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Singapore Sees Fintech Funding Tripling This Year to $3 Billion

Singapore Sees Fintech Funding Tripling This Year to $3 Billion

Singapore’s financial technology sector is expected to attract more investments this year, which could triple the amount raised in 2020, according to a top central bank official. 

Funding in fintech is estimated to total about $3 billion by the end of the year, Sopnendu Mohanty the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s chief fintech officer, said in an interview on Monday. 

Singapore Sees Fintech Funding Tripling This Year to $3 Billion

This development comes as Singapore seeks to become a regional hub for capital raising in areas from payments to robo-advisory. Digital banking, which is also part of a wider development in fintech, will become more competitive against traditional lenders as new players roll out products on mobile phones, according to Mohanty. 

“They will be far more efficient, their use of tech stack wins on the cost transaction, hence they will be more competitive,” Mohanty said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Haidi Stroud-Watts and Shery Ahn, responding to a question on how they might stack up against brick-and-mortar banks. 

Singapore last year gave four licenses to offer financial services to non-bank firms, including a venture between Grab Holdings Inc. and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., Sea Ltd. and a local unit of Ant Group Co. These digital banks are expected to start operating from early 2022. 

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.