Singapore FinTech Festival 2018 - Regional Development is Key

Innovation, Inclusion and Inspiration - these 3 I's set out the tenets on the use of technology to make lives better for all.

This was emphatically put across by Ravi Menon, MD of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, in his powerful opening address at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2018.

This 3rd iteration was bigger and bolder, attracting a massive crowd of 40,000. MAS proclaimed it to be the biggest fintech festival worldwide.

The only "disappointment", for certain followers of the FinTech festivals, was the notable absence of announcement of regulatory changes. This was, however, unsurprising, as MAS has in recent years been busy laying down the groundwork for regulations framework in earlier iterations on the FinTech festivals.

For instance, Iteration 1 of FinTech festival focused on the tensions between regulations and innovation with the introduction of the regulatory sandbox and regulations for crowdfunding, while Iteration 2 focused on a new payments services regulatory framework.

Instead, the MAS chief focused on his vision on facilitating the use of technology to improve lives. What was also evident was a regional appraoch, embracing ASEAN.

The focus was on infrastructure development for FinTech in line with this vision.

MAS touched on six strategic thrusts to further develop the FinTech ecosystem:

1. People and talent development;
2. Identity (client onboarding) - usually the first pain point for Fintech platforms;
3. Payments (swift and secure payments being key to a Fintech ecosystem);
4. Data Governance (the need for responsible use of data and seamless flow of data across borders);
5. Applied Research - the need to build strong capabilities to sollve real-world problems; and
6. Platforms for innovation - mechanisms to foster collaboration and co-creation to translate ideas into products; bridge problems with solutions.

In relation to platforms for innovation, MAS announced AFIN – the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network, designed to solve issues of financial inclusion within ASEAN.

AFIN will launch API Exchange (APIX)the world’s first cross-border, open architecture platform to enhance financial inclusion. APIX is both an online FinTech Marketplace and FinTech Sandbox.

As a marketplace, it will enable financial institutions to discover and connect with FinTech firms through APIs. As a sandbox, it provides a platform for FIs and FinTech firms to collaborate and experiment on solutions in a contained environment.

This first pan-ASEAN initiative should be helpful in fostering the development of the FinTech ecosystem in the region, and help address regional problem statements.

The MAS and the InfoComm Media Development Authority (IMDA) also announced a cross-border innovation platform for SMEs called Business sans Borders. This enables SMEs to connect in a global services marketplace, where they can digitalise their business processes and mutualise costs. This helps solution providers to more effectively reach out to SMEs who tend to be highly dispersed and are sometimes hard to reach.

Summary of the key points of Ravi Menon's speech can be found here.