Singapore FinTech Festival Conference 2018 Day 3 key ... · The FinTech Investment Landscape (Hosted by the Milken Institute) 39 Investing for Better Consumer Health (Hosted by Omidyar

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Singapore FinTech Festival Conference 2018 Day 3 key highlights

14 November 2018

Singapore FinTech Festival Conference 2018 | Day 3 key highlights

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Contents

Festival Stage

Opening Keynote by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund 4

Keynote Address by Narendra Modi, Prime Minister, India 7

Global Challenges of Financial Inclusion 11

The Great Kenya Transformation 14

Tech Talk by Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Education and MAS Board Member, Singapore 16

Tech Talk and FinTech Awards – Global Categoy 20

Technology and Society – Life Beyond Finance 24

Prudential Stage: Financial Inclusion

Financial Inclusion in ASEAN 25

Opening Tech Talk and Financial Inclusion in Latin America (Hosted by Interamerican 27

Development Bank)

Financial Inclusion in Africa (Hosted by the SME Finance Forum) 29

Advancing the UN SDGs through Digital Finance (Hosted by Sustainable Digital Finance 31

Alliance)

Deloitte Stage: Future of Banking

Organisational Digital Transformation 31

Digital Only Bank – Strategies and Challenges 33

Big Tech to TechFin 34

Future of Banking Enablers 35

AMTD Stage: Global Investor Summit: FinTech

From PayPay to Lending Club - Investing in the best FinTech startups in the world and 37

Investment Strategies in Startups

The FinTech Investment Landscape (Hosted by the Milken Institute) 39

Investing for Better Consumer Health (Hosted by Omidyar Network) 40

This document is developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (“MAS”) in collaboration with Deloitte Southeast Asia Ltd (“Deloitte”). It directly reports on and summarises the topics presented and discussed at the FinTech Conference as part of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2018. The contents within this document by no means reflect views and opinions from Deloitte or the MAS. Please contact Deloitte, the MAS or other appropriate organisations and agencies should you wish to obtain expert opinions on what has been reported in this document. © 2018 Deloitte Southeast Asia Ltd


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The Future FinTech Funding Model 41

GIC Stage: Global Investor Summit: Beyond FinTech

Building Businesses Across Borders 43

Capital Raising Strategies: ASEAN and Beyond 44

Private Investor Leaders’ Dialogue 46

Fireside Chat with Facebook Co-founder and Fireside Chat with Go-Jek President 49

Google Cloud Stage: AI in Finance

Innovating with AI – The Future of Financial Services 50

AI for ASEAN 53

Unlocking the Employees Virtual Wallet with AI and AI Investment - The Financier's 55

Perspective

Responsible AI 57


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Festival Stage

Opening Keynote by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund 9.30am Key points

Christine Lagarde started by sharing that ‘Change is the only constant’, which is the spirit of the Singapore

FinTech Festival 2018 Conference.

Lagarde focused on 3 key areas – the changing nature of money, the role of central banks and how to

minimise risk when it comes to currency.

In the past, currency was in a non-descript form that is the exchange of goods and services. It subsequently

became more like the instrument we are familiar with – shells, coins and then bills. With this came the

question of trust – of the instrument itself and the trading parties. With the FinTech revolution, our notion of

currency and money are being challenged. We are at a historic turning point with the introduction of new

money.

Lagarde noted that a new wind – one of digitalisation – is blowing. The new town square is now on our smart

phones and data is the new gold. It is not only paper money that is going away, cheques are disappearing

too. Cryptocurrencies are vying for a spot, looking for and helping to deliver a quicker settlement.

The IMF very recently released a paper on the roles of banks in a digital world and the degree which digital

currency will disrupt the financial service industry. At the crux, from Lagarde’s perspective, central banks

should foster closer partnerships with the private sector, namely financial institutions and other organisations.

She envisioned the perfect Public-Private Partnership to be for central banks to do what they do best – for

example, transactions and back-end settlements, while banks similarly do what they do best – interfacing with

clients, innovating, and providing new services – to serve consumers in today’s digital world.

Lagarde went on to discuss the potential downside of digital currency – the risk to financial integrity and

financial stability.

There is a trade-off between privacy and financial integrity. Lagarde suggested a setup where central banks

might design digital currency so that users’ identities will be authenticated through customer due diligence

procedures and transactions recorded, but these identities will not be disclosed to either third parties or

governments unless so required by law.

Anti-Money Laundering and terrorist financing controls will run in the background and if suspicion arose, it

would be possible to lift the veil of anonymity and investigate.

This setup will be good for users, bad for criminals, and better for the state, relative to cash. However,

challenges remain but Lagarde’s point is that we should not give up, but continue to explore these options and

see whether they remain to work.

The second risk relates to financial stability. Digital currencies can exacerbate the pressure on bank deposits.

Digital currencies are sufficiently similar to commercial bank deposits because they are very safe, can be held

without limit, allow for payment of any amount and perhaps even offer interest. If this is the case, why should

an individual hold a bank account at all?

Lagarde noted that banks are not going to be passive by-standers. They can compete with higher interest rate

and better services.


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She also made a point that bank runs occur when people believe that cash withdrawals are honoured on a first

come first serve basis. Digital currency, on the other hand, can be distributed much more easily and faster

than cash, so it could be more reassuring.

In addition, if depositors are running to foreign assets, they will shun the digital currencies. In many countries,

there are already liquid and safe assets to run towards. Therefore, the jury is still out on whether digital

currency will really upset financial stability.

Largarde’s final point is to caution that digital currencies may stifle innovation. She concluded that while the

case for digital currency is not universal, and we should seriously investigate it further. Lagarde stressed the

need to be open to change and to embrace it. She also emphasised that in the world of FinTech, financial

inclusion is the key with innovation. We need to harness change that is fair, safe, efficient, dynamic and

inclusive.

Photos


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Keynote Address by Narendra Modi, Prime Minister, India 10.15am Key points

Prime Minister Narendra Modi began by pointing out that the financial revolution is sweeping through India,

transforming the lives of 1.3 billion people.

Comparing the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) with Diwali, Prime Minister Modi referred to it as a celebration

of belief - belief in the spirit of innovation, power of imagination, energy of youth, and passion for change and

making the world a better place. It comes as no surprise that SFF is already the world’s largest such festival.

Singapore is a global hub for finance and is now taking a leap into the digital future of finance. It was in

Singapore in June this year that RuPay card and India’s first mobile payment application Bhim using India’s

Unified Payment Interface (UPI) were launched.

Prime Minister Modi announced that he will be launching today the API Exchange (APIX), a global platform to

connect FinTech firms and financial institutions, beginning with ASEAN and Indian banks and FinTech firms.

He remarked that India and Singapore are working to connect small and medium enterprises anchored on an

Indian platform and expand it globally.

He noted that Venture Capital (VC) funding is focused on FinTech. He further quipped, if you want the

investors to empty their pockets, tell them that you run a platform, you are a FinTech, and are using

blockchain. This shows that the promise of emerging technology is causing a lot of excitement. Finance is

always the first to embrace new technology. We have come a long way in a short time, from desktop to

Internet to IT services to IoT. The character of global finance is changing, and technology is creating

boundless opportunities.

Prime Minister Modi referenced his speech at the United Nations in 2014 that development and empowerment

can spread and grow with the same speed as social media has. In India, technology has transformed delivery

of government services and empowered the weak into the mainstreams. Financial inclusion has become a

reality for 1.2 billion people. There are now more than 1.2 billion Aadhar (unique ID) registration. The Jan

Dhan plan has given a bank account to almost every Indian. In the last 3 years, over 330 million new bank

accounts were opened, creating sources of identity and dignity. Bank accounts have created one of the

strongest services infrastructures, with over 1 billion biometric identifications made and used for unique ID.

These measures led to savings of about US$12 billion in preventive leakages. The infrastructure helped to

create the largest healthcare scheme (aayushman scheme) covering about 500 million Indians. SMEs also

benefitted through the inclusion, where 145 million loans were disbursed (under the Mudra scheme) equating

to US$90 billion in loans. 75% of these loans were given to the women of the country.

He added that Indians do not have to travel far to be included in all aspects of financial services that include

retirement accounts, college loans and heath care. Over 150,000 post offices are using technology to provide

banking services across India.

Financial inclusion requires digital connectivity. In India, 300,000km of fiber optic network is connecting people

to credit, insurance and other financial services at the lowest price. None of this could have happened without

FinTech, the digitisation of payments and transactions in India.

Prime Minister Modi remarked that the solutions must be diverse; as diverse as the country. For those with

smart phones, there are virtual payment addresses for transactions. For those with mobile phones but without

Internet, there is the USSD system in 12 languages, and for those without mobile phones, there are biometric

options for transactions. Furthermore, 250 million credit cards are now with Indians that did not have a bank

account four years ago. 128 banks in India are connected with UPIs. These UPI based transactions are growing

by over 30% every month. Digital payments are transparent and getting easier every day. Payments are

faster and safer.


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Data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) are helping to deliver value added services to people including

credit to unbanked, innovative financing through alterative models and algorithm based SME funding that uses

tax and GST receipts for credit decisions.

Digital transformation is also helping to eliminate corruption. The government’s e-market platform for

purchase is being used for search, tendering, payment and online orders. Over 600 products, 30,000 buyers

and 150,000 sellers are on the platform.

The future of FinTech is emerging in India. Its youth are developing apps that have a higher purpose. Using

AI, blockchain and machine learning, the government is helping banks, regulators and consumers. Financial

inclusion is a reality, with a focus on micro credit, healthcare, lending and insurance. This has helped India

gather the largest data consumption in the world.

Prime Minister Modi added that India has an enormous talent pool and supportive policies, incentives and

funding programmes for FinTech companies and start-ups. The Indian story shows six great benefits of

FinTech: access, inclusion, connectivity, ease of living, opportunity and accountability.

Prime Minister Modi reflected that there is still much to be done, with India’s focus to bank all. It can use

FinTech to ensure no dream goes unfulfilled.

In future, technology must be used to improve compliance and regulation and risk and money laundering must

be contained. The speed of FinTech must work to the advantage of the people not the other way around. Data

privacy and consent must be adhered to. Skills must be created for the future and invested for the long haul.

Each era is defined by opportunity and challenges, each has the responsibility to shape the future. At no time

in history has the world been blessed with so many opportunities. To make the world more humane and fair,

India will learn from others and share its experiences.

Photos of Prime Minister Modi’s speech and the launch of the API Exchange


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Global Challenges of Financial Inclusion 10.45am

Key discussion points

Addressing the importance of formal identities, Greta Bull stated that the cost of opening an account for low

income earners is high, making it an unprofitable opportunity for banks, resulting in unbanked customers in

the market. Reducing this cost is a critical factor in driving financial inclusion. There are initiatives in the public

and private sectors to help overcome this hurdle. The World Bank is working with partners to develop

principles to develop strong digital identification, covering aspects such as technology, design and inter-

operability. Governments have demonstrated that it is possible to provide a national identity to all. Examples

include Peru and Estonia, as well as the most recent success in India. Privately, there are initiatives to create

eKnow-Your-Customers (eKYC) solutions in Scandinavia, Australia and South Africa.

In relation to financial literacy, Judith Karl suggested that before addressing financial literacy in the unbanked

population, there is a need to address the fundamental challenges of basic literacy and numeracy.

Furthermore, as a core enabler, digital literacy standards need to be increased as part of any educational

effort.

Technology-based solutions need to be clear and intuitive to the end-user. A tech conference in Senegal last

week included a field test of chat bots, which demonstrated how voice interaction was a highly effective

communication method.

Financial literacy could be best achieved by linking topics to relevant life goals rather than financial products.

