Kopi Time E060: Sopnendu Mohanty on Singapore’s burgeoning FinTech scene

On a recent beautiful afternoon, in the island of Sentosa, Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore, joined Kopi Time to go over the nation’s burgeoning FinTech sector. He begins the conversation by noting that Singapore’s relatively small market size paved the way for numerous innovations in the area of business-to-business fintech: “Constraint brings new opportunity.” He then goes over Singapore’s journey of developing fin-tech relevant human capital, raising growth capital, fostering community capital, and entrenching trust capital over the past half-decade.  The journey has also entailed major regulatory developments, sand-box experiments, and collaboration with key multilateral official sector institutions as well as various private sector entities. Project Ubin-Partior, Proxtera for SMEs, and APIX are examples of the pragmatic and business-oriented developments nurtured by the regulators. Foundational public goods such as digital identity, trusted data exchange, interoperable payment systems, and consent architecture have been developed, paving the way for innovation in domestic and cross-border payments, fundamentally changing the cost, speed, and security of such transactions. Sopnendu talks about the application of CBDCs, and why such currencies have better use case for a developing country than a developed one. He then elaborates on the digital transformation challenges faced by SMEs, and how MAS is helping address them. On the issue of climate change, Sopnendu sees the Fintech space as a critical source of data and behavioural nudges that can move the needle, especially with respect to green solutions needed by companies and individuals. Singapore has lately become a vibrant space for green product-related research and development, as well as fund raising, something the authorities have encouraged actively. What about future technologies and solutions in the pipeline? What key developments await us? Sopnendu ends this riveting chat with his crystal ball. Watch/listen and find out!

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