Ushering in a new era

THIS WEEK'S TOPIC: How will the rise of fintech impact banking and the business landscape?

Deborah Heng Group Head and General Manager MasterCard Singapore

The changing dynamics of consumer behaviour has sparked rapid developments in fintech, with more collaborative efforts between businesses and startups to develop better and more innovative ideas to simplify day-to-day processes for consumers. The rise of digital wallets points towards creating a world beyond cash, one that allows consumers to make payments seamlessly - with a simple tap of a card, or their smartphones, watches and even wristbands. On the business front, while some small businesses have already embraced mobile Point-of-Sale to go cashless, many more will need to get onboard with the infrastructure to support the growing digital ecosystem.

Edward Higase Managing Director for Asia-Pacific Digital Realty

We see the emergence of many new technologies and trends causing traditional banks to leverage fintech to gain a competitive advantage against startups chipping away at their traditional market positions. Harnessing the power of digital technology gives financial institutions the opportunity to target consumers at unprecedented speed, and organisations will need to capitalise on these new trends quickly. With the huge opportunities in payments and P2P lending, as well as Asia's "unbanked" populations gaining access to financial services via smartphones, fintech will continue to be a strategic and exciting growth area in the coming years.

Tham Sai Choy Chairman of KPMG Asia Pacific and Managing Partner at KPMG in Singapore

New market opportunities are opening up with fintech firms providing technological solutions that improve access to capital markets, ease of everyday payments and reliability of recording. Rather than cannibalising each other, fintech firms' innovative creativity and banks' long-standing market experience can be leveraged for mutual benefit. New industries will sprout from the collaboration as novel proposals like blockchain and cryptocurrencies find relevance to new needs. Business as a whole benefits as well, when previously unavailable offerings like microfinance, crowdfunding and usage-based insurance become available, particularly in the "underbanked" segments and rural areas in the region.

Laurent Dedenis President, International Operations Acumatica

Fintech is a fantastic concept and Singapore, the best playground to kickstart it!

This is a technology crusade that will ultimately allow all of us to be truly connected and interacting with our multiple financial institutions in a simple way. The task is huge but the very idea that we can all receive a personalised service and have a sense that we are all unique is just a paradigm shift from our current "mass" and poor customer experience.

Hans Hanegraaf Country Executive, ABN AMRO Bank NV Singapore and CEO, ABN AMRO Private Banking Asia & Middle East

With the introduction and rapid growth of fintech players, the wealth management industry is entering an exciting phase. At ABN AMRO Private Banking, our clients are becoming more digitally savvy and we see an increase in demand for automated management of investment portfolios and remote access to investment advisors.

While we are adapting to technological shifts, the more complex and personal aspects of private banking cannot yet be substituted with technology. We believe it is important to balance technology and touch, and serve our clients with a tailored combination of technology-enabled services with personal client relationships.

Wong Heng Chew President Fujitsu Singapore

With the growth of new technologies, fintech is able to promise greater simplicity and efficiency to existing processes. In addition, it can help organisations build resilience against external threats. For example, Fujitsu recently completed a blockchain technology trial with Mizuho Bank to shorten the processing time for cross-border securities transactions, thereby reducing the bank's exposure to risks such as data tampering and price fluctuations. However, innovation will require co-creation and co-participation - between suppliers, partners and even consumers - in order to succeed.

Paul Gambles Managing Partner MBMG Group

I pride myself on being receptive to new technologies but much of fintech is hardly new. For instance, modern robo-advisor interfaces may look sleek, sophisticated and user-friendly but all too often this disguises repackaged old and not particularly successful stock-picking software. I'm surprised and disappointed there's nothing more sophisticated available. Fintech may have nailed "artificial" but so far it's come up short in terms of "intelligence".

Complex financial services can't be reduced to a simple online one-click process like booking a flight, ordering a book or buying groceries; they have to be tailored to the individual. So far no software programme, despite the huge advances in algorithms and exponentially increased access to personal behavioural data, has managed this.

John Bittleston Founder & Chair Terrific Mentors International Pte Ltd

Fintech will abolish the need for cash and will remove several steps in transferring funds - or whatever is then the equivalent of funds - between buyers and sellers. Finance - which is already more important than production in creating profits - will be the central activity of the human (or robot) race. Given the growth of debt financing, it will develop a new model of credit and debit eventually becoming sophisticated enough to potentially make every human activity purely financially transactional. It is to be hoped that human creativity will stop it short of this disastrous end game.

