The Singapore Fintech Festival 2019 and the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology will come together. Running from 11 to 15 November, this event will gather the global innovation and business community in Singapore.

There will be over 400 speakers, more than 900 exhibitors, 41 international pavilions, and about 60,0001 participants from 130 countries.

1. Sustainability and Climate Change is the overarching theme of the combined conference this year, given the growing calls for the technology and financial sectors to be enablers and change agents for sustainability. This theme is reflected in the content of the conference, the design of the event space at the Singapore Expo and the provision of food from sustainable sources. Please refer to Annex A for more details.

2. The inaugural SFF x SWITCH will feature innovative technologies across five key sectors – Fintech, Urban Solutions and Sustainability, Health and Biomedical Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering, and Services and Digital Services – to catalyze cross-industry exchange and learning in technology adoption, application of R&D, and commercialization of new solutions.

Event Highlights

3. The event will kick off with the three-day SFF x SWITCH Conference (11-13 November) at the Singapore Expo. The Conference comprises nine stages, where prominent speakers will discuss topics on Sustainability, Finance and Tech; Future of Finance; Investment and Global Markets Opportunities; Exponential Technologies; Global Access to Innovation; Future Directions with Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Healthcare Innovation; Powering Cities of the Future; and Sustaining the Future of Humanity.

4. Among the speakers at the Conference are Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands; Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Singapore; Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Education, Singapore, and Board Member, MAS; Agustin Carstens, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements; Pavan Sukhdev, President, World Wildlife Fund International; Kees Immink, President, Turing Machines; Pat Bajari, Vice President for Core AI, Chief Economist, Amazon; and Sergey Ryazanskiy, Pilot-Astronaut and Hero of the Russian Federation.

  • Debuting this year is the Sustainability, Finance and Tech Summit (11-13 November), featuring over 50 speakers who will take the stage to discuss how they are paving the way for a more sustainable future in the world of finance and beyond.
  • The annual Global Investor Summit (11 November) will bring together 17 venture capital, corporate venture capital and family office investors from San Francisco to Tokyo, to share their strategies for unlocking growth, impacting inclusion, and delivering long-term value creation in the FinTech and Deep Tech ecosystems.
  • Leading the Deep Tech conference, the Global Access to Innovation track (11 November) will feature perspectives from a myriad of movers and shakers in Asia’s innovation ecosystem. From founders of tech unicorns to senior leaders from both the private and public sectors, conference participants can look forward to finding out more about the opportunities in market access, innovation and investment, in Asia and beyond.
  • A new summit created this year to spotlight key issues faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is SME Digitalisation and Platforms – Business sans Borders (BSB) (13 November). The sessions in this track will cover pertinent issues such as SME Financing Reimagined, the Impact of Trade Wars on SMEs and Platforms as well as the Roadmap for BSB Beyond 2020. The discussions will take place at a new Coral Triangle stage, which is designed for more intimate and interactive conversations.

5. Alongside the Conference is the combined SFF x SWITCH Exhibition curated by SingEx, which showcases innovative solutions in FinTech and Deep Tech from around the world. The 41 international pavilions2 will display solutions from their respective countries or regions. Visitors can also interact with 20 international financial regulators3 at the Regulators Zone to learn more about business opportunities and regulations in those countries.

6. The Innovation SG booth, featuring an interactive TechXperience Zone, will present technology, innovation and enterprise initiatives led by local and international players. From deal-making sessions and workshops to industry launches and networking events, the showcase presents Singapore’s role as a vibrant Global-Asia node of innovation.

7. Three exciting Competitions for the global innovation community will reach its conclusion at SFF x SWITCH:

  • The Global FinTech Hackcelerator Demo Day, taking place on 11 November, will present 20 market-ready fintech solutions intended to solve real-life industry problems in financial inclusion, insurtech, RegTech and SupTech, and a general category. Winners will be revealed later on the same day.
  • Winners of the FinTech Awards will be announced on 11 November, recognizing innovative FinTech solutions that have been implemented by FinTech companies, financial institutions, and technology companies. Attendees can also catch the finalists presenting their 5-minute company pitches on 12 November at the Open Stages4.
  • Startup SG’s marquee startup pitching competition that highlights the best global startups, has a focus on increasing deal-making this year. Semi-finals will take place over the first two days where the SLINGSHOT Top Global 100 Startups across six key tracks5 will pitch their solutions to over 200 judges comprising industry veterans, corporates, tech giants and investors. More than S$2 million worth of prizes will be awarded. The top 12 startups will vie to be the Grand Winner at the Grand Finals happening on 13 November.

8. Investors and companies can look forward to the following Deal-Making Opportunities at SFF x SWITCH:

  • Daily Mixers (11 and 12 November), taking place at the Innovation SG booth, will host some of the best-in-class global companies and investors and feature intimate Q&A sessions with top investors.
  • TechInnovation (11 – 13 November), the premier technology-industry matching event, will showcase over 150 enabling technologies available for technology commercialization or licensing. A special UK-Singapore innovation seminar and a thematic track on design-led innovation will also debut at TechInnovation this year.

9. The Innovation Lab Crawl (14-15 November) will feature research facilities and in-house laboratories from 53 partners in the areas of FinTech, Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering, Urban Solutions and Sustainability, Health and Biomedical Sciences and Services and Digital Economy. Interested parties can sign up at http://fintechfestival.sg/innovation-lab-crawl to see where new products and solutions are tested, learn about how these labs leverage the latest technologies and network with start-ups and key innovation executives.

10. Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer MAS, said: «Each year, in running the Singapore Fintech Festival, we strive towards achieving our vision of making it a global platform for knowledge sharing. This year, our partnership with SWITCH has given us that opportunity to draw a larger technology-focused audience beyond the financial services sector. It has helped propel SFF x SWITCH into a platform for the world to share thought leadership, make meaningful connections and to build better ideas that will benefit our community.»


SFF is organized by MAS, in partnership with The Association of Banks in Singapore, and in collaboration with SingEx Holdings. SWITCH is organized by Enterprise Singapore, NRF and Intellectual Property Intermediary (IPI) in partnership with SingEx.