Singapore FinTech Festival
Genre	FinTech
Frequency	Annual
Venue	Singapore Expo
Location(s)	Singapore
Country	Singapore
Inaugurated	2016
Founders	Monetary Authority of Singapore
Participants	from 140 countries (2019)
Attendance	60,000 (2019)
Website	www.fintechfestival.sg

Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) is the largest FinTech festival in the world and a knowledge platform for the global FinTech community.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]}

Background

SFF is organized annually by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in partnership with The Association of Banks in Singapore and in collaboration with SingEx Holdings.^[1][10][11]

Initially, SFF 2016 had started with a number of features including the FinTech Awards, the Global FinTech Hackcelerator and three FinTech conferences which focused a number of topics such as API, Big Data, Blockchain, Machine Learning, RegTech and Tech Risk.^[12]

SFF 2016

There were more than 13,000 international participants from 60 countries in 2016.^[12]

SFF 2017

There were more than 30,000 international participants from 109 countries in 2017.^[13]

Nearly 40% of the participants were C-suite, senior management level decision makers and influencers.^[13]

There were 300 exhibiting companies and more than 100 startups with 8 country pavilions - France, India, Japan, Korea, Latin America, Poland, Switzerland and USA.^[13]

SFF 2018

There were more than 45,000 international participants from 130 countries in 2018.^[14]

SFF 2019

There were more than 60,000 international participants from 140 countries in 2019.^[15]

Participants in 2019 include industry professionals, founders, investors, academics, and government agencies.^[16] The event was attended by 100% of the 50 top banks in the world.^[17] The Conference and Exhibition featured 569 speakers and close to 1,000 exhibiting companies from around the world, including 41 international pavilions.^[16]

SWITCH

SFF and Singapore Week of Innovation and TeCHnology (SWITCH) had the collaboration first time in 2019 with a week long events and activities focusing FinTech and deep technology.^[15]

International dignitaries participation

There were a number of international dignitaries participated including Christine Lagarde (in her role as the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund), Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands (in her capacity as the Secretary-General of the United Nations’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance Development), Arun Jaitley, India’s Finance Minister and Minister of Corporate Affairs, Dr. Agustin Carstens, General Manager of Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Dr. Patrick Njoroge, Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, and Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore.^[13][18][19]

Speeches & commentaries by notable personalities at SFF

Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India (SFF 2018)

Narendra Modi became the first world leader to address at the SFF as a keynote speaker in 2018; all major Indian media had given wide coverage including Business Standard, Hindustan Times, The Economic Times, NDTV, India Today, Firstpost, The Times of India, Deccan Herald...etc.^{[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]}

The Singapore Fintech Festival is a celebration of belief. Belief in the spirit of innovation and the power of imagination. Belief in the energy of youth and their passion for change. Belief in making the world a better place. And, it is no surprise that in just its third year, this Festival is already the world’s largest.^[28]

• Modi said at the conclusion of his keynote address,

At no time in history were we blessed with so many possibilities: To make opportunities and prosperity a reality in a lifetime for billions, To make the world more humane and equal between rich and poor, between cities and villages, and between hopes and achievements.^[25](Full Speech)

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF (SFF 2018)

Christine Lagarde suggested at the SFF 2018 in her speech titled, “Winds of Change: The Case for New Digital Currency” that Central Banks should consider to issue digital currencies which can bring about financial inclusivity...; a number of world media had given headline prominence to her suggestion including Arab News, The Daily Telegraph, The Straits Times, Business Insider, Daily Tribune (Bahrain), Khaleej Times, BBC, Forbes, Business Times (Singapore), Forbes, Financial Times, The National (Abu Dhabi), CNBC...etc.^{[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]}

Singapore knows this. You know this. It is the true spirit of the Fintech Festival—opening doors to new digital futures; hoisting sails to the winds of change.^[42]

• Lagarde said at the conclusion of her speech,

Technology will change, and so must we. Lest we remain the last leaf on a dead branch, the others having decided to fly with the wind.^[41](Full Speech)

Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia (SFF 2020)

Scott Morrison delivered a speech virtually at the Singapore Fintech Festival on December 8, 2020.

It’s fantastic to be part of this world renowned FinTech festival.^[43]

For many years, I have been an enthusiastic believer in the potential of this dynamic sector.......This sector is proving that we are only limited in this day and age by our imagination.^[43]

• Morrison also noted in his speech,

As the world’s only nation continent, we always have to be outward looking. You don’t get rich by selling stuff to yourself. Singaporeans certainly understand that.^[43](Full Speech)

Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand (SFF 2020)

Jacinda Ardern delivered a speech virtually at the Singapore Fintech Festival on December 9, 2020.