Victor Mills Chief Executive Singapore International Chamber of Commerce

Across the world, nimble, and for the most part unregulated, fintech companies disrupt the financial services space. They meet customer needs and challenge banks many of which, thanks to the fallout from the Global Financial Crisis, are more compliance-focused than customer-centric these days. Thankfully, that is not the full story in Singapore. The smartest banks - and we have many here - are embracing fintech companies to help them mitigate the effects of legacy IT systems and to innovate to serve their clients with greater engagement and efficiency. This has got to be good news for banks and for businesses.

Rick Scurfield President NetApp APAC

The fintech industry's boom has ushered in an exciting age of disruptive innovations. Peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding and digital wallets are transforming how people send and receive money, while blockchain technology is further revolutionising the speed and security of transactions. In addition, the application of biometric identification, like fingerprint scanning and facial recognition, is also making payments even more intuitive and seamless. All these exciting new technologies are challenging the traditional banking model as we know it, with the resulting deluge of data fast becoming the world's digital currency.

For businesses at the intersection of the financial and tech industries it is therefore essential to understand how to make the most of the data that is coming from these technologies, as it will form the bedrock of the next wave of exciting fintech developments.

Chong Kee Sen President The Institution of Engineers, Singapore

Fintech could give rise to a new era in banking and business. Such technologies are revolutionising processes in banking, investing and fund raising; and generate new products, services and lenders. It is difficult to predict the degree of impact - it might take just one good innovation to transform the entire industry. But it is an exciting opportunity for Singapore to tap upon the technical and innovative capabilities of engineers to strengthen its standing as a global financial capital. From new personal banking mobile apps to cyber security technology to peer-to-peer lending platforms, fintech engineers will not just transform banking but people's lives.

Max Loh Asean and Singapore Managing Partner Ernst & Young LLP

Fintechs are substantively impacting the financial services and business landscape with their ability to leverage technology and drive innovation through different business models. They are disrupting established value chains and lowering barriers to financial services, forcing financial institutions to reinvent their business models to stay relevant. The areas that are being disrupted include payments, peer to peer lending, equity crowdfunding, online investments, robo-advisory, overseas remittances, telematics and aggregators.

With progressive government regulations and incentives as well as the availability of funding, Singapore scores highly in fintech adoption, especially among the younger and higher income. Meanwhile, financial institutions are responding by adopting nuanced strategies of collaboration, investment and incubation to embrace FinTech. The bottom line is that no one can afford to stand still.

Robin C Lee Group COO Bok Seng Group

Just a little over two decades ago, we watched Tom Cruise sliding his palm over a flatscreen monitor to retrieve and analyse classified data in Mission Impossible, which at that time seemed highly futuristic. Yet today every single one of us is doing what Tom did, not only on our computers but also our smartphones! That is the beauty of innovation and technology! In time to come, paper currency and credit cards may also become a thing of the past, not unlike what we have seen in the sci-fi movie Guardians of the Galaxy, where financial transactions take place via an accepted "universal" device - that is the vision of fintech. Much like how Google Car, Uber, AirBnB and Netflix have made an impact, I have great hope that fintech will become another game changer in the global market, with immense impact on the way business is conducted through the enhanced efficiency it will bring about to the world's currency flows.

Patrick Sim Senior Vice-President Orange Business Services Asia Pacific

The rise of fintech heralds a new age in the way we transfer digital assets. In its most well-known form, blockchain technology has enabled users to transact encrypted digital currency instantly and securely over decentralised networks. Private blockchains can also be used for non-financial applications, such as the exchange of title deeds, electronic medical records, and other digitalised assets. They also have the ability to connect disparate organisations, thereby facilitating information sharing and accelerating collaboration between businesses.

Orange recently invested in leading blockchain technology solutions provider, Chain, with the potential to support our customers in harnessing the benefits of fintech to optimise their business operations. With the power to change the way things are being done across industries, fintech is a force to be reckoned with.

Kane Lightowler Managing Director - Asia Pacific & Japan Carbon Black

With the diversification and growth of fintech, the banking industry is reinventing how it does business and meets the demands of customers. This, consequently, may create more vulnerabilities for attackers to strike. As the fintech industry evolves, so must its security capabilities. The need for comprehensive endpoint visibility, prevention, detection and response is critical. It is vital that businesses re-evaluate their current security practices to keep up with modern threats. Failure to do so puts their business and their customers at risk of a potentially devastating breach.

