The buzz and buzzwords from the Singapore Fintech Festival 2025

By Manoj Aravindakshan

The 10th edition of the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF 2025), arguably one of the most prominent events in the world in the field of fintech, concluded on November 14 in the backdrop of a near “perfect storm” with the convergence of powerful geopolitical changes, a massive technological reset with AI and quantum, and growing obstacles to seamless migration of human talent.

A decade in current times is probably worth several in the past and this year’s event reflected fintech’s maturation into something more strategic with inclusion, trust and long-term resilience becoming as important as innovation. There was a perceptible shift in emphasis from “disruption” to scale and stability of the infrastructure for new-gen financial services, with much of the talk being around “settlement assets”, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), tokenized deposits, and quantum-resilient systems.

Walking across the six halls of Singapore Expo filled with exhibitors of all sizes from around the world and dipping in and out of various presentations and panel discussions, it was quite clear that the Singapore Fintech Festival has taken rapid strides in establishing itself as an event that can catalyse long-term systemic change globally in the realm of financial services.

SFF 2025 Keywords: Agentic AI, Programmable Money, Tokenisation

Last year when I attended the Festival for the first time, AI, quantum and tokenisation were already being discussed. This year, I realized that these have graduated from mere buzzwords to becoming foundational building blocks that will be the core of future financial architecture.

While debate raged on whether we are living in an AI-bubble, and the consequences of that bubble bursting if and when it happened, there was near unanimity that AI will be inextricably linked to the development, delivery and consumption of financial services globally. The message is clear: be ready for “Agentic” (autonomous decision-making) AI in commerce, payments, and governance. A throwaway line from one of the venture capitalists during a panel discussion that stuck with me was “2026 will be the year that finance becomes intelligent and compliance the core”.

I sensed a similar integration of ‘quantum’ into longer-term blueprint thinking rather than being a speculative term.

Financial Inclusion, Trust & Security

Greater financial inclusion continues to be a key promise of the fintech revolution, especially with approximately 1.4 billion of the adult population of the world still being unbanked. From microloans and direct payments, the focus has shifted to the development of national/regional digital public infrastructure (DPI) and public-private collaboration to enable such inclusion. The industry is clearly moving from building fintech apps to building systems.

In this context, the development of the ‘Finternet’ – a financial system that connects multiple financial ecosystems- its proposed launch in 2026 and subsequent impact will be worth tracking closely.

Besides stability and scalability of financial systems, trust and security continue to be major challenges for all stakeholders in the fintech ecosystem. “Securing the future” was an important theme at SFF, a clear indication that risk, resilience, and trust are critical imperatives of future financial innovation.

Singapore as The Global Fintech Hub

The role of emerging economies or the “Global South”- a term that some experts labeled as being outdated and irrelevant in today’s times- in shaping global finance was a key point in several discussions.

The jury is still out whether the next few years will see a bi-polar world led by the United States and China or a multi-polar world with countries like India and Brazil also playing a more assertive role. According to Prof.Kishore Mahbubani, a much respected former diplomat from Singapore, the so-called Asian century will be a complex one with the C.I.A (China, India & ASEAN) poised to drive growth.

Interestingly however, Prof.Mahbubani was the only one among a panel comprising five other eminent personalities from other countries who wasn’t euphoric or optimistic about all that is happening with fintech including stablecoins. For me, his apparent pessimism was a typical Singapore response, one that has served this country well in its 60 years: ‘cautiously optimistic’ in the best of times and paranoid most of the time.

On the other hand, during one of the panel discussions, Sandeep Naik, advisory director at New York-based private equity firm General Atlantic, claimed that Singapore- already the financial services hub of Asia- could well become the fintech hub of the world.

As a resident of Singapore for over two decades, I find that exciting. Hopefully, before the next Singapore Fintech Festival comes up in November 2026, we will have a lot more homegrown fintech companies making waves across the world!

Manoj Aravindakshan is Content Director with AsiaBizToday.com . He is also the founder of On Target Media, a Singapore digital marketing company that works with SMEs and start-ups in Singapore and across the region.