Singapore Names 42 FinTech Finalists for S$505,000 in Awards

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) named 42 finalists for two Singapore FinTech Festival competitions, including projects involving stablecoin settlement and crypto-wallet screening, with S$505,000 in awards at stake.

The 18 Global FinTech Hackcelerator teams were selected from 195 applications submitted across 52 jurisdictions. Six finalists will take on each of three sponsor challenges: GXS Bank’s credit and fraud risk modeling; Julius Baer’s private banking for digitally native clients; and Zurich Insurance’s small-business risk exposure challenge. MAS and the Global Finance & Technology Network organize the Hackcelerator.

One team per challenge will receive S$80,000, for S$240,000 in Hackcelerator prizes. Each finalist team is also listed for a separate S$20,000 travel and participation stipend. Finalists can explore pilot engagements with challenge sponsors and apply for a scale-up grant.

The separate FinTech Excellence Awards shortlist includes 20 companies and four mentor nominees. Its five corporate categories are Emerging FinTech, Financial Inclusivity, Regulatory Leader, Sustainable Innovator and Thematic (AI Champion). One winner in each category will receive S$50,000, while three mentor award winners will receive S$5,000 apiece. Together, the awards and Hackcelerator prizes total S$505,000, excluding finalist stipends. MAS and the Singapore FinTech Association organize the awards, with support from PwC Singapore.

Some finalists focus on digital-asset applications. Working Ants Inc. describes Sera as a foreign-exchange settlement service using stablecoins. AML Watcher describes its compliance platform as screening crypto wallets, and Kubix Digital Asset describes a platform for tokenizing carbon credits. LinqAlpha is listed in both the Julius Baer Hackcelerator challenge and the Thematic (AI Champion) awards category.

MAS chief fintech officer Kenneth Gay said, “There is a need to better harness technology to deliver meaningful improvements in financial services.” The Hackcelerator finalists will pitch Nov. 18; both competitions will name winners at the Nov. 19 awards dinner.