Singapore does rank well in the FinTech stakes, but I have to tell you that it’s a distraction at this stage and it really doesn’t get to the heart of what we are doing. Our aim is not to see if we can be above other financial centres, but to push the envelope and transform finance: to encourage players to find new ways of doing the business, and in a way that makes more sense to the customer – the borrower, the lender, the middle-class investor, or someone who makes payments or receives them. Transforming finance to be more tailored to their needs, something that’s if possible cheaper, or more convenient and accessible to the customer. That’s our aim. But we are at an early stage in FinTech. We are at the cusp of the new wave of innovation. There’s no assurance that it will succeed, and no telling who will succeed. But it shows much promise –promise of delivering better value to the customer. There’s a second reason why the rankings are really not the end game, and that’s because FinTech probably more so than conventional finance is going to involve tie-ups and collaborations – between players and between cities, at the same time that it’s an extremely competitive business. The Asia-Pacific has tremendous untapped potential in finance. There is a very significant underserved market in the Asia Pacific, in Southeast Asia, in China, in India.
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Most FinTech ventures, globally, have indeed not succeeded to date. The real stress test of any new idea in finance is the economic and credit cycle. But even where new players fail, they usually leave behind an idea – an idea to be modified, taken over or improved. We must allow for this experimentation, but we must do it in a way that preserves trust and credibility in our financial system. That is foremost in our minds. So regulators are watching this carefully. We have to allow for innovation. But any player that acquires a meaningful scale in finance should expect to be regulated like any other financial institution in their business. There must be a level playing field, and there are to begin with good reasons for why regulations exist. We cannot stifle innovation. We must let people come up with new ideas, and let them run with it. But once they acquire meaningful scale in the financial sector, they should expect regulation. Ten years from now, finance will be very different. We can’t say exactly how. But we in Singapore intend to be a key player in innovation in finance. A key player in advancing ways to help consumers with their needs as lenders, borrowers, as makers of payments. In Singapore and the Asia-Pacific. We will go about this very energetically in Singapore, especially in developing common infrastructure or utilities, as I just mentioned. Ravi will be going through some of our strategies.