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companies established in individual eu countries ). the uk accounts for half of the region ’ s top vc deals, with last year ’ s total investment activity amounting to us $ 21 billion. throughout 2018, the uk government continued to build fintech bridges with other jurisdictions, so as to reduce regulatory barriers and support growth in a post - brexit world. ireland saw increasing interest from global fintech companies and financial institutions, spurred by brexit - related concerns. more precisely, 55 fintech or financial services companies opted for establishment in ireland last year, and their move is expected to bring more than 4, 500 new jobs to the country ( ida, ireland ). around 50 applications for authorization were submitted to the central bank of ireland by year - end covering almost the entire spectrum of financial services including banking, insurance, asset management and payments. multinational companies seem to be concerned about a no - deal brexit and these moves in 2018 suggest their efforts to mitigate its impact. chart 4 fintech sector development across european union sources : ernst and young, crunchbase, digital agenda scoreboard, and european central bank. this year, we are expecting more fintech consolidation driven both by fintech companies looking to buy in order to achieve greater scale and by conventional banks looking to buy fintech in order to drive their own strategic objectives. over the next few quarters, fintech activity is expected to rise in terms of open banking, regtech, the acquisition of fintech by banks, insurance tech, and the creation of start - ups, given that europe offers a start - up friendly regulatory environment that encourages young entrepreneurs to experiment with innovative fintech services. 4. fintech ’ s impact upon and interaction with the conventional financial system and monetary policy transmission mechanism but what is fintech ’ s estimated impact of and interaction with the conventional financial system? all the above developments of the financial technology infrastructure have non - negligible implications. therefore, it is interesting to briefly discuss the main effects of fintech revolutions on customers, competition among market players and, overall, the financial industry ’ s operation and structure. currently, five main drivers appear to be shaping and are expected to bring changes to the established financial sector : the first driver is reduction of information asymmetry. the ability of new technology to capture and process a high amount of data in real time is improving the price discovery mechanism in several areas of the financial system such as the credit gap between borrowers and lenders, to the extent