Today marks the 5th Birthday of Cynopsis Solutions! It has been a very exciting five years journey towards achieving our goal of providing firms around the world with a secure, efficient and cost-effective solution for automating regulatory processes.
Founding Members Founded by our CEO Chionh Chye Kit and Avere Hill, Cynopsis Solutions was first established in Singapore on 14 March 2014. Chye Kit has almost 20 years of financial and capital markets experience in Asia, gaining his expertise from working in Macquarie Group and ING Bank. He is responsible for Cynopsis’ general operation, strategic direction and project development. In addition, Chye Kit is a regular speaker at numerous Compliance seminars in the Asia region, and also serves as an Advisor to Kyber Network. A senior business leader with 25 years financial services experience in EMEA and Asia, Avere has an extensive international experience building businesses in both Europe and Asia, and is currently leading the company's expansion in EMEA.
Products launched over the years – Artemis, Athena, Ares & Iris
In Cynopsis’ first 2 founding years, the first Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/Know Your Customer (KYC) flagship product Artemis was launched. Artemis is our unique Know Your Customer (KYC) automation tool designed to help our clients meet regulatory requirements and to date, Artemis has helped over 750+ B2B clients with their AML/CTF requirements globally. In addition to helping clients to take preventive measures through our KYC tool, detective measures are also essential. Hence, Cynopsis launched Athena to help clients in their transaction monitoring obligations.
Besides AML/KYC solutions, Cynopsis also launched Iris, a cost-effective one-stop automation of a complex regulatory requirement on Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Framework for the remuneration of Financial Adviser (FA)’s Representatives and Supervisors prescribed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as one of the key outcomes from the Financial Advisory Industry Review (FAIR). IRIS is intended to assist Financial Advisers, Insurance Companies, Banks and other Financial Intermediaries who may sell or market life insurance products, investment products and provide financial advisory services to retail investors in Singapore better comply with this regulatory requirement.
To provide our clients with a more comprehensive KYC solution, Cynopsis launched Ares in Q3 2018 – a digital onboarding platform that provides non face-to-face KYC processes. With this platform in place, businesses can conduct e-KYC in a way that integrates effortlessly with their own systems.
Upon the successful launch of our first product Artemis, Cynopsis successfully clinched our first client in the Corporate Services Provider (CSP) sector. Thereafter, within a short span of 4 years into establishment, Cynopsis Solutions was thrilled to onboard our 100th client in Q4 2017. To date, Cynopsis Solutions has a total of 3500+ users, 60 months in operation and counting, 4 SaaS products and 750+ live clients globally.
Cynopsis has also its pioneering team to thank for. In 2015, Xu Yangbo joined Cynopsis upon graduating from National University of Singapore (NUS), with a major in Bachelor of Engineering, and played an important role in driving Cynopsis’ products forward. Being the longest serving employee in the company, Yangbo is currently the Tech Lead of Cynopsis. He is also leading a niche team of dedicated software developers based in Singapore and is responsible for Cynopsis’ overall software development and tech infrastructure.
To date, Cynopsis has more than 25 employees in the office in Singapore.
Our rapid growth has moved us from our very initial premise in a serviced office in 2014-2015 to a 8 desk small office in Singapore located at Tras Street. Before long, we had to move to our current two units office located at Armenian Street in 2018.
In Q2 2018, traceto.io has also successfully launched and completed its ICO. Subsequently, traceto.io also released its first product - Lite Mainnet User dApp.
Global Partnerships In 2018, Cynopsis Solutions has partnered with Thomson Reuters and thereafter, went Global with Dow Jones Risk & Compliance. The global contract with Dow Jones Risk & Compliance has provided users with more comprehensive search coverage, allowing Cynopsis to effectively address the global needs in the regulatory sector and provide cost-effective AML/KYC solutions globally. As our products are offered on the cloud, we have entered into an Enterprise Agreement with AWS to offer better terms for our clients.
New Offices in APAC and EMEA
Over the years, Cynopsis has also been expanding its presence overseas and in 2018, we opened a new office in London to service our clients in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), employing local sales and marketing resources to help serve that market. Avere, Cynopsis’ Co-Founder, drives the business development in EMEA. In the same year, we have also established offices in Vietnam and Taiwan, which means our expanded footprint now covers operations in Singapore, the UK, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Awards Winner Since its establishment, Cynopsis Solutions has clinched numerous prestigious awards. In 2018, Cynopsis Solutions was awarded the winner of the MEDICI Top 21 RegTech award, and the first runner-up for Singapore Founder MAS FinTech Awards at the Singapore FinTech Festival. Cynopsis Solutions has also been recognized as a RegTech 100 company for 2018 and 2019 - a globally recognized, annual list of the World’s 100 most innovative RegTech firms. Most recently, Cynopsis has also become a FinTech Member of the UK’s asset management trade association, The Investment Association.
In 2019, Cynopsis Solutions has made the list as one of the 29 hottest FinTechs in Singapore, making Cynopsis one of the top FinTech firms to look out for. Already this year, we have participated in leading industry events from as far afield as Paris, Bahrain and Las Vegas and we have lots more activities planned to help share our expertise with firms looking to find a solution to their existing high-manual KYC processes. We are also proud that Cynopsis will be participating in the Singapore-United Kingdom Partnership for the Future campaign to promote a digital economy. Cynopsis Team from Singapore and UK will be exhibiting at the upcoming DataFest 2019 held in Scotland.
Quote from our CEO, Chye Kit “To say the obvious, the last 5 years have been a heck of experience that is very hard to put into words! A lot of sweat, tear and determination have gone into building Cynopsis and traceto.io to what they are today. I believe the journey is far from over. I am very grateful for all the support I have received from my co-founders, partners, employees and more importantly clients. There is no better satisfaction than knowing that our products and services have helped many people overcome regulatory hurdles over the last 5 years.” says Chye Kit, co-founder and CEO of Cynopsis Solutions.
About Cynopsis Solutions: Cynopsis Solutions was established in Singapore in 2014 and offers regulatory technology (reg tech) solutions designed to automate KYC processes. It has operations in Singapore, UK, Taiwan and Vietnam. Cynopsis Solutions is a winner of MAS FinTech Awards 2018 and has been recognized as one of the REGTECH100 – an annual list of 100 of the world’s most innovative RegTech companies as determined by RegTech Analyst, a RegTech intelligence platform. Website: www.cynopsis.co Twitter: https://twitter.com/cynopsiss LinkedIn: https://sg.linkedin.com/company/cynopsis-solutions Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynopsis.co/