Responding to a question about gender gap for the unbanked, Mary Ellen Iskenderian stated an interesting fact

that technology often widens the gender gap. For instance, while Bangladesh has seen significant growth in

financial inclusion, driven by mobile financial services, the gender gap increased from 9% in 2014 to 29%

2017. A key reason is the significantly lower ownership of mobile phones by women compared to men.

Countries which made the greatest leaps were the ones that digitised welfare payments, and where women

are the most overwhelming recipients of these payments. Echoing previous comments, Iskenderian noted that

the greatest success in reducing the gap was when education was aligned with the end-user objectives.

On the topic of the habits of a cashless society, Karl believes that for financial inclusion to be meaningful, it

needs to address basic needs. The UNCDF is working with partners to support the development of payments

and remittances. Youth unemployment is both a social and economic challenge, and there is focus on linking

employment with financial literacy. Transaction accounts are important to drive financial literacy and the UN

Development Goals.

Consumer protection is an evergreen problem, and it is becoming even more complex. Payments increase

consumer risk around cyber fraud. Bull believes that risk and developing trust need to be considered at these

levels. Firstly, consumers need to be able to be informed and have the right information in order to make the

right decisions, including an understanding of what they are consenting to. Secondly, providers will need to

ensure that customers understand the contracts they are entering into and what it means to for them. Thirdly,

Speakers

Greta Bull, Chief Executive Officer, CGAP

Judith Karl, Executive Secretary, UNCDF Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President, Women’s World Banking

Moderator: Vivek Pathak, Regional Director, East Asia and Pacific, IFC


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platforms, which are rarely talked about, should be responsible for ensuring that credit products they provide

are transparent and beneficial for customers. Lastly, regulators also need to have dynamic, open conversations

with providers to protect customers’ interests.

For Iskenderian, the best examples of inclusion are partnerships between banks and FinTechs. Diamond Bank

in Nigeria was the fourth largest corporate bank with no retail presence. They chose to enter the retail market,

and committed a significant investment into creating a digital offering. Engaging Iskenderian and her team,

they partnered to create transaction and savings products, specifically addressing the needs of their target

market. Having built this core base, the bank is now building credit products.

Photos


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The Great Kenya Transformation 11.15am


Manisha Tank started the discussion by congratulating Kenya on its 10th anniversary using M-Pesa, a mobile

phone-based money transfer, financing and microfinancing service company, which has revolutionised the

Kenyan society.

Dr Patrick Njoroge noted that a lot has been achieved in the 12 years since M-Pesa was launched in the

country. It has transformed the country by changing the way business is done, and fulfilled the social need for

wealth to be transferred from those who earn it to those who need it. Workers can now transfer money to their

parents in rural villages with just a press of a button. Inclusion into the financial system, which was at 26%

over a decade ago, now stands at 75%. Mobile penetration in Kenya is 94%, of which 97% of the population is

subscribed to some form of mobile payments system – this is almost universal coverage. Transformation into

digital banking in Kenya is almost complete with over 85% of financial transaction being made via mobile.

Dr Njoroge went on to give some background information into the launch of M-Pesa, and illustrated how the

journey was not simple but instead it had taken a lot of innovation, collaboration and proof of concept (POC)

testing before its launch – especially as technology was advancing so quickly. There was also an added

complication of inter-operability and regulatory. After the idea was pitched, the central bank – recognising the

utility of such a platform – worked with Safaricom to develop and rigorously test a POC before launching the

platform.

Tank asked Dr Njoroge on how best can FinTechs penetrate into Kenya. Dr Njoroge said he had invited

innovators to contact the central bank as there is a dedicated team that works alongside regulators to evaluate

FinTechs. He added, however, that the central bank is not a gatekeeper. Rather, its involvement is to mitigate

risk and to maintain financial stability. Dr Njoroge believes the newly-launched APIX platform will be of great

support because Kenyan FinTechs products will have met the minimal standards from the POC before the

review by regulators.

Tank brought the conversation back to Dr Njoroge’s earlier comment about how FinTech has transformed lives

in Kenya. Dr Njoroge said that mobile platforms have allowed even the most poor and illiterate people to

participate in the economy not only via payments but credit as well - microloans can be obtained

instantaneously. Another interesting observation was that microloans tend to be repaid immediately in spite of

a 30-day credit. Borrowers have figured out the microloan algorithms - quicker repayment means better

credit score, meaning greater loans to grow one’s business. This is a social transformation - the ability to

transact immediately and at any time takes friction out of the system. Dr Njoroge also gave examples of how

innovation is filling the remaining gaps in the financial system - micro-insurance to protect against the direct

loss of income due to illnesses, and access to savings products as most still “save money under their mattress”

or not at all. A recently launched mobile product allows Kenyans to invest as little as USD30 into government

securities.

When asked about cryptocurrency and blockchain, Dr Njoroge opined that technology, however good it is, does

not solve problems by itself. The first question to be asked is, “what problems are you solving?” Serving the

underbanked could be a good starting point in financial services transformation. In conclusion, FinTech offers

the best chance of financial inclusion and shared prosperity.

Speaker

Dr. Patrick Njoroge, Governor, Central Bank of Kenya

Moderator: Manisha Tank, International Correspondent, CNN


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Photos


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Tech Talk by Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Education and MAS Board Member, Singapore 11.45am

Key points

Minister Ong Ye Kung opened by sharing that the Singapore FinTech Festival 2018 has seen an increase in

participants, up to 40,000 this year. He noted that the agenda had become richer in content, with topics focused on the ASEAN market, financial inclusion and artificial intelligence in FinTech. Commenting on Singapore’s promising journey in FinTech, Minister Ong said that Singapore is bringing

together people who are hatching ideas, creating jobs and developing solutions to solve real problems. He then went on to share a video with interviews of the founders of three FinTech firms (M-DAQ, Silent Eight and Thin Margin) who shared stories of their own FinTech journey in Singapore.

Minister Ong believed that FinTechs should seek Singapore as their destination to start businesses. He shared three main reasons for his belief:

1. Singapore is a great place

Minister Ong said that Singapore is a place for everyone. In terms of its geography, Singapore is a place where sea lines and air links converge, shaping the country that it is. He added that Singapore is a safe city where things, such as transport, health and education, work. Even if it does not always work, Minister Ong said that Singapore is a nation that will address the challenges. He added that Singapore has a diverse culture where English is the main language of communication. He

emphasised that Singapore is a significant market with a rising middle class and is a great place for businesses

to grow. He added that Singapore is a great springboard into the ASEAN market, with a large number of financial institutions that range from incumbents to startups. Beyond financial institutions, Minister Ong also said that Singapore has a supportive industry with private equity firms, investors, IT companies, and management consultancies that form an entire ecosystem to support FinTech development. Of significance is Singapore’s role in free trade agreements on the global stage

that make it an advantageous springboard for firms seeking growth. Singapore always ensures that it has access to main markets such as ASEAN, India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Mexico and soon, the European Union (EU). Mr Ong mentioned that MAS has also built strong connections globally, which means better support for FinTechs to navigate through various regulatory frameworks. Singapore has committed to physical spaces for

FinTechs to operate – there is a large dedicated co-working hub located on Robinson Road. Also present are incubator spaces and labs within the universities.

2. Singapore is open to ideas

Minister Ong said that the nation is prepared to experiment and experimentation is part of Singapore’s identity. He shared that big tech firms like Google and Alibaba have set up research laboratories in Singapore

and Grab has its own global innovation hub in the National University of Singapore (NUS). He also cited Mastercard having its largest innovation lab in Singapore that is seeking the next digital payment breakthrough. Amazon, PayPal, HP, and Dyson are other examples of companies which have set up their innovation hubs in Singapore. In terms of being open to ideas, Minister Ong shared that the MAS is encouraging the uptake of RegTech to help businesses overcome regulatory pains in reporting and providing data to regulators. In 2017, MAS

announced that data will be collected and be machine readable. This year, MAS will help set up funding programmes for smaller businesses to use RegTech. He wanted to ensure that Singapore is a place that enables FinTechs to experiment; a place where FinTechs are willing to be exposed and be observed, and thereafter work with regulators to regulate and optimise the


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regulation. He mentioned MAS’ regulatory sandbox as an appropriate instrument for FinTechs to test and learn. He also confirmed the launch of a public consultancy exercise for the “Sandbox Express” to make it easier for FinTechs to get into the sandbox (a time period of 21 days for admission).

He affirmed that, as an urban environment, Singapore regulates to harmonise the concerns and risks of new FinTechs. This means that when a solution works in Singapore, it potentially can work equally well in other urban environments across the globe, especially with the added credibility of Singapore as a nation. To further elaborate this point, Minister Ong shared about the unique e-payments system in Singapore. Rather than allow the e-payments system to grow so quickly that it bypasses traditional financial systems, giving rise

to prudential concerns, Singapore decided to take more time to ensure that e-payments are open architecture. He explained that the backend of e-payments rides on Singapore’s national and the inter-bank infrastructure (FAST), and this allows non-banks to also participate. On the front end, Singapore launched the world’s first common QR Code that is independent of any applications and banks. He said that Singapore took time to

design the architecture as it recognised the use of payments in every sector of the economy. With open architecture and interoperability, Minister Ong said that it will further encourage competition and innovation.

3. Singapore believes in skills and talent

FinTech services across industries are not merely “all Fin” or “all Tech”. Minister Ong said that FinTech involves many roles and that includes other roles such as artists and anthropologists. Ultimately, for FinTechs to thrive, there needs to be a talent ecosystem. An important aspect of developing this ecosystem is through the linkage of Singapore’s education system.

No longer can rote learning and didactic learning be at the core focus as the new generation of students will need to be equipped with lifelong skills. Since 1997, Singapore’s education system has moved to an “inquiry-based approach” where students work in teams to solve problems. Minister Ong believes that this approach will spur an inner curiosity to learn and focus on the fundamentals of values, literacy and numeracy. As an example, Minister Ong highlighted Singapore’s approach to math curriculum. He said that all students in Singapore are taught to deconstruct a problem and visualise how to solve it. He added that the math

curriculum is an open source and has been adopted by countries globally.

Adding on, Minister Ong emphasised the change in higher education. He said that some universities have made modules like computing mandatory. The curriculum format has evolved to include more project work, internships, community involvement, entrepreneurial training, overseas exposure and even hackathons, instead of the traditional lectures and tutorials. He cited two examples of FinTech individuals spinning off from NUS – one developed the concept of “Sharding” to enhance efficiencies in cryptocurrency mining, and the

second has set up a leading Peer-to-Peer finance company. Commenting on the adult workforce, Minister Ong said that SkillsFuture is for everyone. He said that training hours for adults have increased and are mostly focused on technology training. Singapore is retooling its workforce to support the nation’s economic transformation and is equally welcoming of global experts who possess specialist skills and knowledge to train and teach Singapore workers so that as a nation, Singapore

can develop, grow businesses and create jobs.


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Photos


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Tech Talk and FinTech Awards – Global Categoy 5.00pm Tech Talk by Piyush Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, DBS

Key points

Piyush Gupta talked about how digital and digital technologies are real and included examples of how POS

(Point of Sale) is doing so with various customer groups such as migrant workers and parents. According to

Gupta, the power of digitising finance can be thought of in a few categories:

1. Financial inclusion - This has proven to work in both Kenya and India. Access to simple saving products

lead to the use of more sophisticated products and democratisation of financial planning. Financial

inclusion has had the biggest impact on the lending side as more people have to access to credit than

ever before because data enables the use of algorithms to create proxies for traditional credit history.