Eugene Goh Vice-President, IT & Mobile Samsung Electronics Singapore

Fintech is driving big improvements in consumer shopping and banking experiences, and consumer adoption is the key success determinant. Samsung has taken a three-pronged approach to drive adoption for Samsung Pay by ensuring the service is simple and safe to use almost anywhere.

Consumers can pay with a simple swipe from the home button and authenticate by fingerprint or PIN at readers where credit and debit cards are accepted, thanks to the combination of Samsung's proprietary MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) and NFC (Near Field Communication) technologies. Additionally, our industry-leading KNOX security platform assures consumers that their payment information is kept secured.

Yeoh Oon Jin Executive Chairman PwC Singapore

Fintech is certainly the key disruptor to the financial services landscape globally, and has the ability to completely change the game for traditional players such as banks and other payment providers.

In fact, our latest fintech report, released last month, highlighted that 83 per cent of financial institutions (FIs) surveyed believe that part of their business is at risk of being lost to standalone fintech companies. With the increasing pace of change, no financial institution can rest on its laurels. Fintech is, in fact, bringing new contenders to the playing field. In addition, blockchain as a new untapped technology is rewriting the rule book, with more than half of survey participants being both unsure about and unlikely to be able to adequately respond to this trend.

Other aspects of fintech will also impact front and backoffice operations. Fintech provides new alternatives to advise customers, process transactions, analyse data, help customers make better choices, manage product portfolios,leverage mobile technology and so on. The net impact of all these changes is to enhance operational capabilities and dramatically reduce costs. In short, the free lunch is over. Banks and other FIs must adapt to this new world, or find themselves wholly inadequate to compete in the future.

Chris Riley Group Chairman Ogilvy & Mather Singapore

With many startups already developing fintech solutions here in Singapore, it's no longer a question of whether established industries will transform, but rather, how? The role of telematics will redefine personal insurance, for example, while blockchain technology that underpins bitcoin will transform supply chain and financial services. The pressing questions are how well will the financial services incumbents collaborate and adopt new thinking? And to what degree will their infrastructure enable them to offer the omni-channel experience that their customers expect? Digital has already transformed industries and financial services are once again in the crosshairs of disruptive change.

Lee Fook Chiew Chief Executive Officer Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants

Fintech places banking services right at our fingertips, through our smartphones. New lending models such as peer-to-peer lending may complement existing bank lending, thus providing both businesses and individuals access to more sources of credit.

Some finance jobs, like some aspects of financial advisory, may be undertaken by robo-advisors in future. While requiring finance professionals to acquire new skill sets, the potential increase in productivity from fintech should result in increased wages. These skillsets include harnessing the power of machines and algorithms.

Businesses should understand and consider how fintech can help them in areas such as financing and payments, where fintech may be administratively easier and can help reduce business costs.

Cheng Heng Chew Singapore Country Manager American Express

Fintech is a disruptive but also positive force in the banking and business landscape. There are a number of players with countless good ideas, but the ones that win are those that solve critical customer needs. It's about giving customers what they want, something that American Express has been focused on for more than 150 years.

We see fintech as an opportunity to develop new partnerships and models that cater to customers' shifting needs in this increasingly digitalised world. That said, businesses need to be adaptive and prepared to overhaul (or abandon) particular strategies if they aren't responsive to the customer.

As one of the most tech savvy populations globally, Singaporeans expect to be at the forefront when it comes to tech.

Tan Chong Huat Managing Partner RHTLaw Taylor Wessing

Fintech will disrupt and revolutionise the delivery of financial services, with the promise of more efficient, more transparent and customer-focused services.

Banks and financial institutions have started innovation labs, to bring fintech platforms under their wings. It is not surprising that MAS has aggressively promoted Singapore's FinTech festival with roadshows in major global financial centres.

To be sustainable, fintech platforms must have robust compliance and risk frameworks, as they are delivering core financial services to consumers.

Regulators need to also review their rulebooks, making sure that regulations do not stifle innovation, and are suited to the peculiar needs of fintech.

Sanjay Samuel Managing Director, Commercial Solutions Division JAPAC BAE Systems Applied Intelligence

Fintech opens doors not only to innovative technologies and services but also to cyber disruption and financial crime risk. In this hyper-connected world, there's a greater need for more robust business defence; developers must build in cyber security from the start to protect platform users - their transactions and their data - and to maintain confidence in financial systems. This means implementing an intelligence-led approach, utilising threat analytics to identify and manage potential threats proactively. It is no longer enough to simply establish a perimeter firewall - we must understand what is going on inside and outside our networks.

