With financial services globally and in Singapore shifting towards embedded finance, KPMG announced the launch of Singapore’s first Embedded Finance Hub with ambitions “to accelerate the adoption of embedded finance in the country.”
The Hub, set to run for at least 2 years is expected “to provide incubation support to over 120 non-financial enterprises and financial institutions looking to make inroads into financial areas such as payments, blockchain, lending, insurance and wealth.”
The Hub is established “as a center of standard setting, collaboration and knowledge. As a leading professional services firm,” KPMG will “manage the Hub.” KPMG’s financial services experts will “provide best practices and venture acceleration support to companies keen on entering the embedded finance domain.”
This could involve working with them “to co-create digital assets to drive developments for payments, gamification of finance, decentralized finance and platforms.”
Startups can also “trial their embedded finance innovations at this Hub, gaining feedback from Hub ecosystem participants on how to get these commercialized.” Most importantly the Hub will “lay a new foundation for future data-enabled innovations.”
Beyond this, the Hub will also “see collaborative efforts between non-financial service sector organisations (such as healthcare, agriculture, technology, media, and telecom or retail companies) and financial services businesses as they test new value propositions infused with the latest digital technologies.”
For instance, participants will “gain access to an enablement programme designed to upskill organisations pursuing embedded finance initiatives and a global library of best practices curated by industry leaders.”
They will also have access “to a growing selection of premium API (Application Programming Interface) solutions that can be embedded in external channels and applications.” Participants will be able to implement concepts and models “to bring about new commercialization avenues within embedded finance in Singapore and regionally.”
The Hub aims “to build capabilities and raise the standards of practice across the end-to-end embedded finance ecosystem for corporates and financial institutions.” The Hub will “work with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the broader ecosystem to accelerate the adoption of embedded finance in Singapore.”
Anton Ruddenklau, Partner, Global Head of Innovation, Financial Services, KPMG International, said:
“The next phase of the fintech disruption is moving beyond open banking to embedded finance. This unleashes new opportunities to create ecosystems for financial services to develop their as-a-service business and work with corporates to partner for new embedded finance initiatives; improving customer experience and creating new source of revenue. These partnerships drive the uptake of financial services across all industries. KPMG’s Embedded Finance Hub will be the epicenter of collaboration and knowledge for Singapore’s embedded finance industry.”
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer, MAS, said:
“Embedding relevant financial services in the user journey of non-financial services industries can enhance convenience and value to both customers and businesses. This requires partnerships between financial institutions and businesses, underpinned by trust and technology. We look forward to KPMG’s Embedded Finance Hub nurturing and accelerating growth in embedded finance across different industries.”
KPMG will be “seeking interested organizations to participate in the inaugural phase of the Hub’s activities.”