2. Efficiency - Electronic payments or basic banking services can now be done much faster than before.

Previously, it took days to process and one had to physically go to the bank. This leads to increased

productivity which can be transferred back into the economy. Financial markets have changed as

trading systems moved to digitised marketplaces. This efficiency is gaining traction in other parts of

the institutional framework such as smart contracts in supply chain which could change the cost

structure and efficiency paradigms of how business is done.

3. Power of data - The use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) is enabling the identification

of insights that were previously undetectable by human beings. This had led to the creation of new

products and being able to reach out to people in ways that were not previously possible. Financial

services and banking no longer need to be a separate activity but rather, they are embedded into

people's lives and are far more relevant.

4. Sustainability of the future - There are currently major global issues related to the sustainability of the

future and what we leave behind for the next generation. While financial services cannot solve all of

these problems, it can enable some of the new thinking needed around business models and make an

impact of pricing externalities to the P&L.

Gupta went on to say that there are, however, some risks that come with digital finance. Financial exclusion

can be possible now as companies can discriminate the good from bad but the society needs to make sure that

the people who need the insurance get it. Cybercrime and its prevention will also be on the rise as everything

moves towards digitisation.

There will also be a need to develop new rules and social norms to deal with decisions being made by AI.

These problems can be addressed by setting up the necessary guard rails which can be created by the same

people and innovators that were able to create the technologies.

Fintech Awards – Global Category

The FinTech Awards celebrate the achievements of companies. There is a greater emphasis on ASEAN this year with the awards expanded to include ASEAN companies. Previously, the awards were only focused on Singaporean companies.

The new award categories in 2018 are:

Singapore founder (Presented on 13 November 2018) ASEAN SMEs (Presented on 12 November 2018) ASEAN Open (Presented on 12 November 2018) Global

There was also a Pitchfest where nine winners emerged and were included in the final round. As part of the selection process, MAS sought input from industry experts and the selection criteria included four themes:


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o Impact o Practicality o Interoperability

o Uniqueness and creativity

The winners of the MAS FinTech (Global category) Award are:

First prize (SG$150,000): Everspin

Second prize (SG$100,000): Naffa Innovations

Third prize (SG$50,000): Keychain

The award was presented by Piyush Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, DBS.

Photos


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Technology and Society – Life Beyond Finance 5.20pm


Chieko Asakawa has been with IBM for 33 years, starting as an intern, and subsequently became a researcher.

She expressed that her greatest challenge was not as a blind researcher but as a woman in a male dominated

environment. As she grew in the company, she recognised the disparity and that led her to start mentoring

female engineers.

Piyush Gupta shared his difficulty with addressing the gender bias and bringing in more female coders. Initial

attempts to hire via hackathons resulted in predominantly male recruits. However, by creating female focused

hackathons, for example, Hacker in Her, DBS was able to attract and hire an increased number of female

engineers.

Gupta went on to share that people have goals, but not a desire to bank. This has driven DBS’ strategy of

delivering a bank which allows customers to achieve their life goals, while minimising DBS’ footprint and

remaining as invisible as possible.

Abu Qadar shared his passion in understanding the human psychology and his entrance into artificial

intelligence (AI). During a prolonged period spent back home in Afghanistan, he was able to understand the

challenges in the healthcare industry. Coupled up with his interest to understand people and neuroscience, and

a desire to make a change, he co-founded Glialab, which creates data-driven AI and blockchain technology

solutions for the healthcare industry. With a goal of bringing healthcare to developing countries, he strongly

believes that focusing on revenue would be contrary to the objectives of his organisation.

Addressing how technology can better help individuals, Asakawa cited the use of technology to help blind

people to read. She believes that cognitive intelligence should be used to help all fragments of the society.

When asked to give advice to the next generation, she shared how she would always take the harder option

when it was interesting and meaningful to her, and she encourages the next generation to do the same, in

order to make the impossible possible.

Gupta stressed that it is not about technology, but about creating customer value and impact. He commented

that Singapore is a living lab, where one can bring together multiple parties to drive innovation, and this is a

platform that needs to be built upon.

Qadar reflected on the privileges he is enjoying in life now, and wants to be able to wake up contented with

the changes he is making, and to continue solving problems.

Speakers

Abu Qadar, Chief Technical Officer, GliaLab Chieko Asakawa, IBM Fellow, IBM Piyush Gupta, CEO, DBS Bank Ltd

Moderator: Prof Annie Koh, Vice President, Office of Business Development, Singapore Management

University


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Prudential Stage: Financial Inclusion

Financial Inclusion in ASEAN 1.00pm


Navin Suri opened the session by commenting on the business opportunities and social welfare gains that exist

from increasing financial inclusion in ASEAN and broader Asia. He noted that financial inclusion was beyond

just getting unbanked individuals into the system; it is also having the financial system serve micro, small and

medium enterprises better. He noted that key to inclusion is having the infrastructure in place to enable

access.

To that, Anthony Thomas shared that having Globe Telecom’s support in Mynt was certainly beneficial. As the

largest telecommunications provider in the Philippines, Globe has a huge user base, merchants and B2B

partners, as well as brand trust by association, which has enabled Mynt’s GCash mobile money services to gain

traction in the market.

Speaking from his experience in the Myanmar market, Brad Jones explained that an agent network through

general stores is still essential for driving financial inclusion in Myanmar; the country’s population is still

relative unbanked. He noted that even the formal traditional banks have issues with last mile connectivity as

physical infrastructure is still very poor in the country. He estimated that about 80% of his business is from

distribution through such agent networks, and noted the importance of ensuring agent profitability in order to

sustain this business model.

In comparison, Thomas noted that he is less reliant on agent networks. Instead, they have diversified into

generating more transactions and flows through tie-ups with other companies dealing with payrolls and

remittances. Jones noted this diversification was an aspiration for his company to move towards, which would

come with the progress of Myanmar’s economy.

Turning the conversation to the role of regulation in promoting financial inclusion, Suri invited H.E Chea Serey

and Erwin Haryono to share their country’ experiences. Both expressed optimism in FinTech startups that can

think out-of-the-box and come up with solutions to solve massive economic challenges their respective

countries face. They noted the struggle regulators face is to ensure stability and inspire confidence in the

system through regulation, while also allowing innovation to flourish. Both country representatives shared

more about their unique context and legacy of their history, and the challenges they face in developing their

financial and monetary systems over the years.

Jones followed up by commenting that FinTech need to realise that they hold a grave responsibility when they

partake in business activities that take money from people—even more so when these are regular people with

little wealth, whose life savings may be wiped out with a single bad incident.

Speakers

Anthony Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, Mynt

Brad Jones, Chief Executive Officer, Wave Money Erwin Haryono, Head of FinTech Office, Bank Indonesia H.E Chea Serey, Director-General of Central Banking, National Bank of Cambodia

Moderator: Navin Suri, Chief Executive Officer, Percipient, Member of Board of Directors, Nomura

Asset Management Taiwan


26

Jones and Thomas also noted that initiatives to promote inter-operability, while a fine aspiration to have, has

to be scoped, timed and executed appropriately based on the prevailing context of the society that the FinTech

companies are serving. As Thomas explained, implementing networks to promote interoperability can be

costly, and may very well present a setback to the industry if there is no real economic imperative to do so.

The session ended with a quick discussion on how important building trust remains key to promote financial

inclusion as trust is the bedrock of the financial system.


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Opening Tech Talk and Financial Inclusion in Latin America (Hosted by Interamerican Development Bank) 2.00pm Opening Tech Talk by Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, Vice President, World Bank Group

Key points

The World Bank’s goal is to eliminate poverty and Ceyla Pazarbasioglu believes that the transformative powers

of technology will be able to improve lives in many different ways, especially for those who are financially

excluded.

Pazabasioglu noted that solely providing monetary aid to the poor will not help eliminate poverty. It is

important that the poor are able to participate and contribute to the market economy. However, this will be

extremely difficult when they are unable to perform simple financial transactions, have access to ATMs or,

make payments through credit cards.

Three examples of transformative technology solutions tailored to specific needs were highlighted; the first

being e-payments for refugees. This involves the use of iris-scanning technology, particularly in Syria, for

refugees to transact and withdraw money with ease of their eyes. The main advantages are greater security

for the people and time savings which can enable the poor to commit their time to better use.

The second example mentioned was credit services for women entrepreneurs. Noting that women make up

half the population and yet do not have the same opportunities and access to credit services, there is a huge

potential in promoting women entrepreneurship by providing adequate credit services through technology.

The last example cited was the Kenya Livestock insurance program (KLIP). Livestock production is a huge

contribution to the Kenyan economy, but production levels are very sensitive to climate shocks. Satellite data

and information can be used to monitor grazing conditions, and when conditions go below certain critical

levels, disbursements will be made to the farmers to enable them to take preventive measures.

Pazabasioglu concluded that the use of technology to eliminate poverty is a shared responsibility and everyone

has a part to play.

Financial Inclusion in Latin America (Hosted by Interamerican Development Bank)


Laura Gaviria Halaby opened the session by acknowledging that the financial and FinTech industry in Latin

America has grown significantly in the last few years. Irene Arias introduced the IDB as the equivalent of the

Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Latin America. The IDB lab, of which she is a part of, promotes innovation

and new concepts to support startups in Latin America that have the potential to spur the financial sector in

the region.

Speakers

Carlos Orta, Partner, Functional Leader Regulatory Compliance, Deloitte Irene Arias, Chief Executive Officer, MIF – IDB Group Innovation Lab, Inter-American

Development Bank Group

Martin De Los Santos, Senior Vice President, Mercado Credito Omar Crespo, Innovative and Digital Transformation Manager, MiBanco, Peru

Moderator: Laura Gaviria Halaby, Founder, Fractal


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Martin De Los Santos noted that there is currently low penetration of credit services in the region due to a lack

of relevant data. His company, Mercado Credito, relies on three pillars to develop its credit business. The first

being the existing knowledge that the company has on their users that can be used to assess the credit

scoring of the customers. The second is the use of technology to build artificial intelligence models and thirdly,

distribution of the service through daily communication with the merchants, coupled with good user

experience.

From the regulatory perspective, Carlos Orta mentioned that laws were implemented in the region to give legal

certainties to both consumers and providers of the services. Ever since the implementation of such laws,

investments in the region have increased. Omar Crespo further noted that there has been an increased

number of market players in the region as a result of better regulations and banks in the region are open to

collaboration with the new market entrants to further expand their business.

When asked for views on whether regulators or the industry players should take the lead in promoting

collaboration with FinTech companies for financial inclusion, Arias highlighted that the key would be customer

protection. Orta pointed out that in Mexico, regulations have led to the set-up of the private and public

committee represented by both the regulators and the FinTech companies that help to promote such

collaboration.

Crespo noted that the big challenge in the micro-financing industry is getting data. There is currently no

access to customer data needed to assess credit quality. He believes that collaboration with FinTech companies

will increase the accessibility of financial services available to population.

Halaby concluded the session by seeking the speakers’ thoughts on what the biggest challenge to financial

inclusion in Latin America is currently. De Los Santos mentioned data access as a challenge, but financial

literacy poses a greater challenge and Crespo agreed with this. Arias pointed out that more capital is essential

to help drive innovation the region and Orta highlighted that higher literacy about financial services will

ultimately help to promote higher financial inclusion.


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Financial Inclusion in Africa (Hosted by the SME Finance Forum) 3.00pm


Africa has highest per capita usage of financial services through mobile phones.

Mobile phones have become a new form of distribution mechanism across the African continent. The customers

who were not accessible in past are visible now and can access financial services products like lending,

deposits and transfers. Technology developments are also transforming the market place and changing the

participants landscape in financial services.

