Winners of MAS Global FinTech Hackcelerator, FinTech Awards and Investor Summit at Singapore FinTech Festival
The world’s largest FinTech Festival took place in Singapore on November 13-17 and was attended by more than 25,000 participants from over 100 countries.
Organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in partnership with The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) and in collaboration with SingEx Holdings, the second edition of the Singapore FinTech Festival created a platform for connection, collaboration, and co-creation for the FinTech community around the world.
A new feature this year was the Investor Summit – “Deal Day”, which provided an opportunity for Singapore-based FinTech startups to access funding from a variety of local and global investors. The highlights of last year’s Festival, including the FinTech Conference, the Global FinTech Hackcelerator, the FinTech Awards, visits to innovation labs, as well as community and networking events took place again this year.
Winners of the Global FinTech Hackcelerator
Singapore, November 16, 2017 – The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced the three winners of the Global FinTech Hackcelerator. The three winners were selected from a pool of 20 finalists that presented their solutions at Demo Day, as part of the second Singapore FinTech Festival.
The Global FinTech Hackcelerator is a platform for problem statements collected from the financial industry to be matched with innovative market-ready solutions from around the world. This year, MAS published 100 problem statements under four categories (Customer-Facing, Financial Inclusion, RegTech, and General), and received 580 submissions from over 40 countries. Twenty teams were shortlisted by a panel of industry judges to participate in the 12-week program. The judges selected Moxtra, SQREEM, and Trunomi as winners based on their ability to address the problem statement, innovativeness in the application of technology, and ease of adoption and scalability. Each team received a cash prize of S$50,000.
The winners (in no order of merit):
Moxtra
Moxtra is an embeddable Secure Messaging and Business Collaboration Service for the mobile on-demand era that helps transform business critical applications for mobile and web with powerful collaboration.
“Moxtra is very privileged to win this prestigious award and be recognized for its solution that focuses on providing a hi-touch, personalized client engagement, and collaboration for the financial services industry. We want to enable financial institutions to redefine how they deliver “mobile first” client engagement through the Moxtra solution that is embeddable, secure and auditable. The solution aims to deliver customers a great user experience, increase customer relationship value by over 150% and bank staff productivity by over 100%. This award and recognition will help us accelerate our growth not just in the region, but globally.” Balasubramanyam Mohan, General Manager – Products & Operations
SQREEM
SQREEM offers a platform that delivers asymmetric information in real-time on virtually any market, economy, or company around the world. SQREEM data can be fed into existing risk management systems and trading platforms, or accessed via custom dashboards developed specifically for individual clients. The firm offers AML and KYC solutions to track external market events, trends, and insights.
“SQREEM Technologies, as a Singapore-based company is proud and humbled to have been the recipient of this amazing award.
“As a company, we have been focusing all our attention and resources on building a world-class machine learning platform and also, we are aiming to become a world leader in acquiring and processing behavioral data to help solve real-world problems for our finance banking and insurance clients.
“We started in Singapore and now we are expanding to the rest of Asia, UK, EU and the USA. With the help of this award, this will turbo-charge our expansion,” said Ian Chapman-Banks, CEO
Trunomi
Trunomi provides customer consent and data rights management technology which enables businesses to request, receive and capture customer consent to the use of their personal data. For the business, we create consent receipts and convert them to customer data rights accessible across all data systems. We enable businesses to comply with regulations by putting in place auditable workflows to record and prove the lawfulness of processing of customer data.
“Trunomi is thrilled to win this award from MAS, further recognizing the value of our global data privacy enhancing solution. Our platform unlocks the power of customer data using consent and data rights management and enables large organizations to offer their customers an easy and powerful set of tools to manage the access to and control of personal data; solving key regulatory problems and enhancing customer trust, experience, and engagement. We are grateful for the expert advice and support from MAS and KPMG Digital Village in contextualizing our solution for the ASEAN market and this award and their support will help us accelerate our growth in this key region.” Stuart Lacey, CEO & Founder
The 10 innovative FinTech solutions recognized at the 2017 FinTech Awards
Singapore, November 16, 2017 – The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) awarded 10 FinTech companies a total of S$1.15 million at the FinTech Awards.
FinTech Awards recognizes 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.
This year, the FinTech Awards received over 300 global submissions, with the bulk coming from the Asia Pacific. Thirty finalists were shortlisted from these submissions. The entries were evaluated based on criteria such as impact, practicality, interoperability, and uniqueness and creativity. Reflecting the growth in the FinTech ecosystem, this year’s winning solutions span multiple business areas, such as digital advisory, investment analytics, blockchain-based biometrics, and e-payments. The 10 awardees are:
| Award | Company Name | Prize |
| ABS Global FinTech Award1 | Blocko | S$150,000 |
| MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore Open)2 | 1st place – FlyWire | S$250,000 |
| 2nd place – Silent Eight | S$100,000 | |
| 3rd place – Instarem | S$50,000 | |
| MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore SME)3 | 1st place – AGDelta | S$150,000 |
| 2nd place – Fomopay | S$100,000 | |
| 3rd place – HedgeSPA | S$50,000 | |
| MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore Founder) | 1st place – Spark Systems | S$150,000 |
| 2nd place – Singx | S$100,000 | |
| 3rd place – Aida Technologies | S$50,000 |
- FinTech project implemented in any part of the world by any company.
- Singapore-based companies of any size. The company must have a physical office registered in Singapore, and the solution must have been implemented in Singapore.
- Singapore-based SMEs (Small-Medium Enterprises). SMEs, as defined by SPRING, are enterprises with an annual sales turnover of not more than SGD$100 million OR an employment size of not more than 200 workers. Enterprises qualify as SMEs as long as they satisfy at least one of the two parameters.
