Singapore’s Financial Landscape Is Rapidly Adopting Technology

Singapore is defined by a vibrant startup and entrepreneurship culture, a business-friendly environment, low taxation, and an educated and extremely tech-savvy population. Given these credentials, it should be no surprise that Singapore is also known as a FinTech hub and a core of FinTech investments in the South East Asian region.

While the investments in financial technology have been on the rise across the world, Singapore is keeping at par with the developed world in this area. Over 96% of its population over the age of 15 years has at least one bank account.  Naturally, the highly tech-savvy and educated population is much more welcoming of financial technology than in most other places in the region. The EY FinTech Adoption Index 2019 reveals that there has been a threefold increase in the FinTech adoption rate in the past two years alone.

The FinTech adoption rate sat at 23% back in 2017. In 2019, the rate has jumped up to 67%, firmly placing Singapore in the leading position across the Asia Pacific region when it comes to the increase in FinTech adoption. The region’s FinTech adoption rate is quite impressive itself, which has jumped up to 64% from 33% back in 2017. Given the local financial landscape, the supportive government policies and the education and tech-savvy nature of the local population, the adoption rate will continue to grow in the future as well.

EY, the multinational firm that conducted the ratings to gauge the FinTech adoption rate across global economies, defines FinTech as inventive and groundbreaking business models that incorporate technology into the financial service provisions and enhance the financial services as a result. They often go on to disrupt the traditional financial services markets and create new avenues for growth.

Singapore will continue to increase its FinTech adoption as most industries that can drive the growth of FinTech are also growing. For example, E-commerce has been constantly growing at a rapid pace and has been projected to be a market worth over $5.4 billion. Besides that, wealth management is another area where technology incorporation has been making rapid progress with tools such as “Robo advisory.”

The index by EY surveyed over 27,000 consumers across 27 markets. It also surveyed over a 1000 small and medium enterprise owners from the US, China, the UK, and other countries that incorporate FinTech solutions in their business processes.

All in all, Singapore is on a fast track to FinTech adoption and will be churning out some of its own FinTech solutions, given its vibrant startup and tech landscape at home.