Around fifteen years back, the Commercial Bank started exploring mobile phones to enable customers with

fund transfers and enquiries. Big transformation came when M-Pesa was launched about twelve years back to

transfer money in a secure and quick manner. The Commercial Bank partnered with Safaricom to launch

deposit taking and lending services in Kenya and have converted three quarters of M-Pesa customers to

banking customers. The success has been replicated in multiple African countries.

FarmForce is able to connect with over two million farmers in remote parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America

through the use of mobile phones. FarmForce captures the information related to farmers’ crops, their GPS

location, their farm locations (for example, forests and war areas), and areas impacted by diseases, and

perform mitigation actions in real-time. Banks can use the historical data available through FarmForce for

credit scoring and provide loans to qualifying farmers. Farmers are also able to link to the market with their

mobile phones and see the value of their produce. FarmForce adoption was facilitated by the fact that farmers

were able to reduce transactional costs through access to information. Also, they obtained loans in the past

through cooperatives but now are able to access loans as an individual.

People are using mobile phones to make payments for PayGo Solar (buying solar power online). People are

running businesses on their mobile phones (for example, tourism based services). These success stories

demonstrate that mobile phone-based transformation is impacting not only financial services but also on the

broader economic front.

It was noted that financial services products and services should be available to public at the time of need and

at the location of need. Investments for data collection and analysis to provide valuable insights are key. Using

the information collected from customers to run the credit scoring algorithms would be valuable and can

enable accurate decisions.

Further, the evolution of regulations would focus on increased transparency of services to customers, for

example how customer interaction with the financial institution is impacting their credit score.

Know Your Customer (KYC) is a necessary part of providing financial services products. Different countries in

Africa are at different levels of maturity in terms of identification mechanisms. Kenya has a developed central

Speakers

Buhle Gosla, Chief Customer Officer, JUMO Christopher Calabia, Senior Advisor, Financial Services for the Poor, Bill & Melinda Gates

Foundation Faith Kamenchu, Head of Africa Operations, FarmForce AS Issac Awuondo, Group Managing Director, Commercial Bank of Africa

Moderator: Matthew Gamser, Chief Executive Officer, SME Finance Forum, International Finance

Corporation (IFC)


30

database enabling easy identification of potential customers. Many African governments are making

investments in initiatives related to KYC and identification of individuals.

Similar to ASEAN, African markets are diverse with different regulatory regimes. Speakers summarised the key

takeaways for the ASEAN companies looking to expand to Africa:

Partnering with local players, especially in areas which are underserved, is important.

Digital footprint of African people as compared to ASEAN is really light. The data requires

augmentation from various sources. These data sources are different across countries.

Products offered to customers should be easy to use, easy to access and adaptable to customers’

needs across countries.

Embracing technology is important but use cases should be customised for each market.

Technology, data and analytics are important but they need to be applied to solve real problems.

Advancing the UN SDGs through Digital Finance (Hosted by Sustainable Digital Finance Alliance) 4.00pm


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Financial inclusion is the new buzz word that everyone is talking about. While financial inclusion is extremely

relevant, it is the only one out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that we need to meet in order

to make our society sustainable and prosperous. How we are going to finance all of these SDGs is the “big

question” that we need to focus on.

Majority of financing of these SDGs would be in the areas of physical infrastructure such as building hospitals

and schools. There are two critical challenges that inhibit the ability to finance these SDGs.

First, with the advent of the platform economy and deep tech, we are seeing a lot of FinTechs coming up with

new business models such as lending, insurance and payments platforms, which are aimed at solving some of

the critical SDGs like alleviating poverty, providing quality education and healthcare. However, these emerging

business models are of limited use if the physical infrastructure development lags behind. For instance, if

someone gets ill and if there is no hospital in the vicinity, then a micro-insurance platform is of little use to the

society.

Second, capital markets today have no way to measure and track the social capital or social well-being of a

particular project or venture. If the capital markets are not able to measure the social capital of a project, they

are not likely to put in the required financing behind it to actualise its full potential. Therefore, governments

and regulators will have to play a leading role to come up with mechanisms to track and measure the social

capital or wellbeing created (for example carbon pricing mechanism to track pollution footprint).

In summary, while FinTechs are coming up with new and innovative models to serve the unbanked and tackle

the SDG problems like poverty and healthcare. However, the impact of these business models would be limited

if governments do not invest adequately in the physical infrastructure. Also, regulators will need to come up

with ways to measure social capital or wellbeing in order to drive more capital towards companies looking to

create business models or solutions to meet the UN SDGs.

Deloitte Stage: Future of Banking

Organisational Digital Transformation 1.00pm

Speakers

Greta Bull, Chief Executive Officer at CGAP Jojo Malolos, CEO Wing Piyush Gupta, Chief Executive Officer & Director DBS Group Suncharita Mukharjee, Co-Founder, Kaleidofin

Moderator: Simon Zadek, Principle, Project Catalyst, UNDP


32


Digital organisation transformation can mean different things for different people and organisations but there

are a few key themes that are common across definitions.

First, digital transformation is the automation of mundane and repetitive tasks to divert more resources

towards solving real-life customer problems. Second, it is about finding the “North Pole” of the organisation,

which means defining what the company wants to achieve and where it is headed 10 years down the line.

Third, it is to keep abreast of changing customer demands and being agile enough to adapt and cater to those

changes. Lastly, it is about identifying the right talent and skills that will help the organisation make the

transition from being an “analog” company to a “digital” company.

Digital transformation should not be looked upon as a “special” project that the company takes on once every

10 years, but it should be embedded in the business. Talent is the biggest driver of organisational

transformation, and they should be empowered and encouraged to constantly think about new and better

ways to do their everyday jobs. How companies galvanise their talent resources to willingly embrace

transformation is the most critical element of digital transformation.

To galvanise the workforce, there are many options available. First, having a seamless communication channel

with employees to make them understand the need for transformation from an organisational perspective.

Second, communicate how the company plans to support and re-train “displaced” employees. Supporting

employees to upskill themselves will breed loyalty and ease nervousness and fear around retrenchment. Third,

embed a culture of “customer-first” in the organisation’s DNA. Employees will need to understand changing

customer needs and accept that organisational changes are required to fulfil those customer needs. Lastly,

create a culture of innovation where employees are incentivised to think differently. Implementing these

strategies would ensure that transformation is frictionless and painless, and that the company is embracing an

agile way of working where transformation becomes a “way of life”.

While going through digital transformation, data privacy and cyber security are the major risks to consider.

Companies that transform from an “analog” to a “digital” way of working often ignore the cost of data privacy.

Securing customer data is probably the biggest “blind-spot”, therefore investing in resources (both talent and

systems) to protect customer privacy and identity is critical for any organisational transformation success.

Speakers

Craig Ramsay, Global Innovation Lead for Global Liquidity and Cash Management, HSBC John Stecher, Chief Innovation Officer, Barclays Michael Tang, Partner & Global Financial Services Digital Transformation Leader, Deloitte Canada Pranav Seth, Senior VP, Head of E-Business, Business Transformation & The Open Vault, OCBC

Bank

Moderator: Chloe James, Group Media Director, RFi Group


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Digital Only Bank – Strategies and Challenges 2.00pm


Representing the session are:

ING Bank - A Globally Systemically Important Bank (GSIB) with legacy systems driving innovation.

According to Olivier Guillaumond, digitalisation is key to ING’s strategy and the bank likes to believe it is the first FinTech bank. They create their own FinTech and drive partnerships with FinTechs. They also run a venture capitalist company (VC) that invests in FinTechs.

Fidor - a post-crisis start-up bank that is a true digital bank. Even after the Groupe BPCE (a French

GSIB) acquisition in 2016, Fidor is running under its own brand and is, in all apparent ways, an

independent digital bank. According to Matthias Kroner, Fidor runs as a B2B Fintech bank that has its own infrastructure and platform to offer their services.

Ailleron and Railsbank – two FinTechs that have two different business models. Ailleron partners with

financial services to deliver solutions which have a sector wide impact by digitising the relationship

companies have with million of customers. Ailleron’s Piotr Skrabski shared that they have end to end robo advisors that can help their clients digitise almost everything. Railsbank offers a banking API

(Application Program Interface) and platform that give companies access to global transaction banking services without being a bank. Nigel Verdon described that their platform is like Lego – pure utility play, and clients can pick what they need or want.

The speakers discussed how to create a value proposition in a crowded field. It was suggested that value propositions should come before products. And in terms of product, it was suggested that it should take less than 90 day to take an MVP to market, with simplified pricing and on a subscription, not transaction, basis.

Basically, the product should not be complex, but simple to market. Everyone should have access to financial services and it should be delivered in a way that helps make life better. This can be done by delivering financial services into where customers spend their time, for example, on social media. An important strategy is to integrate different products together, be it partner with different service providers to create an integrated customer experience.

It was acknowledged that digital banking is customer-centric and not a revenue generation tool. They need to know their customers in a real way; the more customers share, the more the banks can tailor solutions to meet their needs. Perhaps there should be a community built around the customers, with digital banks playing the role of an enabler. Customer onboarding should be made seamless, and data should be a “coach” to help digital banks understand their customers.

The future of banking should be invisible to customers by embedding banking services into their lives. People need banking and not banks. Combining the use of data, product and services should be contextual and not a product push. Digital is not about technology, it is about frictionless interaction. Technology is the enabler of the digital experience. There may still be a personal experience, but it is initiated by the customer.

Speakers

Matthias Kroner, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fidor Nigel Verdon, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Railsbank Olivier Guillaumond, Global Head of FinTech, ING Bank Piotr Skrabski, Vice President, Ailleron & General Manager in Business Division, LiveBank

Moderator: Bob Contri, Global Financial Services Industry Leader, Deloitte LLP


34

Big Tech to TechFin 3.00pm


The session started with the speakers’ sharing a perspective on technology in their business.

Daichi Iwata explained that Japan is deeply focused on FinTechs. Having been strongly encouraged to create

open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), banks are now focusing on understanding the best way to

collaborate with FinTechs as well as regulators and other stakeholders within the supply chain.

Geoff Jiang echoed that collaboration is currently the biggest challenge where most effort is being directed.

Increased collaboration will eventually enable services to be delivered at much lower costs and address the

unbanked segment.

For Sam Hunt, the biggest change is internal, with banks shifting from traditionally siloed structures, and

looking to drive innovation through partnerships, with an objective of improving customer experiences.

Scott Mullins agreed on the shift from disruption to collaboration, and innovation driving transformation of the

industry.

The speakers broadly agreed that banks will continue to exist, as there is inherent skills and knowledge which

provides value that cannot be found by TechFins. Furthermore, legacy banks and FinTechs cover the needs of

consumers to the extent that it is unlikely for non-banking organisations to move into the industry. The key

change will see banks working closely with technology firms to provide better customer service.

Data is at the core of enabling technology based solutions to succeed and flourish. Fundamentally, the privacy

and security of data need to be addressed in order to build trust with customers. Regulators may try to

address this issue by requiring localisation of data, and this may ultimately stifle innovation.

On the topic of blockchain, the speakers concurred that the real opportunity is part of a technology refresh -

moving from legacy solutions onto cloud based, distributed ledger solutions. In comparison to artificial

intelligence and machine learning, the benefits will take longer to realise, but this is a fundamental shift

required to support future evolution.

Ultimately, all technology developments are geared towards creating a better, more immersive customer

experience. To succeed, solutions must gain the trust of customers to encourage and grow adoption.

