HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SINGAPORE FINTECH FESTIVAL WEEK 2024
The Singapore Fintech Festival was held at the sprawling Singapore Expo Hall between 6-8 November.
Leong Sing Cheong, Deputy Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) provided an excellent opening presentation on how the world needs to move to more interoperable Digital Financial Networks.
Governor Cheong explained how the pathways to scale the financial infrastructure of the future will be achieved through;
- Enhancing liquidity
- Building Foundational Digital Infrastructure
- Applying Industry Frameworks
- Implementing common settlement assets
The Governor went on to articulate there needs to be a fine balance between innovation on one side and regulation and protection on the other side in the development of this new infrastructure.
Global Layer 1* (GL1) was highlighted as a new Regulatory & Infrastructure Platform layer that can drive interoperability.
Mr. Cheong also noted we are living in a world with Financial Crime going up and compliance costs also going up.
Controlling new bad actors that are applying technology such as Deepfakes is of critical importance.
There were sessions on applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) for revenue growth. AI as I have mentioned before and discuss in Realise the Revenues has no one size fits all model to generate revenues in Financial services, despite what people may tell you.
Cross selling insurance to a mortgage holder is a totally different sales process and Large Language Model (LLM) to the complexities of an eight country Cash Management solution with a multi-person decision panel.
Japan was highlighted as an attractive destination for new start-ups, with the Government of Japan actively promoting financial technology innovation.
Japanese Banks also have great capabilities they are able to export globally. As such, I have been honoured to collaborate with two of the three largest banks in Japan to help them realise their potential and ambitions in the APAC region.
There were some excellent sessions on the emergence of tokenisation and digital assets. To learn more about this emerging sector check out the Digital Assets & Emerging Payments Monetisation Program.
In another session, sustainable innovation was discussed in detail and one roundtable participant noted, “as an industry we spend lots of time talking about a hypothetical future, let’s sometimes recap on the now”, I could not agree more.
Lesley Patterson (world champion triathlete and Oscar winner) gave an excellent motivational presentation on achieving your goals.
As Lesley explained, we all get to control how we choose to react to every situation and scenario.
There were many sessions on the changing world of cross border payments which I discuss at length in Thinking like a Banker.
The power of the platform was a message I took away from the conference as I visited large incumbent players and emerging fintech innovators exhibition stands.
It was amazing to see innovators from outside the industry such as Huawei, who we often think of as a Telecommunications Infrastructure provider, now implementing AI based Digital Banking core infrastructure.
During the week I also hosted the inaugural Payments Pub Quiz during the Singapore Festival Week. You can check out some of the pictures here.
One of my other key takeaways from the event is consumers are driving much of the innovation bottom up because they are not entirely satisfied with the current global financial ecosystem. This is supported by many corporates now starting to make stablecoin cross border payments or bypassing traditional card payments through local instant payment settlement schemes.
I’m already looking forward to the Singapore Fintech Festival in 2025. In a world moving so fast, there are opportunities aplenty for the individuals and companies willing to adapt and transform.
*Read more about GL1 here