Goh Yang Chye CEO GYC Financial Advisory Pte Ltd

After the initial euphoria, the early fintech firms are finding out that the road to success and profitability is not easy. Nonetheless, fintech is here to stay, with traditional financial institutions also getting into the game and disrupting even their own business models.

Fintech will allow financial institutions to move simple but laborious and low-margin tasks to technology-aided platforms. Using simple user interfaces and algorithms will help customers to gain better control and understanding of their finances. We launched our GYC Robo-Advisory Retirement Model last year to find out if customers were comfortable with a DIY model for personal financial planning. We concluded that a well-devised marriage of both technological and human interfaces will be vital for a successful fintech model.

Kai Y Chan Carlson Wagonlit Travel President, Asia Pacific

At Carlson Wagonlit Travel, we work with many startups, thanks to our partnerships with Welcome City Lab, a Paris-based incubator, and Plug and Play, a startup accelerator in Silicon Valley. For the past two years, we've seen real synergies between fintech and travel startups, and there's undoubtedly great potential to apply these in our industry.

Optionizr, one of the companies that CWT is mentoring though Welcome City Lab, lets businesses propose call options on their products and services sold online, such as airline tickets, allowing customers to buy time before making a final purchase decision.

Fluo, another startup mentee, has created an app providing information and advice on insurance coverage attached to the user's credit card, enabling him/her to buy the right insurance at the best price.

Andre Hesselink CEO GoBear

In the fintech sphere, a surge of insurtech innovations like harnessing customer data and revolutionising insurance underwriting is happening across the globe. CB Insights' data show that US$0.7 billion were invested in insurtech startups globally in 2014, which quickly increased to US$2.65 billion in 2015, with more spectacular growth expected this year. It's worthy to note that Think with Google recently predicted Online Financial Aggregation (OFA) as a strong growing trend in Singapore and GoBear was picked by Google as one of the trendsetting leaders in adopting this technology to enhance users' financial decision making. Without a doubt, the fintech boom will shape the financial institutions of our future, bringing the decision power back into the consumers' hands, who will enjoy unprecedented transparency and ease in purchasing financial products.

Damien Wong Vice-President and General Manager (ASEAN) Red Hat

Technology trends such as cloud computing, Big Data and mobility are disrupting the business landscape for traditional industry players. New fintech challengers are using these emerging technologies to disrupt traditional financial institutions and their business models, offering faster innovation and new digital services with greater cost efficiencies. Many of these emerging technologies are based on open source and open innovation. Red Hat, as a leader in open source, understands the potential for open source-based solutions to drive rapid innovation and modern, disruptive fintech solutions. One area we are working on is blockchain, through Red Hat's new OpenShift Blockchain initiative, designed to help financial institutions build solutions that have the power and flexibility to scale with confidence. I believe that embracing open source may be key for banks to innovate and stay relevant to their customers and business partners.

Ronald Lee Managing Director PrimeStaff

With their potential to revolutionise the banking industry and payments market, fintech innovations are certainly a very exciting proposition. However, game changing technology is one thing; the challenge for fintech players would be in facilitating the widespread adoption of their product by partners and consumers - precisely because it is new and untested on the market.

Fintech players offering alternative payment modes in the consumer payments market, for instance, need to get buy-in from several groups of stakeholders: financial institutions, retailers and end-consumers. There needs to be a certain critical mass in the number of users across society for it to be considered a success - and to justify continued use by their partners.

This space is starting to get crowded. In the old days, consumers had only credit cards and Nets for cashless payments, but with digital wallets, Bitcoin and the like now, having too many options can become confusing for the consumer.

Marc Mathenz Managing Director Asia Pacific Fiserv

As an increasing number of consumers embrace alternative banking technologies, we are seeing positive socio-economic returns for the unbanked segment across the region. Fintech solutions are unlocking access to key financial services where formal banking systems have traditionally been very limited. This is not only benefitting consumers who now have an easier way to make payments, but is enabling growth for merchants who can now receive those payments. Fiserv recently co-launched the first non-geographically specific fintech accelerator, and we see a strong opportunity for the fintech sector to continue to transform the payments landscape and create new business models by connecting traditional banking players and financial service innovators.