Speakers

Daichi Iwata, Head of FinTech Business Development Office, NEC

Geoff Jiang, Vice President, Ant Financial Sam Hunt, Director, APAC, Github Scott Mullins, Head of Worldwide Financial Services Business Development, Amazon Web

Services

Moderator: Thomas Krogh Jensen, Chief Executive Officer, Copenhagen FinTech


35

Future of Banking Enablers 4.00pm


Scott Robinson began the session by posing the question – who are the enablers? Arvind Sankaran noted that

e-commerce is a major driving factor in forcing banks to change their consumer models. Smita Aggrawal noted

that consumers are one of the major change drivers, more specifically, customer centricity and personalisation

of services. Martin Markiewicz was of the opinion that venture capitalists plays a huge role in creating a

sustainable ecosystem, while Jo Ann Barefoot noted that regulators have their own role to play to enable these

companies to thrive.

Robinson followed up by posing a question regarding the state of the market infrastructure. Markiewicz noted

that Singapore regulators are progressive and well perceived in other countries. Aggrawal noted that

infrastructure can continuously be improved to bring operational costs down for banks so that they can better

serve the underbanked and lower-income consumers. Sankaran agreed, adding that legacy systems need to

change with help of external innovators in a more collaborative environment.

So what does this mean for consumers? Barefoot noted that device penetration is on the rise, as such, banks

are pushing more and more offerings on mobile devices. However, she cautioned that with more opportunities

comes more vulnerabilities – this is an area where regulators and banks need to work together to mitigate

risk. Sankaran agreed, recognising that banks are looking to provide consumers with an omni channel

experience.

So what are some of the best practices moving forward? Aggrawal noted that bank offerings need to be

seamless and intuitive on the front end, and robust at the back end – hyper-personalisation using deep

learning analytics, and accessible by everyone. Markiewicz agreed, noting that backend processes need to be

robust to prevent financial crime and terrorism, put less burden on legitimate customers and provide a better

overall experience. Barefoot added that over trillions of dollars are laundered due to old technology and

analogue systems designed years ago – this needs to change. Sankaran agreed, noting that the best-in-class

banks invests heavily on IT and infrastructure.

So what are the challenges of fast moving technology? Barefoot cautioned that privacy is a big deal, and

customers expect institutions to do well in this regard. Sankaran noted that with better technology, customer

expectations will scale accordingly, and banks need to be able to handle that. In addition, better technology

comes with more risks, Markiewicz felt that companies and institutions should not be put off by this and

instead, innovate further to tackle these issues.

So will be technology companies replace banks? Sankaran did not think so – it is difficult to capture the entire

market, but certain segments and channels are possible. He saw a more collaborative ecosystem instead.

Barefoot disagreed, noting that the tech revolution is coinciding with a generational shift – and banks cannot

afford to lose the millennial market share to tech companies.

Speakers

Arvind Sankaran, Venture Partner, Jungle Ventures Jo Ann Barefoot, Chief Executive Officer, Barefoot Innovation Martin Markiewicz, Chief Executive Officer, Silent Eight Smita Aggrawal, Director Investments, Omidyar Network India Advisors Pvt Ltd

Moderator: Scott Robinson, Founder, Plug and Play FinTech


36

So how do the speakers see end customers impacting the direction of FinTech? Aggrawal thought that

customers are already making a huge impact, with their preferences and expectations, along with the

generational shift. Sankaran agreed – citing the shift to mobile devices and an appetite for immediate service.

Barefoot added that customers expect transparency, simplicity, and think that traditional banking products are

too complex, thus banks may also need to compete on trust.

In closing, Robinson asked the speakers how institutions can shift from legacy systems to new technology

without impacting customer experience. Aggrawal likened the situation to changing tires on a moving vehicle –

a problem that institutions need to tackle as soon as possible.


37

AMTD Stage: Global Investor Summit: FinTech

From PayPal to Lending Club – Investing in the best FinTech startups in the world and Investment Strategies in Startups 1.00pm Session by Saeed Amidi, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Plug & Play FinTech

Key points

Saeed Amidi opened the session by recognising Singapore as a financial hub in the Southeast Asia region with

a robust existing startup ecosystem.

Amidi introduced Plug & Play FinTech – a company that has accelerated over hundreds of startups and

invested in over 50 of them. Additionally, they run 50 accelerator programmes a year. Amidi mentioned that

technology is disrupting every sector and companies will need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant.

He mentioned that over 50 banks are members of Plug & Play FinTech, and the company assists banks by

connecting them with startups and in turn, the banks assist startups via their various programmes and

networks such as corporate partners and venture capitalists. Amidi mentioned that with their global footprint,

startups and partners alike can derive value from their network.

He mentioned how it was a privilege for him to be a part of many startups’ journeys – helping to find the best

tech startups, to invest in them, connect and to ultimately help the startups succeed.

In closing, Amidi expressed his wish to bring the same network and connections to Singapore. He noted

Singapore’s strategic location and Southeast Asia’s vast potential as key drivers for this wish. With Singapore

looking towards a smart nation vision, Amidi fully believes Plug & Play FinTech can be the major driver of

change in Southeast Asia.


38

Investment Strategies in Startups

1.00pm


Barbara Novick began the session by sharing that tech trends like big data and natural language processing

(NLP) were starting to find their feet in the Asset Management industry.

She touched on criticality of customer experience – how technology can facilitate a better experience as

customers these days expect a standardised experience in the end to end service provision. Additionally,

Novick touched on operational efficiency with emphasis on automation and artificial intelligence as its enablers

– something that she felt was vital to BlackRock.

Novick maintained that it is important to embrace technology, but equally, that there has to be a use case for

it. She spoke on how blockchain was hyped up two years ago, with various people approaching her telling her

what it can do, with no specific use cases. Today, Novick mentioned that BlackRock does have some ideas and

use cases for blockchain, but cautions that blockchain is not a magical solution. She likens it to the Dot.com

companies when the Internet was beginning to make its mark – everyone had ideas, but no one knew how to

monetizse them.

On the question of build or buy, Novick, using Blackrock as an example, noted initially they had nothing to buy

because their needs were too specific, so they had to build their own solutions. Today, they buy, invest and

partner with other companies. It is about finding the right companies and technologies that suit your business

needs.

Touching on cyber security and risk, Novick mentioned that companies today need to have robust security for

their business, and preventive measures can be undertaken with the help of new technologies. Novick also

noted that clients need to understand what the algorithms of robo advisors are, and to find one that suits their

needs. However, she felt that the hybrid approach – where humans and technology go hand in hand – is

relevant as clients still want the human touch for specific cases.

In conclusion, when responding to the next technology hype, Novick opined that machine learning had still not

realised its full potential, and a generational shift will allow for even more technologies to be embraced across

industries in the future.

Speaker

Barbara Novick, Vice Chairman, Blackrock

Moderator: Mark Beeston, Founder and Managing Partner, Illuminate Financial Management


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The FinTech Investment Landscape (Hosted by the Milken Institute) 2.00pm


Staci Warden opened up by asking each of the speakers what areas of the ecosystem need investment and

where they are putting their money. Jenny Lee replied that they are looking at companies that are capturing

emerging data from growing mobile penetration across the region that allows for better credit profiles, as well

as those focused on dealing with mobile wallet issues such as currency, security and verification.

Tang Ning shared that their key focus is finding the right people in each market that can bring both finance

and technology capabilities together. Tripp Shriner shared that their focus was on companies developing

infrastructure as this is common across markets.

Markus Gnirck stated that it depends on the market as they have different levels of sophistication but a key

development is in APIs as this enables companies to enter into partnership by sharing data and developing

stronger networks.

Warden stated that at a payments roundtable held by the Milken Institute, there were a lot of feedback about

the challenges in scaling across the region and asked if these infrastructure plays were loss leaders or if there

is an actual opportunity existing in the market. Shriner responded that in the US and Europe, the biggest

financial technology providers are the legacy infrastructure providers and so there is definitely an opportunity

to pursue this. If you focus on underlying technologies, you can avoid some local nuances. Gnirck added that

technology is the same everywhere, it comes down to who your local partners are that can help you scale. Lee

provided Alibaba as an example. Their introduction of Alipay could be seen as a loss leader but it has allowed

them to scale to other areas. Companies should have a longer term vision beyond being a loss leader; there

needs to be a plan beyond just building the infrastructure.

Warden asked the speakers what changes they are seeing in the venture capitalist (VC) market. Gnirck replied

that funds are getting larger but there is currently a support gap in early stage companies, and that investors

are also looking to provide more support beyond capital. Lee added that mobile user adoption is plateauing in

some regions, and companies are having to deal with growth issues. Investors are looking for “what's next” in

the consumer space that creates a new source of traffic. Southeast Asia and India still have some runway as

Internet adoption is still growing.

Warden asked if the speakers were walking away from any deals that are too expensive. Shriner responded

that in the growth stages there is too much funding happening without fully understanding what the long term

business economics looks like.

Warden closed off by asking the speakers what was the one idea they were most excited about. Gnirck

responded that insurance will be the next big thing with more customised offerings tailored towards needs.

Shriner's view was that financial services will become integrated into business software, be it existing

companies extending their offering or partnerships with technology providers. Tang's view was that the word

FinTech will disappear as this will be the new norm.

Speakers

Jenny Lee, Managing Partner, GGV Capital Markus Grnick, Co-founder and Director, Tryb Tang Ning, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CreditEase Tripp Shriner, Partner, Point 72 Ventures

Moderator: Staci Warden, Executive Director, Global Markets Development, Milken Institute


40

Investing for Better Consumer Health (Hosted by Omidyar Network) 3.00pm


Kabir Kumar started with the session stating that the next trend will be to address consumer financial health

and asked the speakers what bringing financial health to people means to them.

Cindy Ko started by introducing her venture capital (VC), Quona, which focuses on financial inclusion in

emerging markets (EM). She talked about two examples of companies Quona has invested in. The first one is

Coins.Ph that offers money remittance by partnering with retailers and banks, and leverages blockchain

technology to lower transaction costs. The second company, Coinworks, based in Indonesia, is an SME lending

platform that lends without requiring collateral. SMEs represent a significant share of the job market and

Indonesian economy but they remain largely shut out of the financial system because they cannot offer

collateral and/or have no credit history. Coinworks solves this by using alternative data such as transaction

history, point of sale (POS) information and social data to create credit risk profiles.

For Fernanda Lima, Leapfrog’s assessment of financial health provision is twofold. Firstly, demographic -

financial inclusion must target the low income segment and the companies must provide healthcare and/or

financial services. Secondly, beyond access, the services offered must be affordable, high quality and

meaningful.

Afeef Zaman’s startup is one that provides microfinancing to individuals using alternative ways of assessing

credit risk as outlined by Ko. He added that ShopUp supports both sides of the transaction by using data

collected to reduce lenders’ and NPL’s operating costs.

Kumar asserted that financial health is a new frontier. New problems that are being solved are those that help

workers to normalise their incomes to improve financial outcomes, and those that help retirees de-accumulate

assets, as examples. Kumar noted that there is no one solution but it is across the portfolio of ideas, and we

are moving in the right direction. He then asked the Ko and Lima to express, from an investor perspective,

how to balance the trade-off between the outcome they want from their portfolio companies and investment

profit. Both Lima and Ko maintained that there is no trade-off because the mission of their respective funds is

‘profit with purpose’

The discussion turned to Zaman when Kumar asked what a co-founder looks for in an investor. Zaman said he

was not even aware of ‘impact VCs’ when he started out so the principle he applied was ensuring that any

capital received would have basic principles ingrained in their investment model so that end-consumers would

not end up bearing the brunt of any friction in the model. He believes that whilst capital is important, it is

more important that an investor is able to provide access to networks and learning opportunities.

