Singapore FinTech Festival is undoubtedly the largest tech event happening in the nation. The festival, organized by the central bank of Singapore (MAS) in partnership with Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), today witnessed ten FinTech companies being awarded a total of S$1.15 million at The FinTech Awards.
As a part of the festival, these awards recognize innovative FinTech solutions that have been implemented by FinTech start-ups, financial institutions, and technology companies.
The FinTech Awards comprise the MAS FinTech Awards and ABS Global FinTech Award. Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of MAS, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and ABS Chairman, Wee Ee Cheong, presented the awards to companies in a ceremony that was attended by more than 1,000 attendees. Ong-Ang Ai Boon, ABS Director, said,
The ABS Global FinTech Award is a true manifestation of collaboration between FinTech companies and our members.
The ABS Global FinTech Award was given to BioCatch, a startup that provides behavioral biometrics solutions. It proactively collects and analyses more than 500 metrics to continuously authenticate the user and other malicious activities. In an official statement, the startup which received an amount of S$150K commented,
Being named a winner of this prestigious award is a testament to BioCatch’s contribution to banks’ defence strategy against cyber threats.
The FinTech Awards received over 200 global submissions, with the bulk coming from Asia Pacific, and the list was narrowed to 40 finalists. The winners were selected by a panel of 13 judges, representing a cross-section of international and local experts from the private and public sector. The entries were evaluated based on criteria such as impact, practicality, interoperability, and uniqueness and creativity.
The MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore Open) didn’t bound the companies in terms of size for the nominations. The companies required to have a physical office registered in Singapore, and the solution must have been implemented in Singapore. It was awarded to three startups – fastacash stood first winning S$250K, followed by M-DAQ which received S$100K and Pole Star Space Applications was conferred S$50K.
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer of MAS, said,
The MAS FinTech Awards celebrate the spirit of innovation and creativity within Singapore’s financial sector. We were impressed by the technical quality and breadth of the solutions, many of which span multiple business areas. We look forward to seeing how these solutions can redefine and improve the way we experience financial services.
The MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore SME) was open to Singapore-based small and medium sized enterprises. Enterprises qualified as SMEs if they had an annual sales turnover of not more than SGD$100 million or/and an employment size of not more than 200 workers. The first place in this category was bagged by Tookitaki for a prize of S$150K, second by Turnkey Lender for S$100K followed by Funding Societies which won S$50K. The MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore Founder) was for Singapore-based SMEs with at least one Singaporean founder. CashRun grabbed the first position for S$150K followed by Aimazing and FinChat Technology.
Singapore Fintech Festival, the first of its kind in Asia, aims to provide a platform for collaborations, connections and co-creations within the FinTech ecosystem in Singapore and beyond. It has been witnessing a series of distinct FinTech events for the global Fintech community with over 11,000 participants from more than 50 countries. The festival is lined up with a series of back-to-back events including Global FinTech Hackcelerator, Innovation Lab Crawl, FinTech Awards, FinTech Conference, Tech Risk Conference, and the RegTech Forum.
