Here’s the latest developments in the Fintech industry in Singapore

Singapore is slowly becoming a financial technology hub. The country has emerged as a worthy competitor to the likes of London when it comes to drawing intellectual and funding capital. Efforts by the Monetary Authority of Singapore – geared towards enhancing new technology and innovation – has helped the country zip into the pole position in the Fintech space.

 

MAS’s Fintech Focus

The country’s central bank has already published an Industry Transformation Map (ITM) that it says will cement the country’s status as a leading financial sector in Asia. The primary goal is to make the country a leading international wealth management hub as well as a fund management and domiciliation hub.

To achieve this goal, MAS plans to build private market funding platforms and make the country an Asian infrastructure financing hub. There are also plans to create centralized blockchain platforms. 4,000 new jobs should come into being by 2020, thanks to efforts put in place to shore up the financial services and Fintech sectors.

 

Blockchain To Curb Fraud & Enhance Trade

MAS has also already inked a Fintech collaboration deal with Hong Kong to foster collaboration on business referrals, joint innovation projects as well as information sharing. The country’s central bank is also paying close watch to blockchain technologies as it looks for ways to expand interbank payments to create cross-border payment systems.

Blockchain holds the promise of reducing risks of fraud in invoice financing, something that could be of great help to the trade-dependent Singapore economy.

Singapore is also planning to create a digital marketplace where Asean banks will be able to access Fintech services to boost the level of financial inclusion. The plan involves creating a cloud-based platform that traditional banks can use to access Fintech solutions.

Focusing on the entire financial sector rather one new development is essential, if MAS is to succeed in transforming the country’s entire financial services market.

 

ASEAN Interconnectivity

Enhancing interconnectivity of the financial sector in the region should help Asian growth companies get access to a wider network of investors. Infrastructure projects should in return be able to gain funding more broadly, which should accelerate growth in the region.

Singapore could likely have the most number of Fintech partnerships in the world as MAS continues to pursue more agreements to strengthen the country’s financial and technology sectors. Payment projects with the ability to connect all countries in the Asean block are slowly coming up as part of an effort that seeks to enhance e-commerce and person to person transfers.

 

Financial Sector Digital Transformations

In addition to encouraging the development and usage of blockchain technologies, MAS is also planning to shore up the banking sector. In the future, bank staff will be equipped with new skills such as sales quality and assurance and analytics. The role of data scientists, on the other hand, will go beyond preparing data sets and making decisions based on data.

Digital transformations are poised to erode some jobs in the financial sector. For instance, the use of robotics advisers is already threatening the role of financial advisers. However, for Singapore to strengthen its position in the Fintech space there is a price to be paid. Amidst stiff competition from China and other countries in the region, Singapore would have to pay the ultimate price to stay ahead.

Sim S Lim, DBS Singapore Country Head, said: “We already are a leading financial center, but have to continue to innovate to stay ahead. If we don’t adapt, we could be marginalized.”

 

The Most Highly Anticipated Fintech Event of the year – Singapore Fintech Festival

Source: Singapore Fintech Festival

As a highlight to how far Singapore has come in the fintech space, the Swiss Pavilion will play host to the second edition of the Singapore Fintech Festival from November 13 to 17. This year’s event will bring together startups, investor’s, financial institutions and government agencies under one roof to discuss and showcase developments in the Fintech space.

Startups in attendance will participate in the Hackcelerator and learn more from industry leaders and experts. They will also be able to visit innovation labs to share ideas. Investors, on the other hand, will be able to source for deals and listen to pitches at the Hackcelerator Demo Day. They will also be able to share knowledge with fellow industry leaders.

“The FinTech Festival provides a great platform for fintech startups to engage with and learn from thought leaders and disruptive Fintech companies (from across the globe),” said Kelvin Teo, CEO and Co-founder of fintech startup Funding Societies.

 

Fintech Awards

Financial institutions in attendance will also be submitting implemented solutions for the Fintech Awards in addition to hearing from various financial regulators in the conferences.

To be sure, the inaugural Fintech Awards last year was a resounding success, and was particularly helpful for fintech startups like Funding Societies. The P2P digital funding startup was awarded the third place in the Singapore SME category in 2016, and received a $50,000 cash prize.

“The MAS FinTech Award was a major recognition and encouragement to FinTech startups,” Teo told ZUU Online. “It differentiated us from an increasingly crowded peer-to-peer (P2P) digital financing space in Singapore. It was also a stepping stone to the global stage, as we were subsequently recognised as Top 250 FinTech firms globally by CB Insights and our Indonesia sister company Modalku received the Global SME Excellence Award at the United Nation’s ITU Telecom World in Korea.”

 

 

Exhibitors

Six Swiss exhibitors will make presentations at this year’s event. The six will make presentations touching on digital offers, security solutions as well as personalized technology

Gate B, a data consultancy firm, will make presentations on how clients can visualize customer data to make personalized business decisions. Smart Valor on the other hand is a blockchain based marketplace that is to showcase how to offer security in open network.

NetGuardians, a leading Fintech company that uses a unique approach to detect fraud and risk assurance solutions, will also be in attendance. The firm’s proprietary solution leverages the power of big data to correlate and analyse behaviour across the entire banking system. The Swiss Fintech company is to make a presentation touching on ways to detect fraud before it happens.

FORCS Singapore, a leader in e-Form enterprise reporting, will roll out its latest chatbot e-form at this year’s Fintech event. The new feature for tablet banking system is designed to woo banks and financial institutions that are yet to deploy the latest customer interaction methods.

The chatbot e-form is expected to boost FORCS’ existing tablet banking system, by allowing users to input data with voice into an e–form without having to key anything. The new system seeks to take advantage of the fact that more customers are using their mobile devices to perform banking transactions.

Fintech investments are set to hit fresh records this year’s according to a report by CB insights. Venture-backed startups raised more than $5 billion in new investments for the first nine months of the year, fast closing in on $6.3 billion raised the entire of last year.

However, support from MAS may continue to be crucial to the development in the industry for some years to come. “Since its push to Fintech in 2015, Singapore has become a destination of choice to many homegrown and foreign FinTech startups. However, many huge regional tech companies are not keen to partner our local FinTech startups who are still very young,” said Funding Societies‘ Teo.

“FinTech cuts across multiple areas and FinTech startups can use all the support it can get from related government agencies. Both take significant effort and dialogues which likely only MAS can facilitate, until the industry matures.”

 

This article first appeared on ZUUOnline.Sg.

(By Neha Gupta)

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