A report by research teams from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, the Tsinghua University Graduate School at Shenzhen and the Australian Centre for Financial Studies at Monash Business School shows Australia's alternative finance market grew more than 50 per cent over the last year. The comprehensive research report, looking at the Asia-Pacific alternative finance market, was based on responses from 628 alt-fi companies.  It was run in collaboration with KPMG and with the support of the CME Group Foundation and HNA Capital.The topline findings means the Australian market has leap-frogged Japan's to account for 30 per cent of the total Asia-Pacific alt-fin market, and is fast becoming a regional leader, behind China - the global leader accounting for as much as 85 per cent of the total worldwide Alt-Fi sector.The report surveyed alternative-finance industry perceptions of regulation across the region. It found that, in Australia, 65% of platforms believe that existing regulations are adequate and appropriate. Over half of Australian platforms (53%) said that proposed new regulations are also adequate and appropriate.Ian Pollari,co-global lead of KPMG's fintech practice noted that "Australia has an opportunity to lead the way, but we must proceed mindfully. Regulation can have a profound impact on the development of the sector. For example, the uncertain regulatory environment for equity crowdfunding, ahead of legislation taking affect this year, no doubt contributed to a notable drop in activity in 2016."The Turnbull Government was keen to clam some credit for the good news, asserting it was the strong government support for fintech that has helped Australia become the second largest alternative finance market in the Asia-Pacific, with US$610 million raised in 2016.Online alternative finance has continued to grow rapidly in Australia, the report showed. This growth has been substantial when compared with the low base of US$26.69 million reported in 2013. In 2016, the largest market volume of alternative lending was through balance sheet business lending, followed by marketplace and peer-to-peer consumer lending. The third largest segment was invoice trading, followed by peer-to-peer property lending, which reported US$36m, and peer-to-peer business lending with US$6.9m.Other highlights: Balance Sheet (business) lending in Australia jumped 80 per cent to US$217.3m in 2016, retaining its position as the leading form of alternative finance by volume. Peer-to-peer consumer lending in Australia increased by 153 per cent in 2016 to US$158.2m. Invoice trading in Australia was up by 24 per cent to US$129.9m in 2016. Equity-based crowd funding fell from US$56m in 2015 to US$10.5m in 2016.The Federal Government in a media release yesterday, made the point that it introduced further legislation into the Parliament last week to support the Australian fintech sector by extending the crowd sourced equity funding framework to proprietary companies and removing the double taxation on digital currency.