IN FINTECH TIE-UP
Monetary Authority (HKMA) yesterday. The first joint project would be on trade finance, he said in a speech to open the HKMA Fintech Day.
Fintech has added a new dimension to the decades-old tussle between Singapore and Hong Kong for the position as Asia’s premier financial centre, with both cities throwing hundreds of millions of dollars to help fund startups and build ecosystems conducive to innovation.
“Traditionally as a financial centre, there’s that comparison between Singapore and Hong Kong,” said Roy Teo, head of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s financial centre development department, in a panel discussion at the event.
“But when it comes to fintech, this is where we recognise that there’s a lot of need for collaboration between the regulators.”
The HKMA event is part of the Hong Kong Fintech Week, which organisers say is expected to attract 3,000 executives. Singapore holds its fintech festival on November 13-17. Last year, both cities held similar conferences within a week of each other.
Chan said the regulators were in talks on cross-border infrastructure to connect the Hong Kong Trade Finance Platform (HKTFP) with a similar structure in the Southeast Asian city.
Seven banks had signed on to the HKTFP, an HKMA-led initiative based on distributed-ledger technology, to digitise and share trade documents, automate processes and reduce risks and fraud, he said.
“Technology is a game changer for the future of banking and payment services. It will differentiate winners from losers,” said Chan.
Fintech investments in Asia are poised to set a fresh record this year, according to a CB Insights report released this month.
Venture capital-backed startups raised more than US$5 billion (RM21.15 billion) this year through last month, closing in on last year’s US$6.3 billion, data showed. Bloomberg