The much anticipated Singapore Fintech Festival drew to a close last week with over one million Singapore dollars being handed out to fintech start-ups, financial institutions, and technology companies.

The festival started with a bang as DBS Bank launched a 16,000 square feet innovation space, Asia X. Located at the Sandcrawler Building in Fusionopolis.

DBS Asia X (DAX) has project pods and spaces, journey rooms, co-working spaces for up to 100 people as well as an auditorium and cafe.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Deputy Managing Director Jacqueline Loh  and DBS CEO Piyush Gupta christened the new venture.

Top 100 Fintech Movers and Shakers

The opening networking event of the Singapore Fintech Festival was also a great success with a very large turnout. The Fintech Asia 100 list of this year’s top 100 fintech movers and shakers were revealed in front of a live audience in the Aura Sky Lounge, at the National Gallery.

Fintech Asia 100 is compiled by Next Money, in partnership with EY and supported by Visa. Among those in attendance was Lawrence Morgan, CEO of Hong Kong based Nest, a familiar figure in Asian fintech.

Strong MAS Support 

The senior members of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, including Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer of MAS, made several appearances to support the event and also to share their commitment to the burgeoning financial technology community in Singapore.

The MAS themselves came out with several initiatives in the middle of the week following a keynote speech by Managing Director Ravi Menon (pictured above) He said that in an industry facing the headwinds of lower economic growth and heavier regulatory burdens, innovation represented a way to refresh and re-energise the business model.

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