Kumar then asked Ko and Lim to explain the difference between a normal VC and an impact VC. Ko explained

that impact VCs engage with portfolio companies more actively because their mission is not just about

financial gain also purpose. Impact VCs tend to look at the nature of a target company’s business before

digging into its financials. So, even if the financials look good, if the social impact aspect is not there, they will

pass on the opportunity.

Speakers

Afeef Zaman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, ShopUp Cindy Ko, Venture Partner, Quona Fernanda Lima, Director of Investments, Leapfrog Investments

Moderator: Kabir Kumar, Director of Policy & Ecosystem Building, Omidyar Network


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Kumar then moved to the subject of privacy and how data is collected and managed. Zaman said that in

ShopUp’s case, alternative data is collected from largely uneducated folks who are unaware of the risks so

responsibility of the entire data lifecycle lies with ShopUp. They are currently looking at how to create opt-in’s

or how to collect data directly from the consumer’s platform so data stays within their systems. Lima added

that most of Leapfrog’s portfolio companies are regulated companies that are striving to be ahead of the

regulations curve in terms of data privacy.

Kumar then asked the speakers for examples of companies in the ASEAN region that are offering financial

health services beyond lending. Lima thought that ideas should extend beyond lending because although P2P

lending is a great model to connect lender and creditor thereby serving two needs but it remains difficult to

implement and oversee as responsibility must be taken for both sides. Kumar closed the discussion by adding

that services to generate alternative forms of income without having to depend on credit is another potential

service.

The Future FinTech Funding Model 4.00pm


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Sophie Mathur began by giving a background of a typical company’s traditional life cycle. She then invited the speakers to share their views on whether there is still place for venture capitalists (VCs) in the ecosystem amidst the different sources of funding in the current investment landscape. Robert Lempka started by sharing that every company has different objectives, products and investors. He shared that his company has chosen to raise funds through an IPO to raise public awareness as a financial institution. Public companies are always associated with trust and transparency, which is important for all

businesses. Laly David shared that OurCrowd views a company like any other VCs, which includes carrying out a deep due diligence process. She added that OurCrowd is a very transparent platform with regard to diligence documents and deal terms. However, the company has to be willing to be transparent as well.

Touching on the same topic of transparency, Julian Hosp added that part of the success of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) can be contributed to having a transparent process, ranging from the introduction of the team to the demonstration of the company’s product. Transparency reporting post-ICO keeps token holders

informed of the amount of cash held, salary and earn rates. However, out of the thousands of ICOs, only few companies provide such reports post-ICO. Transparency of a startup may bring about scrutiny, however, finding a balance is what is truly important.

From the perspective of a listed company, Lempka stated that listing and compliance requirements such as investor relations and quarterly reporting adds a lot of controls and discipline in the business processes of the organisation, which also sets a foundation for further growth. Hosp shared his experience of obtaining additional funding through ICO in addition to the initial funding from angel investors and VCs. He stated that the VCs remained open-minded regarding the ICO decision, and believes that it is important for startups to have a long-term vision. VC funding and ICO processes are

completely different. The variance ranges from type and number of people involved, Know Your Customer (KYC) processes and in seeking advice and input. David stated that OurCrowd is looking to convert more and more inactive investors from their platform into active investors. There remains a challenge in leveraging the crowd wisely to find opportunity and value-added

investors, at the same time ensuring not much noise is created for the entrepreneur. She added that there is

quarterly reporting to the investors, which involves, at a minimum level, what investors needs to know to be comfortable and, at a maximum level, what entrepreneurs are willing to share. Though reporting is not required under regulatory requirements, such engagement with investors is important to support future rounds of funding. She also believes that companies should stay private longer to grow their value. As a concluding advice to startups considering funding options, speakers agreed that companies should factor in the length and duration of process involved, keep in mind the importance of leveraging the crowd, and

building strategic connections and partnerships.

GIC Stage: Global Investor Summit: Beyond FinTech

Speakers

Brian Thung, ASEAN Financial Services Managing Partner, Ernst & Young LLP

Laly David, Partner, Asia, OurCrowd Dr Julian Hosp, Co-Founder and President, TenX Robert Lempka, Chief Executive Officer, Ayondo Ltd

Moderator: Sophie Mathur, Corporate Partner and Global Co-head of Innovation, Linklaters


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Building Businesses Across Borders 1.00pm


Matthew Gamser started the session by inviting the speakers to share their cross-border experience.

Rudy Ramawy expressed that some of the core business fundamentals such as consistencies of the distribution

network and unit economies remain important today. One important factor that he discovered over the past

few years is the ability to quickly and cheaply iterate market strategy and product offerings, which gives the

company the agility and efficiency as it expands overseas.

Joey A. Concepcion shared that his learnings over the past few years as an entrepreneur has brought him to a

different platform. He stated that big businesses need to start looking at how to be more inclusive in their

structure by embracing local businesses as part of the supply chain. Concepcion emphasised that we should

build a more resilient economy for all, instead of just benefitting a few companies. The fourth industrial

revolution will change the game. Combining mentorship, money, market and FinTech will allow for greater

access to the markets.

In growing businesses, Melvyn Pun shared that one way to learn is to study the playbook of other countries,

pick up what makes sense and adapt from it. Robert Yap added that it is important we encourage companies

to grow responsibly and contribute to the community. He believes in partnerships and providing mentoring to

businesses while allowing them to grow. Yap further shared the foundation values - RISE – Reliability,

Integrity, Sincerity and Enterprise - which has allowed his company to be future ready and relevant.

Technology has also helped create a platform for his company to reach out to a network of partners.

Touching on the topic of technology, Ramawy added that it is crucial to have the right technology and

partnership regardless of which area of the world you are expanding into. We cannot do with just technology

alone, the key lies in building an ecosystem through partnerships. The concept of building an ecosystem is

more important than beating competition.

Gamser then invited the speakers to share the pros and cons in building a business across ASEAN countries.

Yap started by sharing that companies tend to have a certain DNA with established corporate cultures and

values. However, when entering a foreign country, businesses will usually try to localise or sensitise their

branding accordingly. The branding also helps the company attract talent, hence combining the strong local

character within a common system.

In sharing some of the keys to building an effective cross-border team, Concepcion stated that developing a

good partner relationship takes time and patience. There should be a match in terms of competence and

culture and the companies should complement and respect each other in the partnership.

Speakers

Joey A. Concepcion, Chairman and CEO of RFM Corp, Presidential Consultant for Entrepreneurship

Melvyn Pun, Chief Executive Officer, Yoma Strategic Holdings Ltd Robert Yap, Chairman, YCH Group Rudy Ramawy, Managing Partner, Venturra Capital

Moderator: Matthew Gamser, Chief Executive Officer, SME Finance Forum, International Finance

Corporation (IFC)


44

Yap added that in today’s business environment, it is crucial to employ staff with passion who are able to fit

into the DNA of the company. This would allow like-minded people to work together as a team and bring the

company to greater heights.

In response to whether it is better to enter into a partnership with an organisation or build new businesses,

Pun stated that a winning formula consisting of a team with drive and talent is hard to come by. Buying a

business may bring additional baggage. A company can look into a partnership if there is the right expertise

and trust. He strongly believes in building a business from scratch only if there is enough knowledge and

knowhow.

Pun also shared that it is important sometimes to bring in a change agent as a catalyst for faster development

of the business.

As a closing note, the speakers concluded that technology and real-time data now allows for faster decision

making, contributing to business success. Businesses should remain aware of their surroundings, remain

focused on the core business and ride with the ASEAN wind.

Capital Raising Strategies: ASEAN and Beyond 2.00pm


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Amitava Guharoy kicked off the session by highlighting the increasing importance of the private market. He

confirmed, in 2017, the money raised in the United States in the public markets was significantly lower than

the amount raised in the private markets, and this was similar for ASEAN.

Matthew Song highlighted four key differences between the private and public exchange – regulatory

oversight, investor pool that each exchange offers, valuation methodologies and transaction cost.

Kaidi Ruusalepp noted that trust, irrespective of the exchange type, depends on two points - trust in the

issuer, and trust in the operator and intermediaries. Ruusalepp stressed that the main focus for the exchange

should be to serve the issuers who need the money and for investors who want to invest. Greg Brogger added

that the trust placed on the exchange is often mistaken for the rate of success of the companies on the

exchange, however, each exchange serves a different purpose in a company’s lifecycle.

Rebecca Victoria Smith shared that being listed on a public exchange adds credibility to the company and

signifies that the company is a permanent fixture in the economy, owing to the corporate governance regime

and requirements of the exchange.

Brogger gave examples of how private markets are becoming deeper, owing to the larger number of

companies choosing to stay private for a longer time. Ruusalepp noted that the price of capital in the private

market is often lower than that in public markets, primarily due to increased regulations. As such, public

markets are no longer an option or, for some companies, if at all only an exit option.

Song commented that the two markets are complementary of each other. Private markets are quite

fragmented, whereas every public exchange has a standard format and timeline that issues and investors are

used to. Private markets are more driven by high net-worth individuals or other funds (for example, pension

funds) who can take a longer term position. Public markets, on the other hand, investors tend to be a bit more

impatient and focus more on track record quarter on quarter.

Smith, while concurring with Song, highlighted that NASDAQ has a private exchange as well, and provides

consultation and guidance to companies to help them decide whether to go public or not, and when. Brogger

envisioned a future marketplace where investors could invest in any type of security (a token, digitised

security, common stock or private stock), and focus on what the company is actually doing with the money

rather than the type of security itself.

Song noted that technological companies might find it challenging to obtain traditional bank funding. This is

one reason why a company would need to go from private funding to public funding.

From a geographic aspect, Brogger mentioned that the private market concept started primarily in the United

States, however, there is definitely a need and trend for private exchanges and markets to expand to be more

global and cater to non-US investors and issuers.

Speakers

Greg Brogger, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, SharePost Inc. Kaidi Ruusalepp, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Funderbeam Matthew Song, Senior Vice President, SGX Rebecca Victoria Smith, Head of Listings and Capital Markets, APAC ex-China, Nasdaq

Moderator: Amitava Guharoy, Asia Pacific TAS Markets, Accounts & Business Development Leader,

Ernst & Young Solutions LLP


46

The session closed with each speaker sharing their vision for private exchanges in the future. Smith noted that

NASDAQ does feel that private exchanges are an important way to serve the market, and will continue to

grow. Song spoke about the three different platforms in Singapore (private exchange, catalyst platform and

public exchange) catering to the different types of investors and issuers. He sees the private exchanges

consolidating in future. Ruusalepp shared that technology, including blockchain, will make private exchanges

even more accessible. Brogger shared that it used to be the case that entrepreneurs looked forward to going

public as a destination itself. However, this has now changed and he wonders what would then drive the

entrepreneur to seek the public market in the future.

Private Investor Leaders’ Dialogue 3.00pm


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John Tang started the session by discussing the evolution of private equity in Asia and the parallels to be

drawn for Southeast Asia. Lim Meng Ann, who has prior experience in the China private equity (PE) market,

shared the evolution of China in this area. He said that China had less than a billion dollar’s worth of PE

transactions in 2002, and this has increased manifolds by 2017. Lim cited the reason for the explosion as

largely due to the increased acceptance among private entrepreneurs. China’s inflection point happened in

2004 when some big firms were listed by private equity, spurring huge market acceptance and propelled

growth. Beyond China’s open mindset, another phenomenal taking place in the country is its invention of new

business models that has seen new businesses such as Mo-bike take flight and provide inspiration to the SEA

region.

