlier.

There were also large fundraising gains in Asia Pacific, with the value of deals in Singapore nearly quadrupling, to $453 million, and the value of deals in Australia more than tripling, to $401 million.