Singapore Fintech Fest sees more than 25,000 participants from over 100 countries this year

The second Singapore Fintech Festival will feature talks from global fintech experts, an innovation lab crawl, an award ceremony recognising promising startups and several networking events. PHOTO: TWITTER / SGFINTECHFEST

SINGAPORE - The second Singapore Fintech Festival began on Monday, hosting more than 25,000 participants from over 100 countries.

The week-long festival is organised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in partnership with The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) and in collaboration with SingEx Holdings.

It will feature talks from global fintech experts, an innovation lab crawl, an award ceremony recognising promising startups and several networking events.

A new feature this year is the Investor Summit or "Deal Day", which will provide an opportunity for Singapore-based fintech startups to access funding from a variety of local and global investors.

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

The highlight of the festival is the three-day FinTech Conference starting from Tuesday.

More than 160 leaders from central banks and regulatory agencies, financial institutions, venture capital firms, and FinTech companies will be speaking at the conference.

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will be speaking on using inclusive technology to build a better future, in her capacity as UN secretary-general's special advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development. Arun Jaitley, India's finance minister and minister of corporate will give the opening address on the second day of the FinTech Conference.

Another highlight is the Global FinTech Hackcelerator on Thursday, which will showcase 20 market-ready fintech solutions that were shortlisted from among 580 global submissions.

These solutions are intended to solve real-life industry problems in four areas, including customer-facing solutions, regulatory technology and financial inclusion.

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