Comparing China and US investment portfolios, Rajeev Natarajan shared that the two markets had both

similarities and differences. In terms of the similarities, both are large market exhibitors with homogenous

demographics, thus offering a relative ease in their ability to scale. On the differences, Natarajan said that

China has a consumer consumption history whereas US is more diversified in its investment opportunities

where there are huge opportunities in enterprise portfolios such as cloud, governance and security. Second,

Natarajan explained that China is still a relatively “closed market” where success is intrinsically linked to

onshore relationships and foreign businesses may not have cards stacked in their favour.

Kenny Ho shared that Alibaba’s expansion journey into Southeast Asia (SEA) and India is very much based on

the company’s vision to focus on strategic investments that will allow them to serve different customer needs.

He shared Alibaba’s three-prong approach in terms of investments. The first is core commerce, second is

entertainment and third is local services. These guide their investments and their ability to generate synergies.

Ho explained that SEA and India are markets in their early stages. Indonesia, as an example, has immense

potential for growth in e-commerce.

Natarajan’s view is for founders to properly evaluate capital investments through the lenses of business cycle

and stage, and to have a view on whether the capital investment is an enabler to “win” the market quickly or

merely just a “gun to your head”. The capital investment has to help ramp up the business. Ho added that

Alibaba sees investments as partnerships, both sides will have to benefit and it goes beyond mere capital.

In terms of the challenge and opportunities faced in Southeast Asia, Lim commented that the transaction

volume of PE has not grown because of the non-homogenous nature of the region. He explained that the level

of integration between countries in SEA is low and that means companies are challenged to scale up quickly.

He further added that the buy-out market has not taken off due to the norm that family businesses have to be

passed down through generations. In his view, such a mindset is a huge impediment to the acceptance of PE.

Lim said that Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have been the most active compared to Thailand and the

Philippines who may have strong GDP growth but have economies that are dominated by family

conglomerates, leaving few opportunities for private equity.

Natarajan concurred with Lim. He added that the jurisdictional setup in SEA is a real challenge. The SEA

ecosystem, while vibrant, tends to reach a phase where companies either tap out or are sufficiently funded to

become regional. Highlighting a recent deal in sports media by his company, Natarajan observed that the

heterogeneous nature of SEA becomes homogenous when it comes to sports.

Speakers

Kenny Ho, Managing Director, Alibaba Inc Lim Meng Ann, Head of Private Equity, Asia-Pacific, CDPQ Singapore Rajeev Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer-APAC, Iconiq Capital

Moderator: John Tang, Managing Director, Global Head, Global Investments, Strategy & Risk, Private

Equity, GIC Private Limited


48

Moving to the topic of “hard tech” like artificial intelligence as compared to “soft tech” like online shopping and

social apps, Ho shared that an overall ecosystem is made of many smaller companies in a very long value-

chain. He noted that e-commerce is still in its early stages for SEA, and there is the potential for offline firms

to scale up. In that light, Kenny shared that “hard tech” like cloud and hardware will become needful when

SEA companies scale up with large volumes of data and will require strong and economical solutions to aid in

the data management process. At that point, it will be unsurprising to see a higher level of adoption for SaaS

products.

Tang termed China the new “Saudi Arabia” because data is fast becoming recognised as the “new oil” and

probed the speakers for thoughts on the privacy issues and regulations. Natarajan said that data integrity and

the regulatory response are hot topics. For SEA, the biggest issue is data sovereignty. A company would rather

spend more money to set up a data warehouse in Singapore as compared to Indonesia that could be 50%

cheaper because of the risks of data sovereignty. For entrepreneurs, this is an even greater challenge. Data is

the single most strategic asset for companies today and the pressures to maintain integrity are mounting. In

this regard, regulators will need to determine the equilibrium and respond accordingly.

Closing the session, Tang asked the speakers for their advice on what they deemed as useful traits for

entrepreneurs. Lim shared that integrity is a given. He also added other factors like track record of success,

alignment of interests between the founder and the investors, and the founder’s ability to form and retain a

professional management team.

Natarajan concurred with Lim. He added that SEA lacks the ability to celebrate failure. He said that the

learning lessons from failure is incredibly useful for founders. He added that founder-led businesses tend to be

the most successful but shared that many founders tend to become ceremonial leaders who no longer continue

to front the company. Natarajan closed by saying that startups who can see the writing on the wall should fail

quickly and move on.

Ho added that founders must understand the problem to be solved and be laser-focused in doing that.

Fireside Chat with Facebook Co-founder and Fireside chat with Go-Jek President 4.00pm Fireside Chat with Facebook Co-founder Eduardo Saverin


49

Key discussion points Eduardo Saverin kick-started the session by remarking that his Facebook experience was incredibly humbling as it first started out with an unambitious model and business idea, yet the size and scope of the company is now unimaginable. With that, he believed that technological innovation will continue to impact more industries and generate more opportunities than one can visualise. Huge opportunity factors exist in a large underbanked population and the high mobile penetration rate. As such, he sees financial services as a huge focus.

Raj Ganguly commented that the financial services industry is highly integrated with many other industries. For instance, payments process is something most take for granted in e-commerce and the best technology is one that users do not take note of. Also, without banks providing funding, people would not be able to purchase high value assets such as cars and properties. In the aspect of health insurance, this industry is well tied-in with the wellness and healthcare industry. Hence, this industry is one that goes beyond its own and is therefore the evolution of FinTech.

Ganguly continued to note that the next big thing in FinTech would be the rise of mobile wallets. It was slow to pick up in the US but now it has come to the emerging markets. When B Capital first invested in mobile wallet companies, they did not expect it to be an industry with high growth, especially in India where transactions are still mainly done with cash. Despite so, he observed that opportunities in FinTech do not just begin in the Silicon Valley but in emerging markets as well.

Moreover, one can also see the trend in the transformation of large financial institutions (FIs). In the past decade, these FIs have employed many in the areas of Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money

Laundering (AML) as they have realised the implication of being non-compliant can drive one out of business. Given the huge manpower resources needed, this presents companies with an opportunity to tap on artificial intelligence (AI) to cut cost and serve customers better.

Another aspect in FinTech that we should be concerned about is the potential threat it brings to the financial services industry. An increasing number of non-banking companies are entering into the payments and the lending market as these companies have discovered the importance and value that data can bring. Ganguly then touched on the insurance industry and how InsurTech has become a huge thing in the past five years. Saverin commented that this industry is one that has not innovated much up until the past few years. The goal would be to transform it into a tech-enabled platform and have touch platforms with the individual

end-user. From the data layer, companies would be able to utilise technology to engage with consumers, and further reduce medical costs. This is evident from Project ECHO India, which is a collaborative model of medical education and care management that empowers clinicians everywhere to provide better care to more people, increasing the accessibility of healthcare.

Furthermore, Saverin pondered on how the insurance model will radically transform with the introduction of

autonomous driving. Insurance providers have also mentioned how a bulk of their employees are involved in paper claim management and Saverin foresees that this will change in the future. More nimble claims process is needed. Nonetheless, Saverin urged companies to remember the core of insurance – providing a peace of mind to customers. The industry will hence evolve in that direction, with the aid of technology. Lastly, both speakers discussed the trend of collaboration between large FIs and FinTech startups. It is noted that such collaboration breeds innovation as startups are generally more agile and can complement large FIs

which are slower to innovate. On the other hand, given the highly regulated nature of the financial industry, startups will need to leverage on the huge capital, customer base and huge data of FIs in order to scale up fast. Fireside Chat with Go-Jek President Andre Soelystio

Speakers

Eduardo Saverin, Co-Founder and Partner, B Capital Raj Ganguly, Co-founder and Partner, B Capital Group


50

Key discussion points Solmaz Altin kick-started the session with the history of the Allianz partnership with Go-Jek. The outcome of the partnership resulted in providing customers with 24/7 online assistance, and the premium is being charged at 17 cents per day per person, with payment being made via a mobile wallet. In all, it is a highly innovative business model.

Andre Soelystio added that this business model allowed customers to feel safe, especially in a country where

medical coverage is not well established. Subsequent years of the partnership saw both companies exploring how to decouple financial services products and how to contribute. For instance, due to the Go-Pay wallet, it has exposed the company to more data and transactions that they initially did not have any records on.

In terms of the roles and capabilities that Go-Jek can contribute to the partnership, Soelystio highlighted that they are a consumer internet platform, and not a financial services company like Allianz. Hence, this partnership was viewed as a very open-minded one. Some of the ideas discussed were to reduce friction in the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process, risk management and creation of event-based insurance product. Basically, Go-Jek’s priority is to provide a 10 x user experience. Altin remarked that this partnership did not come naturally. For traditional financial institutions like Allianz, it is

common to package products and it required a change in mentality to “pull” customers instead of “pushing” products to them. He added that the partnership has pushed Allianz further to rethink about what is truly beneficial for its consumers. He then elaborated on how the dynamics has now shifted to one where co-existence of big and small companies is possible. In order to capture the potential benefits of the partnership, Allianz was compelled to

modify its legacy system to interface with ones used by start-ups like Go-Jek. Soelystio agreed and praised the

openness of Allianz to companies like Go-Jek. When asked about how Allianz had come to the decision to partner with Go-Jek, Altin replied that it was not an easy decision and there were many rounds of discussion. The management had a consensus that the bottom line was to ensure that the core of the company remained. He then commented that this was a dedicated and strategic decision, rather than one that is profit-oriented.

Thereafter, Soelystio observed that through this partnership, both companies had learned from one another. In his view, Go-Jek learned about risk computation, operations and back-end processes. Soelystio continued to state that Go-Jek is not a transport company, but rather one that creates customer solutions, understanding the needs of their customers, and finding their “a-ha” moments. For example, their mobile wallet function was initially based on a “top-up” function but has changed into one that is post-paid.

This is a result of a statistic obtained from its consumers where it was discovered that most customers performed top-ups six times a month. Hence, the change to post-paid function has helped to reduce friction in

the customer’s user experience.

Google Cloud Stage: AI in Finance

Innovating with AI – The Future of Financial Services 1.00pm

Speakers

Andre Soelystio, President, Go-Jek Solmaz Altin, Deputy Regional Chief Executive Officer Asia Pacific, Allianz, SE, Singapore Branch


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Innovating with AI – The Future of Financial Services by Jessica Tan, Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operation Officer, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd

Key points Jessica Tan opened the session by sharing her desire to cover artificial intelligence (AI) in financial services, and OneConnect for the financial ecosystem in the stipulated time. As a leading integrated financial group in China, Ping An makes about US$14 billion a year in net profit despite

being a relatively young organisation with a 30-year-old history. The company started out with only 13 employees. It has grown rapidly owing to numerous licenses obtained in China and a focus on investing in technology. Tan explained that the latter was possible as Ping An strongly

believes in serving customers as their top priority. Ping An offers a wide variety of services including asset management and banking. The company places

technology at its forefront and this drove its transformation efforts in the past few years. In particular, they focus on using AI in financial services. In the world of AI, Tan believes there has been two pitfalls – the first being in the 1970s due to the lack of computing power and processing speed. The second was evident in the 1990s as there was a lack of data to support it. Nonetheless, she believes that the next few years is a conducive environment for AI to grow as

there are sufficient business scenarios and extensive real life data. With Ping An’s company size and structure, it is capable of using big data to create further breakthroughs in AI. Currently, Ping An’s strengths in AI are in HealthTech and FinTech. Tan noted that the development of AI comprises three stages - newborn, learning and expert stage. The newborn stage is to develop its recognition ability to see, hear and speak / read. The learning stage can be

sub-divided into two types – structured and non-structured learning. The former relates to what is explicitly

taught, while the latter can be compared to the environment that one is brought up in. This is defined as machine learning. Incorporating structured learning is challenging as it requires experience and data collected over a period of time. The last stage is the expert stage and this relates to developing professional solutions, which will ultimately aid individuals to live a life of higher quality. Besides AI use cases in claims and loans, the company has also deployed voice robots in call centres and years

were spent training the robots to possess the knowledge of Ping An’s wide-ranging products and countless types of questions from customers so they could respond appropriately. The same can also be said for healthcare imaging, which enhanced accuracy to allow illnesses to be detected in advance and prevent customers from falling ill in the first place. Ping An’s OneConnect for the financial ecosystem provides cloud computing and other technology services to

small and medium-sized financial institutions in China. In the current year, the company has decided to put it up for offer to invite more shareholders as they strongly value collaboration and combining strengths from various companies. In conclusion, Tan believes there are huge opportunities for tech companies and FIs, including themselves, to work together.


