Singapore, one of Asia's major banking hubs, expects its Fintech Festival to yield innovations that may shape the future of the industry. The event is attracting an audience that includes bankers and tech afficionados, but also blue blood in the person of the Queen of Holland.
The fintech community in Singapore and the wider region will be watching carefully when Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) (pictured above) makes his keynote address, «The Singapore Fintech Agenda» on Tuesday morning.
When it comes to embracing fintech the MAS has been a proactive regulator and more ground-breaking initiatives are expected at this years event, which finews.asia will be reporting from each day.
African Influence
For the first time, the festival will feature an African company with Kenya's Alternative Circle, which is managed by Kevin Mutiso (pictured below) and Anthony Kariuki. Alternative Circle will also feature in the Singapore Fintech Awards.
With a lack of established banking infrastructure, African fintechs were among the first to make tangible breakthroughs. Among Alternative Circle's products is Shika, a mobile application for people who are looking for quick loans.
Australian bank ANZ has gone on record as saying it wants to operate more like a startup and has been aggressively recruiting technology experts to make the transition happen.
Attendees will be keen to hear from Maile Carnegie (pictured below), the group executive for digital banking at ANZ, on how the bank is progressing. Carnegie joined ANZ in 2016 from Google.
Politicians and Royalty
Also attending the festival is Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo. Koike, who was a prominent news anchor before entering politics, is keen to raise the profile of Tokyo as a financial and fintech hub.
She will be joined by another high profile visitor, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands (pictured below) who has served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA) since 2009.
As special advocate, she is a global voice in advancing universal access to affordable, effective, and safe financial services. Providing affordable and accessible digital financial services for the world’s unbanked is one of the key issues fintech is addressing.