Bala Swaminathan President, International Westpac Banking Corporation

The financial sector has been ripe for disruption which will enable the products and services of banks to be digitally offered to customers in a seamless manner.

With their secret weapons of direct to customer, and mobile-first, fintech companies are igniting the latest wave of digital disruption, putting customers in the driving seat and meeting their expectations for services which are effortless, fast, personalised, secure and with lower fees.

Banks need to adopt a fintech mindset of creating an agile enterprise which encourages innovation. Fintech companies are not without their challenges as they scale and work within the regulatory framework - this is where fintechs and banks can partner and benefit from each other's inherent strengths.

As Australia's first bank, our secret weapon is thinking and acting like a 200-year-old startup. For example, we are partnering with startups through our Reinventure fund to develop innovative next-gen products and services.

Bill Taylor-Mountford Vice President for Asia Pacific and Japan LogRhythm

The rise of fintech offers consumers greater convenience and ease-of-access to financial services. While fintechs are arguably reinventing financial services, they should be mindful of the way their users interact with the technology, and employ proper security safeguards over sensitive consumer and corporate financial data.

With the promise of easier, faster and cheaper services, security very often takes a back seat. To ensure that the customer's data is not compromised, these organisations should deploy systems with network and user behavioural analytics (NBA and UBA) which detects behavioural shifts and known malicious communication patterns, indicative of compromised systems and applications and suspicious user activity.

Leslie Choo General Manager & Vice-President ASEAN & Greater China ACI Worldwide

Payments and commerce are being disrupted by new fintech entrants as consumers and corporates demand speed, convenience and simplicity. In our latest Payments Insight study, we found that banks, retailers and billing organisations in Asia-Pacific are most concerned about the burgeoning threat of fintech entrants, which is driving investments in their own payment systems.

To stave off the threat, they will need to transform their payment infrastructures to support real-time, any-to-any payment flows and offer innovative value-added services, all while ensuring that security is embedded into new offerings. For retailers specifically, they will need to compete from a user experience perspective and offer a wider variety of payments as new competitors are offering more flexible payment types.

Richard Hoon Chairman Validus Capital Pte Ltd

The fintech phenomenon is disrupting how traditional businesses are being conducted, particularly in banking. The need for cost efficiency and responsiveness in the marketplace coupled with the power of technology to harvest information widely and quickly has enabled fintech companies to develop tools and platforms to meet such market needs.

At Validus Capital, as an online peer-to-business aggregator, we have developed a sophisticated multi-faceted algorithm to enable SMEs to secure short and medium-term financing from the market speedily. This platform reduces the SMEs' cost of borrowing and at the same time enhances returns to lenders by the use of technology in minimising the cost and speed of traditional financial intermediation.

Foo Siang-Tse Managing Director Quann

Fintech innovations are revolutionising the industry - they mark a paradigm shift from services being provided by a small number of established institutions with pedigree to a fragmented industry with many players. Such innovations have significantly improved the price competitiveness and access of services for all users. However, until regulatory frameworks can catch up, the trade-off is whether such transactions are truly secure. The implications are twofold.

First, firms need to have sound security strategy and policies in place as the risk of cyber threats increase. Second, consumers need to be better educated about the risks involved, through security awareness training. At the end of the day, it's caveat emptor, so users need to protect themselves and not leave it to regulators.

Gregory Roath Singapore Country Executive and Head of Global Client Management APAC BNY Mellon

Symbiosis is key. The focus should be less on competition and more on the opportunities to work together and create the next phase in banking and business. Innovation within financial services is not new; the difference today is that technology advancements have made many ideas implementable and quicker to market.

It can be a win-win - financial firms to provide a broader client base access to the fintech firms; in turn fintech firms to provide applications and services that augment the bank client experience and provide new business solutions.

While there is demand for greater breadth of solutions, there is equally a strong demand for a single platform to develop, access, and deliver digital client solutions. Hence BNY Mellon's focus on NEXEN - our open source, cloud-based technology platform that consolidates our solutions, select third parties and clients onto one single, intuitive and powerful platform.

Chang Sucheng CEO Liberty Insurance

Fintech also has a role to play in the insurance industry. For example, Liberty Insurance has tapped into the rise of the sharing economy by rolling out new initiatives to benefit customers. We introduced new coverage in the US for users of ride-sharing and home-sharing models, such as Uber and Airbnb respectively, many of whom are unable to get coverage from traditional insurance companies. In Singapore, we are building capabilities in telematics to help improve road safety for all road users by providing real-time feedback to drivers on their driving behaviour.

