The World’s Largest FinTech Event kicks off in Singapore

By Samburaj Das - November 13, 2017 (www.cryptocoinsnews.com)

The second edition of the Singapore FinTech Festival began on Monday, a week-long event comprising of over 25,000 participants from over 100 countries.

Lasting a week, this year’s Singapore FinTech festival is organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank and financial regulator, in partnership with the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), an organization that represents the retail and investment banking community of Singapore.  Last year’s inaugural event saw over 13,000 participants from 60 countries.

“We are pleased that the Singapore FinTech Festival has grown this year, to become the world’s largest FinTech Festival,” stated MAS FinTech chief Sopnendu Mohanty. “It is a synergistic platform for the global FinTech community to spark new ideas and gain valuable insights. There will be many opportunities for financial institutions and FinTech companies to come together and collaborate on value-adding partnerships.”

For Singapore, a country synonymous with being ahead of the curve in adopting technologies, the event is noteworthy for being organized by the country’s central bank, an institution that has led the effort to establish Singapore as a global FinTech hub.

The global blockchain community will, in particular, be paying keen attention to the MAS’ technical report of Phase 2 of Project Ubin, the central bank’s initiative to develop and deploy a digital Singaporean dollar. Earlier this year, Phase 1 has already seen the central bank “place a tokenized form of the Singapore dollar (SGD)” on a private Ethereum blockchain.

The event’s highlight will feature a three-day FinTech conference, starting Tuesday, featuring over 160 leaders from central banks, regulatory agencies, financial institutions and FinTech companies. The conference will also feature a talk by Netherlands’ Queen Maxima who, in her capacity as UN Secretary-General’s special advocate for inclusive finance, will speak about using technology toward a financially inclusive future. The second day of the FinTech conference will feature an opening address from Arun Jaitley, India’s finance minister.

On Thursday, the event will showcase 20 market-ready FinTech solutions shortlisted from nearly 600 global submissions as a part of its Global FinTech Hackcelerator program. The ready-to-deploy solutions will focus on select key areas, namely customer-facing solutions, regulatory technology and financial inclusion.

Featured image from Shutterstock.