Money20/20 Asia Edition to focus on Fintech innovation

Money20/20, one of the leading platforms where the Financial Services, Payments and FinTech community connect and create the future of money, kick started today in Singapore. The Asian edition - Money20/20 Asia brings over 300 industry leading speakers to reveal their top company strategies, share unique opinions on various topics and predict the future trends.

Money20/20 Asia has released six FinTech forecasts and predictions from some of their featured speakers, which provides a taste of what the global audience will learn from the event.

Sreeram Iyer, COO, Institutional Banking at ANZ Banking Group provided his banking perspective on the long-standing industry topic -- blockchain applications.

"Though not a commonly-held view, Corporate & Institutional Banking will certainly witness the maturity, practical adoption, and benefit-realisations of *private* Blockchain applications and gear up for traction in 2020. These will have significant customer experience improvements and internal productivity gains - not only in Trade, but in Lending & Global Markets alike."

Jakub Zakrzewski, General Manager, APAC, Revolut, shared his insider view on the key elements to strengthen the competitive advantages of challenger banks in 2019.

"A big trend to look out for in 2019 will be the increased use of automation, machine learning and AI, which will enable banking challengers to automate, accelerate and improve the quality of their decision-making. This will help them across the business, but particularly when it comes to tackling financial crime faster and far more accurately than outdated, manual processes."

Dr. Kfir Bar, Chief Scientist at Basis Technology predicted blockchain and cryptocurrencies impact in Financial Services in 2019.

"The future is uncertain for blockchain and cryptocurrencies in financial services. There's no doubt digital value protocols, distributed ledgers, and smart contracts have a compelling hypothetical value proposition for the industry, but real-world applications have been noticeably lacking. I think they can have a significant impact, but it's hard to predict what it will be."

Theodora Lau, Founder at Unconventional Venture commented on predicted Fintech & Bank partnerships in 2019.

"2019 is the year of autonomous banking - when we move from insights to action. The winners will be those who leverage emerging technologies such as AI and advanced analytics to become truly trusted advisor for their customers -- automating their day-to-day finances and empowering them towards a more financially secure future."

James Lloyd, Asia-Pacific FinTech Leader at EY shared his view on the 2019 trend of FinTech and TechFin partner ecosystems.

"The emergence of digital 'challenger' banks is a global trend. Taking learnings from other markets and inspired by the success of major 'TechFin' players in China, platform-enabled challengers in Asia-Pacific are likely to be among the most innovative - creating and participating in partner ecosystems extending beyond finance into such areas as retail, transportation, travel, and telecommunications."