Francis Fong Managing Director SAS Singapore

The fintech wave will undoubtedly impact the financial services space. Innovation brought about by fintech startups as well as the innovation initiatives within the traditional banking sector can bring about improvements in processes, services and product offerings that will ultimately benefit customers.

Insights-based models derived from the smart use of data and analytics are driving everything from innovative solutions that help improve risk management and compliance in the back-end, to technologies that improve a customer's mobile banking experience. While these initiatives are still nascent, we are seeing strides in the direction where the industry is embracing technology to achieve long-term value as a business and to serve customers better.

Paul Henaghan President EMC Southeast Asia

Cutting-edge fintech companies and startups are blurring the lines that define players in the financial services sector. Agile new entrants who are customer-centric and "always on" are forcing traditional banks to digitise and innovate.

The main challenge is the significant investment in traditional technology platforms and the rules under which they operate - neither of which impact startups in the same way. Leading banks are embracing new players through joint initiatives, placing innovation at the heart of their business and creating direct value for their customer. Leaders are modernising their infrastructure by investing in platforms that deliver faster production cycles and data-driven insights to cater to the mobile-first digital market.

Sean Lee Regional Director Pivotal

What differentiates fintech and traditional banks is their ability to rapidly innovate to intimately engage with their customers. Without a doubt, modern software development and Big Data are at the centre of how banks can transform to deliver more value to customers, while cutting costs and mitigating credit, market, and operational risks. The changing realities of cloud, mobile and social platforms have also driven the need for banks to create a new class of applications (both online and mobile) that deliver better user experiences. Banks that are able to leverage the intelligence and real-time insights from their data and deliver an "always-on" multi-channel communications through a carefully targeted strategy will win in today's disruptive landscape.

Reuter Chua Head ACCA Singapore

The arrival of fintech platforms has been good news for small startups and SMEs that traditionally found it hard to get loans due to a lack of track record. While banks continue to service larger companies, this disruption is forcing banks out of their comfort zones as they look for opportunities to expand their range of products and improve their services, going into digital in a big way to increase their share of the pie.

The net effect of this disruption in the banking sector is positive in the long run for both the banks and alternative fintech platforms. The business community will also get access to a more comprehensive set of finance solutions to cater to different risk profiles, better meeting their needs.

Thomas Wai Director, Asia Pacific Talent Plus Inc

Fintech has really picked up in the past five years and drastically changed the fundamentals of payment processing, alternative loans channels and automated investment services. It amplifies both "accessibility" and "speed". Businesses can now buy into complex, feature-rich financial software that a decade ago would have cost millions of dollars to set up and train staff to manage the solution. Social, mobile, analytics, and cloud technologies are forcing companies of all sizes to transit into the new normal. Companies need to ensure they have the right talent and training in place to adopt fintech solutions or they will get left behind in no time.

Steve Redman Vice-President of Asia Pacific Palo Alto Networks

Today's digital way of life puts immense pressure on the financial services industry. Data and technology continue to transform financial institutions as they seek to provide seamless engagements with their clients across multiple channels. Customers place an immense amount of trust in financial institutions and in this landscape, a security incident or data breach can threaten the company's reputation and have a direct impact on brand value. Executives are no longer able to delegate the whole cybersecurity agenda to IT departments. Instead, security is becoming an integral part of the company strategy at the highest levels with organisations adopting a breach prevention-based mindset - focusing on establishing a formal risk management plan, developing and deploying an actionable defence strategy.

Lim Soon Hock Managing Director PLAN-B ICAG Pte Ltd

Anything which banks can do can be potentially disrupted by fintech. Fintech is digitalising cash faster than brick and mortar banks. It is bringing new customers into the Internet economy through the smartphone, other mobile devices and the Internet-of-Things, opening up peer-to-peer lending, blockchains, crowdfunding and other platforms, and in the process fast tracking the digital economy.

Fintech can now digitalise the value of trust and authenticate this digitalisation. This threatens the very foundation of trust that underpins the existence of banks.

Today, banks are unfortunately too pre-occupied with regulatory compliance when they should devote attention to harnessing more fintech to automate banking and financial transactions.

Banks will have to disrupt themselves or face being disrupted by fintech, which now offers an alternative to businesses for their financing needs and is a welcome boon to them, especially for startups and SMEs.

