The 7th edition of the Singapore FinTech Festival was a fantastic experience and excellent opportunity to network, catch up with old friends and make new contacts. Besides representing Blacksmith KYC I’ve been mentoring fellow #fintech seeking advice on a broad variety of topics such as scaling options, sales strategies, female leadership and how to balance work and private life. This also led to some really inspiring and energizing conversations during this 3-day event.
Now that the dust has settled, it’s a good time to look back on this vibrant event and reflect on the key takeaways from our #sff2022 experience:
1. Growing importance of ESG in the FinTech Industry
SFF 2022’s theme: Viable, Responsible and Inclusive is clearly reflected in the growing importance of #esg -related topics within the FinTech industry. This year, the exhibition even had its own ‘ESG FinTech Zone‘ where ESG fintechs, financial institutions, and real economy players were able to showcase solutions that meet ESG data and disclosure challenges faced by companies worldwide.
2. Regulators are cracking down on FinTechs
The global FinTech market was well represented at SFF 2022 which attracted FinTechs from all over the world and in all shapes and sizes. Ranging from well-established multimillion dollar FinTech companies to small-scale start-ups in their bootstrapping phase and everything in between. It is clear that the FinTech industry is not only huge, it is also growing exponentially. What’s more, it is obvious that the lines separating traditional financial institutions and innovative FinTechs are becoming increasingly blurred. Regulators and data protection authorities are scrambling to keep up with the fast-growing FinTech industry and are constantly looking for ways to impose more effective regulations on FinTechs.
3. Digital Assets and Web 3.0
Innovative FinTech solutions based on web3.0 and #digitalassets were another hot topic at SFF. This was an excellent opportunity to get an impression of the newest developments is this area and how FinTechs are taking the lead in integrating innovative technologies in the financial services industry. SFF offered us a tantalizing glimpse of what the future may have in store for us as far as Digital Assets and Web 3.0 are concerned.
4. The benefits of combining Big Data and FinTech
As Blacksmith’s representatives at the event, we participated in a conference on the role of Big Data in FinTech, which was co-organised by WeWork and European Chamber of Commerce, Singapore (EuroCham Singapore). Thanks to #bigdata , Financial Services companies can explore new products and services, personalise their products and services and improve the customer journey. Swiss Re gave an interesting example of using medical and health data from wearables to better tailor insurance products. There was also lot of emphasis on the importance of managing bias in #artificialintelligence (AI) by making #machinelearning (ML) and AI algorithms transparent. White box AI is definitely a trending topic as more and more consumers, regulators and companies expect full disclosure on the data used and the processing and decisioning paths. As Blacksmith, we contributed by explaining how Big Data can support #knowyourcustomer and #antimoneylaundering efforts by processing large data sets and revealing certain insights which would not be possible with just manual work.
It was great to not only attend this event but to also contribute and exchange ideas with so many like-minded people who are pushing the boundaries of innovation to take on today’s challenges in the financial sector and beyond. We’re already looking forward to attending the Singapore FinTech Festival 2023!
Nynke Postma, CEO Blacksmith KYC
