Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Financial technology (FinTech) transforming financial services in Singapore Speech by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Launch of LATTICE80, Singapore, 10 November 2016. * * *  Introduction 1 Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to join all of you. Let me begin by congratulating Marvelstone on the launch of LATTICE80. 2 It is the first innovation space in Singapore dedicated to and designed specifically to support FinTech. LATTICE80 is also the first not-for-profit private sector initiative in this business of nurturing start-ups. The FinTech Phenomenon 3 FinTech – or financial technology – is transforming financial services, both from within established financial institutions and from outside the regulated sector through new, FinTech players. 4 When FinTechs first came to global prominence, it was tempting to cast this as a battle between new, innovative and responsive players and lumbering, flat-footed banks and other financial institutions. 5 The real picture is more nuanced, mainly because the incumbents have not been sitting still: Many of them are investing heavily in technology to streamline and optimise entire swathes of operations. For example, several initiatives are underway among banks to tap on distributed ledger technology to achieve swift, seamless and secure trade settlement. Several financial institutions have set up in-house FinTech units to replicate the start-up culture. They are also collaborating with and, in some instances, buying over promising FinTech companies. 6 And not many technology companies aspire to become financial institutions.

In simple terms, inflation may be defined as the change in the general price level of goods and services. However, in every day usage, inflation may be defined as “too much money chasing too few goods”. Describing inflation this way makes it easier to link it to monetary policy which is the control of money supply in an economy. The Bank of Zambia is concerned that inflation has remained stubbornly high for quite sometime now. As at end-June 2005, inflation was at 19.2% which we consider too high to foster sustainable economic growth. The poor weather patterns over the last agricultural season resulted in low crop output, particularly that of maize, which induced inflationary pressures. The unyielding rise in world oil prices on account of high demand from China and India, due to high economic activity, disruptions in supply, arising from war in the Middle East, as well as processing capacity constraints in many oil consuming countries have also caused a general rise in the domestic prices of petroleum products thereby increasing the cost of domestic production. In order to moderate the inflationary pressures arising from low crop output, on a sustainable basis, efforts should be directed at diversifying and improving agricultural output away from rain-fed agricultural practices. Government’s commitment to increased investment in the agricultural sector is therefore commendable as this should assist in improving the supply of agricultural output, in particular that of food items. This has an important bearing towards reducing consumer food inflation.