S’pore fintechs engage with UAE digital bank
The author’s shorthand for Happiness Index, Infrastructure, Talent, Regulations, Access and Capital. The six pillars that make the UAE a great place for a startup. This week’s article is about Infrastructure and Access.
Close on the heels of the world’s biggest Fintech event — the Singapore Fintech Festival (November 12 to 16, 2018), the Singapore Business Council (SBC) partnered with Enterprise Singapore to organise ‘Let’s Go Fintech’ in Dubai on November 24, 2018. The event showcased award-winning Fintechs from Singapore in conversation with a digital UAE bank.
First, some information about the Singapore Fintech Festival. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Justin Trudeau, PM of Canada, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Deputy PM of Singapore and chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Heng Swee Keat, Minister for Finance of Singapore, as well as Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, attended the event.
There was international representation from 16 countries — the UAE (both ADGM and Fintech Hive at DIFC had pavilions), Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Latin America, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. Deals of close to $12 billion were anticipated.
But if you weren’t one of the nearly 45,000 visitors to the Singapore Fintech Festival, there is still the opportunity to get up close with some of these developments via the SBC in the UAE.
The SBC is a non-profit body founded in 1999 and registered with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It operates under the patronage of the ConsulGeneral of the Republic of Singapore in Dubai, as well as the Embassy of Singapore in Abu Dhabi.
Tiruselvi Krishnan-Kelly, president of the SBC, sid: “In line with our aim of connecting businesses and professionals, we organised ‘Let’s Go Fintech’ in collaboration with Enterprise Singapore. This was a first-of-its-kind event featuring Singapore Fintechs that are integrating with the banking and financial ecosystem in the UAE.”
The event commenced with a presentation by Jayash Patel, head of Liv. Bank, ENBD’s digital bank. Speaking about the Fintech ecosystem, Patel said: “Banks will increasingly work with Fintechs to enable true customer centricity by leveraging the unique capabilities offered by multiple contexts enabling unique insights and experiences at a customer level.”
This was followed by Charles Goh, CEO of Inspire-Tech which aims to help future-proof organisations of every size by revolutionising their digital workplace through convergent technologies that enhance productivity and efficiency. David Yeng, CEO of InsureVite, came on next. The company’s chatbot RPA platform is designed to help insurers better connect and communicate with their customers and automate complex processes.
BetterTradeOff (BTO) represented by Robert Lonsdorfer, founder and CEO, along with Greg Samuel, CFO, did a demonstration of the B2B2C life-planning investment platform. BTO was a winner at the Singapore Fintech Festival awards. Lonsdorfer said: “Our co-creation platform augments advisers to move beyond products and engage clients in lifestyle-centric discussions.”