Daniel CF Ng Senior Director of Marketing, APAC Cloudera

The digital revolution has dramatically changed the business landscape across industries, including that of the financial sector. With the transition from in-person to online banking, businesses now function very differently than before.

With fintech, financial institutions and businesses will be able to truly unlock the power of data, from accessing it more easily to turning it into actionable insights. What is important is they will need to harness powerful, scalable data management platforms to fully leverage the data behind fintech, and be able to tackle increasingly complex problems. In turn, fintech innovation will allow businesses to better serve customers, understand their risk exposure and reduce incidents of fraud.

Kevin Chow Chief Executive Officer Thales Singapore

One of the strongest implications for fintech lies in securing the payment process as consumers start adopting digital and mobile payment methods. One in five consumers in Asia-Pacific use digital wallets, with Singapore being one of the region's biggest adopters. To stay competitive, banks, telcos and online marketplaces are all key players who have entered the mobile payment/wallet space.

As banks innovate and technologies evolve, it is critical for security, notably cyber security, to keep pace. There will be an increased need for comprehensive risk management processes, including encryption and fraud detection technologies, as these businesses deal with large amounts of sensitive customer data.

Rohit Dadwal Managing Director, APAC Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)

Across Asia-Pacific, investments in fintech have grown exponentially as banks seek to streamline processes, increase productivity, and enhance the value of their services to customers. A key driver of this growth is mobile technology, which allows banks to offer personalised services by analysing data on consumers' spending habits and location. The growth of fintech through mobile has also granted individuals greater convenience: from transferring money to opening new bank accounts without setting foot in a branch. As banks like DBS continue to invest in mobile-first or even mobile-only services, novel fintech applications are set to further enhance operational efficiency.Therefore, whether in developed or emerging markets, banks stand to gain an edge by investing in fintech through innovation labs or strategic partnerships.

Dan Marjanovic Singapore Office Country Head Simmons & Simmons

The rapid evolution of innovative fintech products both globally and regionally has resulted in competition between jurisdictions such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Australia for investment and, in turn, the most attractive business environment for fintech services. The fintech sector is very dynamic and as an international law firm advising financial institutions and corporates, we assist our clients to navigate through often deceptively complex regulatory environments in developing innovative financial services or establishing new businesses. This regulatory complexity can often act as a brake on investment, so cooperation and dialogue between business and regulators is critical to overcoming the challenges imposed by regulation.

Annie Yap Group Managing Director AYP Group

Fintech brings convenience in banking to both businesses and consumers. For instance, they can send and receive money simply by accessing the wireless network through their smartphones. Through this simple example, we can see how fintech has positively impacted the business landscape. Industry incumbents may view fintech as competition as fintech reduces the monopoly that banks previously held in the provision of financial services. This competition is healthy and is necessary for our economy to grow.

Patrick Liew Managing Partner Greenpro Capital

Fintech has a "butterfly effect" in disrupting different areas of the banking and financial industry that are beset with relatively high cost of operations, slower processes and more inefficiencies.

Like many disruptive business models, Fintech targets new and emerging niches. These niches include the unserved (people without a formal relationship with mainstream institutions), the underserved and those who require special services.

Before fintech snowballs to take on mainstream banking and financial institutions, these institutions will have to work on integrating fintech into their traditional brick and mortar business model.

A synergistic and integrated model can prevent disintermediation of mainstream institutions and provide a more comprehensive and deeper range of services.

Rohith Murphy Managing Director & Co-Founder SingSaver.com.sg

Fintech companies should not see themselves as only disrupting or displacing financial institutions and businesses but also as an extension of traditional companies who lack the infrastructure, agility and skills to move into the digital space. Fintechs in Singapore have a much more meaningful role to play other than just aggregating products and services onto one single digital platform. A good fintech works alongside banks and brick and mortar companies, identifies B2C marketing and brand communication gaps and lapses, and offers easy-to-understand messages that help consumers make clearer acquisition decisions.

With a huge number of credit card and loans offered by banks, consumers find it near impossible to navigate through a landscape of product complexities to make their financial decision. This is where fintech companies step in and help find that one product fulfilment for the customer. While Singapore now sees a surge in the number of fintech portals, it remains to be seen which fintech startup will be able to grow and sustain its monetisation model as bigger regional players step in, set up shop and offer a value proposition smaller local fintech startups are simply not able to offer.