What a week of intense #fintech, #regtech, #blockchain, #artificialintelligence, #identity immersion we had at the 2nd Singapore FinTech Festival.
Cynopsis took up a startup kiosk amongst the hundreds of exhibitors and had truly enjoyed ourselves at the event. This is the first year we participated in the festival and did so with some skepticism initially. We felt that a big event like this would just mean hordes of people strolling around and it would be very difficult to engage anyone in meaningful conversations.
The Preparation
We have participated in numerous seminars and conferences as exhibitors, speakers, etc. before and would like to consider ourselves as seasoned event-goers. So standees, brochures, door gifts are pretty standard kit.
Cynopsis was founded in 2014 and depending on how you want to define it, we would like to call ourselves a start-up. Unlike most start-ups, we have never gone down the path of printing t-shirts for ourselves. So we thought in the spirit of the Festival, we have to print some t-shirts and picked the theme RegTech for FinTech and have this at the back of our t-shirts. Doesn't need much explanation why this is so relevant.
The Exhibition
The t-shirt effect was good although we felt like we were in Expo winter wonderland on Day#1. Eventually, everyone was wearing jackets for the next 2 days. I did a couple of impromptu stripping-back-the-jacket stunts to show off our RegTech for FinTech theme.
Glad to re-connect with teams from Taiwan FinTechBase and Abu Dhabi Global Markets. Our cloud partner, Amazon Web Services invited us to participate in their Passport Program. Congratulations to the Kindle winners.
We met many good friends, clients, competitors and prospective partners. All in the good spirit of the FinTech Festival where we continue our learning journey.
As exhibitors, we were denied the access into the F&B area for food and drinks which I thought was ridiculous. We had to find creative ways in order to fill our stomachs and not get dehydrated at the event hall. Luckily on the last day of exhibition, we had a very good client who literally brought us food all the way from Shenton Way. Thank you Carl and Ann. We are truly touched.
We also caught a glimpse of Ms. Christine Lagarde, Head of IMF and her entourage walking around the exhibition hall.
The highlight of the exhibition for us got to be the booth visit by Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam where we shared with him who we are, what we do and who we serve. He asked our team members an interesting question why fresh graduates would join a startup and our answer was why not.
Other Events During the Week
Regnovation.Robo by RegPac
- 13 November
We started the FinTech Festival with a cosy group of RegTech enthusiasts where we discussed during a Fireside Chat various RegTech applications, artificial intelligence and the future of RegTech. I was glad to share my Regnopreneurship experience with the audience. Thanks Mona for the invite.
RegTech Innovation & Adoption by The RegTech Association
- 16 November
At the kind invitation by Julian, Founder of GRC Solutions and The RegTech Association, I spoke at a panel discussing our RegTech journey, hits and misses with a rather engaging audience. It was also a privilege to have Mr. Bruce Gosper, The Australian High Commissioner to Singapore joining us at the event. Thanks to The RegTech Association (where Cynopsis is a founding member), Deloitte and Austrade for organising the session. Proud to speak alongside SQREEM, Identitii and Arctic Intelligence.
IDAI Conference by Left Coast
- 17 November
A wonderful closing event for the week for me was to moderate a panel discussion on KYC/AML/CTF in an AI Future. Our panel was joined by Daon, Netki and Samsung where we discussed the increasingly tough regulatory environment, how technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain can help in the space of KYC/AML/CTF as well as a gaze into the crystal ball of how the experts see the landscape in the next 10 years.
Thanks to Mr. Ian Myles of Left Coast for the invitation and acknowledgement of our very early conversation this year where we brainstormed and conceptualised this very event. Being part of it is a privilege.
Final Thoughts
We started the week with fairly low expectation from the exhibition because we thought it would turn out to be a massive trade-show type event. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the way the event was organised. We loved the extra space given to start-up kiosks and although we had 100-over kiosks as compared to the much modest number in previous year, we do not feel tight at all.
A very well organised event indeed. Kudos to Monetary Authority of Singapore and Association of Banks in Singapore for making this a very successful event well attended by over 30,000 delegates from all over the world... (except for the little denial of free food for the exhibitors which I thought the organisers can certainly well afford).
Looking forward to Singapore FinTech Festival 2018.