THE inaugural Fintech Festival in Singapore in November called attention to the immense rate of change taking place in the financial services sector due to innovations in financial technology or fintech. The most obvious example of fintech in action is mobile payments.

According to research by Frost and Sullivan, South-east Asia is poised to become one of the world's fastest-growing regions for e-commerce revenues, exceeding US$25 billion by 2020. Driven by unprecedented mobility, connectivity and computing power, today's empowered consumers expect payments to be fast, convenient and hassle-free. As consumers continue to experiment with new ways to pay - mobile, online, using connected devices - demand for digital payment technologies will continue unabated in the coming year.

Here are trends in payments that will dominate the coming months: