The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced the finalists for the 2017 Global FinTech Hackcelerator and FinTech Awards. The Global FinTech Hackcelerator and FinTech Awards are among the highlights of this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival, which will take place in Singapore from 13 to 17 November 2017.
The Global FinTech Hackcelerator provides a platform for the finalists to work with corporate champions and industry mentors to convert their proposals into market-ready solutions by the time of the FinTech Festival.
In May 2017, MAS published a catalogue of 100 problem statements gathered from the financial industry and invited the global FinTech community to develop new and innovative solutions to any of the problems for the Global FinTech Hackcelerator. The problem statements fall under 4 categories: Customer-Facing, Financial Inclusion, RegTech, and General.
MAS received 580 submissions from over 40 countries. From the submissions, 20 teams were shortlisted, 5 in each category, by a panel of industry judges. The entries were evaluated on (i) Relevance, (ii) Competitive Advantage, (iii) Revenue, (iv) Scalability, (v) Business Stage, and (vi) Team Experience.
The customer-facing category includes a first smart piggy bank (ERNIT, Denmark), which connecting a piggy bank to an app with a real-time bank account. The system makes digital money tangible by letting children set goals, do chores and follow their long-term progress. Within ‘financial inclusion’, an Israeli data analytics startup, called ConfirmU, helps lenders score people with no credit history or a thin file, based on conversational UI/Chatbot, payment history, potential employment opportunities, and geolocation history.
In the ‘regtech’ category, Solus Connect from Malaysia is providing of operating system and device agnostic, multifactor authentication software that seamlessly integrates biometric security solutions across multiple platforms. Solus is also developing adaptive machine-learning behavioural tools that will utilise user’s device behaviour to detect and predict fraudulent behaviour.
Within ‘general’, Kyckr from Ireland has created a global network providing unique real-time access to over 80 million legal entities, from over 190 business registers in 88 countries, guaranteeing the veracity of data and providing the building blocks to ensure AML/CTF (Anti-money laundering/ Counter terrorism financing) compliance.
The teams will undergo a 12-week programme, led by KPMG Digital Village, during which they will work and meet with corporates, investors, partners and regulators. The teams will present a working prototype of their solutions at Demo Day, on 16 November 2017. This will be followed by a Q&A session with the judges. The Demo Day judging panel, which represents a cross-section of the financial industry, will evaluate teams on their relevance to address the problem statement, company’s business potential, innovativeness of idea, and team profile and ability to execute.
Up to 10 winners will be selected by a panel of judges comprising international experts across multiple domains. All finalists will be evaluated on 4 criteria: (i) Impact, (ii) Practicality, (iii) Interoperability, and (iv) Uniqueness and Creativity. The selection process for the FinTech Awards is led by PwC.
The winners of the Global FinTech Hackcelerator and FinTech Awards will be announced at the FinTech Awards Night, to be held at Singapore Expo on 16 November 2017.
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer, MAS,said: “When we first conceived of the Global FinTech Hackcelerator and the FinTech Awards in 2016, our goal was to encourage innovation in Singapore. One year on, we are pleased to see an improvement in the quality and variety of submissions for both the Global FinTech Hackcelerator and the FinTech Awards. The sustained interest in these initiatives reflects the growth and evolution of the Singapore FinTech ecosystem.”