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AI Powerhouses: A Spotlight on the US & China 1.20pm

Key discussion points Jonathan Weber opened the session by getting the speakers to compare the strengths and weaknesses between China and US on their use of artificial intelligence (AI). Helen Liang responded that the US is more advanced in its research element, while China has a greater amount of data and applications but its usage is

subjected to tightening regulations in the near future. Steven White commented that the spirit of innovation is stronger in China as the Chinese companies tend to take a “try first, strategise later” approach. Moreover, they are more willing to go beyond their pre-fixed constraints whereas US companies tend to take on a more compartmentalised approach. Liang explained that this difference in approach largely arises from the fierce competition present in China.

When asked about the difference in the ecosystem between players in AI for both countries, White pointed out that there is a strong sense of collaboration between its players. This comprised of universities, society, government and corporations where all are going in the same direction to encourage more interaction and

cooperation. Conversely in the US, the push for AI comes from government organisations and on how they can adopt and adapt to it.

Weber then queried on whether the speakers would like to highlight any companies or institutions that conduct sophisticated research in AI that are less known by the public. Liang replied that DeepMind Technologies is one company that does a lot in healthcare as well as game-theory insights. On another point, White remarked that in the US, there are lesser employees having a dual role – apart from working, one would also contribute to universities in their scientific research on AI. He then emphasised on the need to draw talent from various backgrounds including philosophy, psychology and other interdisciplinary research oriented fields.

Next, Weber invited the speakers to highlight the most important application used in AI today. In Liang’s view, it would be facial recognition as it is widely used in security customs, traffic control and banking systems. White added that the education and healthcare industry have also experienced a huge change with the advent of AI. Elderly care has been established as a focus area by the China government. Liang agreed, and further remarked that this is evident in the creation of a virtual nurse which will be able to attend to patients 24 hours a day.

When questioned on whether AI-driven financial services would matter in the short term, Liang commented that this would mean adopting robo advisors in investment banks which would entail hiring students from elite schools to analyse charts and graphs.

Speakers

Helen Liang, Managing Partner, FoundersX Ventures Steven White, Professor, Department of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategy, School of

Economics & Management, Tsinghua University

Moderator: Jonathan Weber, Global Technology Editor, Reuters


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AI for ASEAN 2.00pm


Charles Ross started the session by sharing that by 2030, countries with proactive government support for

artificial intelligence (AI) could boost their GDP.

Campbell Wilson shared his views on the transformational impact and use case of AI in the airlines industry. In

particular, the use case of AI facial recognition to automate lounge access, augmenting a seamless customer

experience. Other use cases include using AI to predict aircraft maintenance to enhance operational efficiency.

In the banking industry, traditionally vast data is collected as customer, transactions and credit payment

information. Samuel Tsien commented that AI provides the ability to incorporate internal bank data with

external big data information to explore and provide a much more valuable insight than before. The

accessibility of external data enables the bank to understand and analyse in-depth a consumer’s expected

behaviour, thus providing banks the opportunity to customise the customer experience journey per their

interest. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) monitoring could also be enhanced by AI with consumer behavioural

learning and pattern identification. In addition, using AI will augment values beyond what is already available

internally within the banks.

The discussion went on to explore other benefits that AI could provide to organisations. The speakers

commented that AI has helped identify untapped market opportunities not previously considered in consumer

value creation. However, they also acknowledged that AI can cause job disruption and related social

implications.

The speakers concurred that AI breaks down barriers to create an opportunity for inclusiveness. Banks have

started to focus on small business portfolios, specifically profiling and predicting their ability to successfully

absorb financial products and services.

Dr. Sutapa Amornvivat touched on the topic of regulatory challenges and impediment for AI analytics in a

blockchain. In particular, the impact of GDPR regulations and the deletion of customer’s data. She emphasised

that data ownership should lie with the original owner. Moving into the future, the regulators from around the

region should come together for a transnational regulation reform and synchronisation of efforts. ASEAN, in

particular, can come together to integrate regulations in an effort to break down the challenges of AI and

automation.

On the topic of partnership opportunity for AI, Steve Leonard commented that partnerships have become a

necessity, and not a choice for innovation and transformation. External partners enable interdisciplinary

industry, technology and academia knowledge that lead to robust and innovative solution developments.

Providing a sandbox project environment is key to test the solution against a problem statement.

Types of partnership can include public-private partnership where the government provides an open

anonymised data source. Public-public partnerships are trending in the direction of technology community/ies

space where tech citizens, including academia, can come together to share like-minded ideas and platform

ecosystems.

Speakers

Campbell Wilson, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Singapore Airlines Dr. Sutapa Amornvivat, Chief Executive Officer, SCB Abacus Samuel Tsien, Group Chief Executive Officer, OCBC Bank Steve Leonard, Founding CEO, SGInnovate

Moderator: Charles Ross, Editorial Director, The Economist Intelligence Unit


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In closing, the speakers reviewed the fear of AI replacing the human workforce and agreed that AI has the

ability to process up to level 4 (intelligent process) derivatives in the market today. But AI will not be able to

entirely replace human intelligence which is highly versatile and eight times more in terms of derivatives

quantification comparison. The human to human interaction and relationship will continue to remain.


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Unlocking the Employees Virtual Wallet with AI and AI Investment – The Financier’s Perspective 3.00pm Unlocking the Employees Virtual Wallet with AI by Rosaline Chow Koo, Founder & Chief Executive

Officer, CXA Group

Key points

Rosaline Chow Koo set up the CXA Group to provide a platform that offers services beyond employee benefits.

The platform is a one-stop solution for employees to file their reimbursements, track personal demographic

and lifestyle habits, document doctor visits, and learn more about health and wellness issues that matter to

them. It helps employees gain health awareness through an individual private dashboard. It also provides

access to wellness services that allows employees to closely monitor their health.

CXA offers white label solutions for bigger enterprises to sell the artificial intelligence (AI) service to their

clients. It is looking to extend its offerings to employees of SMEs as well. The company is also developing tools

for analysing employee performance by monitoring their health and wellness patterns.

AI Investment – The Financier’s Perspective


The session opened with a discussion on autonomous vehicles (AV) to outline the role of artificial intelligence

(AI) in our daily lives. Samir Kumar noted that the AV industry is one of the most exciting and emerging

industries that has combined advances in multiple technologies such as deep learning and computer visioning.

When vertically stacked into the application of transport, these technologies have the potential to be game-

changers of the future. That is why investors continue to show interest in AV and its relevant elements, even if

startups do not show scalability or lack the ability to generate revenue at the moment. Kumar also observed

that many of the recent high-profile exits in the AV-related technologies were for talent, data or knowhow but

not for the business soundness of the startup.

Kumar also focused his attention to autonomous manufacturing. He noted that a lot of production processes

are still manual, and that significant opportunities existed in digitally mapping the process by running through

AI to find areas for optimisation.

The confluence of such trends gives rise to more tangible results, and this elevates the promise of these

technologies to deliver benefits in a more scalable and adaptive manner. With all that being said, data

preparation still remains as a key challenge, and companies that want to reap the benefits of these

technologies will need to put in resources and have a data strategy to know how to handle the requirements,

he noted.

On Stefania Palma’s prompt on who should set standards on the grey areas of ethics and privacy issues to

avoid these festering into insurmountable problems for the society, Kumar felt that self-regulation within the

industry was insufficient and some external regulation was necessary as well.

Speaker

Samir Kumar, Managing Director, M12, Microsoft Venture Fund

Moderator: Stefania Palma, Singapore Correspondent, Financial Times


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This would be a problem without a clean solution, he noted, and it would require dedicated resources and

focus by both businesses and regulators in this space. Kumar was also optimistic that in the grand scheme of

things, AI would ultimately create more jobs and assist human work, and not make humans redundant.


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Responsible AI 4.00pm


Nicolas Chapados opened by explaining artificial intelligence (AI) as a new way of writing software. AI

governance goes beyond data quality, integrity and security and it should focus on three areas. First, the

intent of the system which should be made clear and explicit. Second, the need to monitor and orchestrate the

right feedback mechanisms. Third, conducting risk assessment to identify potential issues and implementing

self-monitoring mechanisms in the system.

Jesse McWaters felt that responsible AI is about figuring out the new mechanisms, regulations and governance

protocols that will enable us to take financial services to the next level. Shameek Kundu provided a different

perspective by sharing examples on what “irresponsible AI” would be, which is to select or choose to use AI in

an area that is not yet ready for AI, or to not enforce proper accountability for issues arising from the use of

AI. He however, pointed out that it would also be irresponsible not to use AI if it is able to promote safer and

more efficient ways of operating.

While considering responsible AI implementation, Chapados shared different aspects of data governance.

There is the aspect of performance management – this refers to whether the AI is delivering results at a level

of accuracy and performance that meets expectation. Other aspects include security concerns for the data

collected and used by AI, and privacy concerns for the collected data.

Gal Danit enquired on the current applications of responsible AI, to which Kundu pointed out that primary use

of AI has not yet been on customer interface. The prevalent use of AI has been in risk management, especially

in banks.

On the topic of future for responsible AI in the global financial ecosystem, McWaters believes there will be

improved decision making, customisation, specialisation and interconnectivity.

One of the variables Danit referred to as her inspiration is the automation paradox, which says that the more

competent the system, an equally competent user has to be to manage it. She drew on the similarity of this

paradox to responsible AI, where it is the operator of the AI that ultimately assumes responsibility for the AI.

The automation paradox gives rise to three problems:

1. A good system corrects our mistakes automatically, including those that we may not be aware of.

2. It does not allow us to practice things that we would have practiced before, quoting calculus as an

example.

3. When an issue arises, an immense amount of competence is required to replace the machine and to

understand what went wrong initially.

These means that in order to use AI responsibly, greater investment on human capital is necessary.

Speakers

Nicolas Chapados, Chief Science Officer, Element AI

R. Jesse McWaters, Financial Innovation Lead, World Economic Forum Shameek Kundu, Chief Data Officer, Standard Chartered Bank

Moderator: Gal Danit, Assistant Professor, Cyber Civilizations Research Center, Keio University


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Before concluding the session, Danit pointed out that MAS has recently issued guiding principles to promote

Fairness, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency (FEAT) in the use of AI and data analytics in Singapore’s

financial sector.

Kundu shared topics that were discussed prior to the issuance of these principles. First, who the principles will

apply to. It is paramount that everyone who is involved in the development and provision of financial services

be included within the scope. Second, degree of transparency that should be around AI and lastly, whether AI

should be held to the same ethical standards as humans.

McWaters felt that there should be a clear rationale for why data is being used, especially considering the

availability of data and the analytic capabilities of AI. On this, Chapados noted that AI should be a good

representation of the human user, thus reflecting the same ethical standards that we hold ourselves against.

Documents

Singapore FinTech Festival Conference 2018 Day 3 key ... · The FinTech Investment Landscape (Hosted by the Milken Institute) 39 Investing for Better Consumer Health (Hosted by Omidyar