She applauded the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) among New Zealand, Chile and Singapore as “the first important steps” to achieve the regulatory alignment to facilitate businesses.^[44]

This agreement presents an opportunity for like-minded countries to co-create new norms for digital trade. It is a living agreement designed to grow and expand like the digital economy to include new members and cover emerging technologies.^[44]

• Ardern said at the conclusion of her speech,

A sustainable and people-focused economy is no longer the future it's the now and it's decidedly high-tech.^[44](Full Speech)

Bill Gates, Co-Founder, Microsoft (SFF 2020)

Bill Gates delivered his thoughts in a fireside chat moderated by journalist and news anchor Shereen Bhan virtually on the topic, “Building Infrastructure for Resilience: What the COVID-19 Response Can Teach Us About How to Scale Financial Inclusion”.^[45]

Digital things overall, whether it's remote learning, or telemedicine, or digital finance, were greatly advanced. So even though the pandemic has been terrible, it has pushed for some of these innovations.^[45]

• Gates said at the conclusion of his fireside chat,

Governments are there to think ahead to bad things that might happen. In the case of (the Covid-19) pandemic, not enough was done. We can't forget that another pandemic will come and we'll need to invest in being ready in that......while not forgetting that we were not prepared and we're going to have to invest - just like having a fire department - some money in an intelligent way and actually simulate what might happen and make sure that we're ready for it.^[45](Full Chat)

Jane Fraser, President, Citigroup (SFF 2020)

Jane Fraser delivered her thoughts in a conversation moderated by Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore virtually on the topic, “How will the Financial Services Sector Respond in 2021”.

Fraser stated Singapore remains an important hub for the Citigroup since it’s also a hub of innovation, with the bank to open the world's largest wealth advisory hub in the city-state in December.^[46]

I think Singapore's ability to continuously reinvent itself is one of the great legacies of the country. And in a world where we all have to keep reinventing ourselves at high speed, Singapore is a place you have to be.^[46](Full Conversation)

Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google and Alphabet (SFF 2020)

Sundar Pichai delivered a speech virtually at the Singapore Fintech Festival on December 7, 2020 emphasizing inclusive digital economy.^[47]

The coronavirus outbreak has sped up the adoption of digital tools and trends by years........Southeast Asia's Internet economy is currently on the verge of a massive transformation......more than 40 million people in the region connected to the Internet for the first time in 2020 - four times as many as the year before......while Covid has accelerated the use of digital tools, it's also exposed how many people are still left behind......some 1.7 billion people around the world are still unbanked, a huge portion of African households do not have access to broadband and millions of women entrepreneurs lack the same access to opportunity as their male counterparts.^[48]

• Pichai said at the conclusion of his speech,

Our goal for the post-Covid world is to ensure the benefits of technology can be shared, as widely and equitably as possible. If we can do that, 2020 will be remembered not as the end of the world, but the beginning of a world that works better for everyone.^[49] (Full Speech)

Piyush Gupta, CEO, DBS (SFF 2021)

Piyush Gupta has come out with the importance of future blockchain driven Web 3.0 world with the cautious conclusion at a panel discussion titled, Global Trends and Web 3.0.^[50]

Now, the problem with Web 3.0 is when you take that argument to the next phase, it’s not only the intermediaries you start questioning. You don’t need a central bank. You don’t need the regulators. And by the way, guess what, you don’t need nation states. You don’t need governments. And then you start getting into this thing that is not a question of technology. That’s a question of social politics, and a question of philosophy. Do we as mankind prefer to live in a world where eight billion of us are individual agents, without any organising principles such as countries, states, central banks, regulators and boundary keepers? I would argue that it is very, very hard for us to get there.^[50]

References

External links

• www.sffxswitch.com

• Singapore FinTech Festival 2016 (Post Show Report)
• Singapore FinTech Festival 2017 (Post Show Report)
• Singapore FinTech Festival 2018 (Post Show Report)
• Singapore FinTech Festival 2019 (Post Show Report)
• Keynote Address Text, Video (By Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India)(SFF 2018)
• Winds of Change: The Case for New Digital Currency (By Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF)(SFF 2018)
• Prime Minister’s Address Text, Video (By Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia)(SFF 2020)
• Prime Minister’s Address (Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand) (SFF 2020)
• Building Infrastructure for Resilience: What the COVID-19 Response Can Teach Us About How to Scale Financial Inclusion (Fireside Chat by Bill Gates moderated by Shereen Bhan) (SFF 2020)
• How will the Financial Services Sector Respond in 2021 (Conversation by Jane Fraser moderated by Sopnendu Mohanty, CFO, MAS) (SFF 2020)
• Leaders Series Presentation (By Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer, Google and Alphabet) (SFF 2020)