Forward-looking city-state is fast emerging as Southeast Asia’s financial technology hub
With investment booming and regulation loosening, Singapore is rapidly emerging as a Southeast Asian hub for financial technology, or fintech. The wealthy city-state this month played host to the world’s largest fintech festival, underscoring its ambitions as a regional springboard for financial sector innovation.
Around 60,000 participants from 130 countries took part in the three-day Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) x Singapore Week of Innovation and TeCHnology (SWITCH) event, according to organizers from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the nation’s central bank which has played a key role in promoting domestic fintechs.
Ravi Menon, managing director of MAS, recently described the sector’s innovations as “the way of the future” in media interviews. “At a time when traditional trade relationships are under strain, I think the opportunity ahead is to look at new ways of connectivity through digital means…that is where the next stage of liberalization needs to take place,” he said.
Fintech broadly seeks to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services such as payments, transfers, lending and insurance. The term also encompasses the development and use of digital currencies as well as blockchain, a decentralized record-keeping technology with the potential to be utilized across multiple sectors.
Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.
With investment booming and regulation loosening, Singapore is rapidly emerging as a Southeast Asian hub for financial technology, or fintech. The wealthy city-state this month played host to the world’s largest fintech festival, underscoring its ambitions as a regional springboard for financial sector innovation.
Around 60,000 participants from 130 countries took part in the three-day Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) x Singapore Week of Innovation and TeCHnology (SWITCH) event, according to organizers from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the nation’s central bank which has played a key role in promoting domestic fintechs.
Ravi Menon, managing director of MAS, recently described the sector’s innovations as “the way of the future” in media interviews. “At a time when traditional trade relationships are under strain, I think the opportunity ahead is to look at new ways of connectivity through digital means…that is where the next stage of liberalization needs to take place,” he said.
Fintech broadly seeks to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services such as payments, transfers, lending and insurance. The term also encompasses the development and use of digital currencies as well as blockchain, a decentralized record-keeping technology with the potential to be utilized across multiple sectors.
Read the full story at Asia Times.
