The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced the shortlist of finalists for their 2018 Global FinTech Hackcelerator and FinTech Awards at this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival.
MAS reports that 514 different Fintech firms applied with 60 finalists, from 40 different countries, being selected. Over half came from ASEAN countries and the firms were split between 304 submissions for the Global FinTech Hackcelerator and 210 submissions for the FinTech Awards.
“We have seen a good increase in the number of high quality submissions from Fintech start-ups this year. We have also seen more innovative FinTtch talent in the region coming through the new ASEAN PitchFest2, making it to the final round of the FinTech Awards this year,” commented Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer at MAS. “I would like to acknowledge the contributions of our industry partners like KPMG3 and PwC4 who have worked closely with us to curate the various programmes for the Singapore FinTech Festival and awards.”
MAS says that past finalists at the Global FinTech Hackcelerator and the FinTech Awards have benefitted from the exposure and connections made as a result of their participation. MAS points to two former finalists specifically:
- AID:Tech, Global FinTech Hackcelerator finalist in 2017 and the first company in the world to deliver international aid using blockchain technology, recently secured €1 million in investment from both Enterprise Ireland and SGInnovate.
- M-DAQ, winner of the FinTech Awards (Singapore Open category) in 2016 had recently partnered the Singapore Exchange to develop a patented solution for investors to view real-time prices of the component stocks of the Straits Times Index in selected currencies.
The entire list of award finalists is available here.
The Singapore Fintech Festival, one of the largest of its kind in the world, takes place in November.