US $2 billion capital available for FinTech startups through Singapore FinTech Festival 2017 Investor Summit
Singapore, November 17, 2017 – Over 1,000 attendees, comprising investors and FinTech start-ups, turned up at the Singapore FinTech Festival’s Investor Summit – “Deal Day” and up to US$2 billion of capital was made available for the start-ups. The Investor Summit was the finale of the four-month-long matchmaking programme to provide opportunities for FinTech start-ups to access funding from local and global investors. More than 1,000 FinTech start-ups and 400 investors indicated interest to participate in the process and 525 connections were made among interested parties.
- The matchmaking programme provided a perspective on the funding and FinTech landscape in Singapore and ASEAN.
- Most of the investors came from Singapore (59%), followed by China (9%) and Indonesia (6%).
- Most of the FinTech start-ups came from Singapore (36%), followed by India (17%) and US (8%).
- From the pool of participating investors, the key areas of interest were on data analytics (70%), blockchain (65%), lending applications (64%), payment solutions (61%) and regulatory technology (RegTech) (56%).
- The top solutions offered by participating FinTech startups largely aligned with investors’ interests as they are similarly in the areas of payments (20%), lending (14%) and regulatory technology (RegTech) (10%), with added product, focuses on robo-advisory (14%), and trading and fund management (12%).
- It is also worth noting that each FinTech start-up typically offered more than one solution or product focus, with the majority of them (80%) requiring funding of less than US$5 million.
Annex B. Top winners of each category of FinTech Awards
| ABS Global FinTech Award | |
| Winner | Blocko |
| Name of solution | Lotte Card Blockchain-based Authentication |
| Short caption | Blockchain platform with enhanced functionality |
| Description | Blocko set up a blockchain-based biometric log-in and payment authorization system for Lotte Card which is one of the largest credit card companies in Korea. A biometric authentication method was implemented so that users’ fingerprints could be used as authentication in logging in and conducting transactions through the Lotte nationwide mobile application. |
| Quote | Blockchain technology is not just a hype or technical buzzword and we’ve successfully proven its utility in the local market as the frontrunner in enterprise blockchain solutions. We are now planning on actively engaging with the global community to guide enterprises through a practical adoption of effective blockchain solutions. |
| Attributed to | Won-Beom Kim, CEO |
| MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore Open) | |
| Winner | Flywire |
| Name of solution | Flywire International Payment Solution |
| Short caption | International payments made easy |
| Description | Flywire is a leading provider of international payment solutions, connecting businesses and institutions with their customers on six continents. Introduced six years ago as a way for international students to pay their tuition for studies abroad, Flywire is now used by over 1,400 organizations across 20 countries around the world. |
| MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore Open) | |
| Quote | It’s a huge honor to be recognized in this way among so many great companies in Singapore. We hope this will connect us to more Singaporean businesses, educational institution and health care providers to help support their growth. We also hope to build more awareness to attract local talent to help us grow the Flywire business here in Singapore and throughout the APAC region |
| Attributed to | Andrew Ong, MD, APAC |
| MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore SME) | |
| Winner | AGDELTA |
| Name of solution | Digital Wealth Platform (DWP) |
| Short caption | Digital Advisory. Compliance. Best Execution |
| Description | AGDELTA’s digital wealth platform consists of three pillars: execution, compliance, and digital advisory. |
| Quote | It is truly both an amazing and a very humbling experience to be recognized for this award.AGDelta’s journey in breaking new barriers in the Digital Wealth space since the financial crisis has been nothing short of phenomenal. We have crossed 1.5 trillion USD in transactional turnover in our investments platform in over 15 countries , formed the largest regional B2B industry investments platform with leading global banks, resolved complex regulatory compliance challenges and used Artificial intelligence/machine learning technologies to fuel our new digital advisory solutions for banks, licensed wealth advisors, and their clients. I would like to thank the MAS, the distinguished panel of judges, our valued customers, investors, partners and the super team we have at AGDelta for contributing to this major industry recognition. Thank you. |
| Attributed to | Andrew Au, CEO |
| MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore SME) | |
| MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore Founder) | |
| Winner | Spark Systems Pte Ltd |
| Name of solution | Spark FX |
| Short caption | Cutting Edge Technology on FX Marketplace |
| Description | Spark uses the latest technology to improve the user experience in trading and execution. Through a stable, fast, and resilient platform, Spark also provides analytics to the user to capitalize their liquidity and trading history. |
| Quote | I am deeply honored and humbled to receive this award. Especially in the face of the quality of the competition present here. The companies here are amongst the best in Asia and the world! It tempting to think it’s just because Spark is a good company but in reality, we are here thanks to the whole ecosystem in Singapore! The regulator MAS, the VCs, the willingness of investors to back projects and the many mentors who freely share their invaluable experience and insights. Our win here will importantly open doors and bring new and exciting opportunities to our doorstep. |
| Attributed to | Joo Seng Wong, Founder & CEO |
About the Singapore FinTech Festival
Organised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in partnership with The Association of Banks in Singapore and in collaboration with SingEx Holdings, the Singapore FinTech Festival will provide a platform for collaborations, connections and co-creations within the FinTech ecosystem in Singapore and beyond. In keeping with this spirit, the Festival is supported by the industry. Festival Grand sponsors include AMTD, Deloitte, and Prudential. A series of back-to-back events that will take place from 13–17 November 2017, the Festival will comprise the Global FinTech Hackcelerator, Innovation Lab Crawl, FinTech Awards, FinTech Conference, and Investor Summit. For more information, please visit www.fintechfestival.sg.
