With growing fintech ties between Denmark and Singapore nurtured from grassroots to government, Dorte Bech Vizard describes the outsized opportunity for both countries in an essay for finews.first.
finews.first is a forum for renowned authors specialized on economic and financial topics. The texts are published in both German and English. The publishers of finews.com are responsible for the selection.
There are striking similarities between Singapore and Denmark: Both are global leaders in the ease of doing business. Each enjoy a high standard of living, matched with low levels of corruption. Both are situated between larger neighbours, with comparative populations of between 5.6 million to 5.7 million.
Equally, they have embraced the digital revolution and adopted a pragmatic approach to future-proofing their economy. This includes prioritising fintech. Singapore has a digital data vault, MyInfo, while Denmark has developed NemID, a unique ID number for accessing government services and banking services.
This summer saw the launch of Pay Now, a peer-to-peer transfer service for retail bank customers in Singapore. Denmark has enjoyed NETS Realtime 24/7, their instant payments system, since 2014. Denmark is an infrastructure leader.
«Denmark and Singapore: Common ground creates a solid foundation»
The European Blockchain Centre is located at the IT University of Copenhagen, one of the first of its kind. The Singapore Fintech Association (SFA) works with local institutes of higher learning to develop an industry-led curriculum of fintech skills.
Common ground creates a solid foundation. This summer, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) singed a memorandum of understanding, or MoU. It aims to help fintech companies, in either location, expand in to each other’s markets.
This is boosted by deepening industry ties, with a related MoU initiated between the SFA and Copenhagen Fintech. This activity was part of a Danish fintech delegation to the Lion City earlier this year, to kick-start potential collaborations.
«Denmark's fintech community has global ambitions and a lot of success»
Denmark is known for its innovation, centred on human-led design. Danish fintech combines this with rich experience operating within a digital economy. It is a community with global ambitions, and one with plenty of success. Tradeshift started in Copenhagen in 2010 and is now a worldwide operation. The company raised $75million in a 2016 series D round and recently announced a China expansion with local partner CreditEase.
SimCorp, an investment management solutions company, has operated in Singapore since 2004. From this regional base, it services financial institutions across Asia Pacific.
«Why Singapore?»
Cardlay, a Cards and Expense Management platform and Cardlay App, targets multinationals and global corporations by rethinking business processes within Cards, Travel and Expense Management to provide business process automation. It has Asian expansion plans for the latter half of this year.
Why Singapore? It is a regional fintech leader, with a developed infrastructure that contains the banking heart of ASEAN. The industry is cushioned with regulatory support from the government. English is the official language, with Mandarin and Bahasa widely spoken.
«It is an exhilarating, week-long opportunity to learn more about Asian fintechs»
The widespread use of fintech is driven by popular lifestyle apps such as transportation platform GrabPay.
Last year saw the inaugural Singapore Fintech Festival, the largest industry event in the region. It is an exhilarating, week-long opportunity to learn about the direction of Asian fintech, rub shoulders with global decision-makers and explore potential collaborations with partners in the region. We invite Danish companies to come and discover the opportunity for themselves at the event this November.
Dorte Bech Vizard is Denmark's ambassador to Singapore. She has held various roles in government and the diplomatic corps since 1999, except for a two-year stint as a consultant with Deloitte. A lawyer and graduate of Aarhus University, Bech Vizard is a major advocate of fintech.
Previous contributions: Rudi Bogni, Peter Kurer, Oliver Berger, Rolf Banz, Dieter Ruloff, Samuel Gerber, Werner Vogt, Walter Wittmann, Alfred Mettler, Peter Hody, Robert Holzach, Craig Murray, David Zollinger, Arthur Bolliger, Beat Kappeler, Chris Rowe, Stefan Gerlach, Marc Lussy, Nuno Fernandes, Beat Wittmann, Richard Egger, Maurice Pedergnana, Marco Bargel, Steve Hanke, Andreas Britt, Urs Schoettli, Ursula Finsterwald, Stefan Kreuzkamp, Katharina Bart, Oliver Bussmann, Michael Benz, Peter Hody, Albert Steck, Andreas Britt, Martin Dahinden, Thomas Fedier, Alfred Mettler, Brigitte Strebel, Peter Hody, Mirjam Staub-Bisang, Adriano B. Lucatelli, Nicolas Roth, Thorsten Polleit, Kim Iskyan, Stephen Dover, Denise Kenyon-Rouvinez, Christian Dreyer, Peter Kurer, Kinan Khadam-Al-Jame, Robert Hemmi, Claude Baumann, Anton Affentranger, Yves Mirabaud, Katharina Bart, Frédéric Papp, Hans-Martin Kraus, Gerard Guerdat, Didier Saint-Georges, Mario Bassi, Stephen Thariyan, Dan Steinbock, Rino Borini, Bert Flossbach, Michael Hasenstab, Guido Schilling and Werner E. Rutsch.
