tharman shanmugaratnam : enterprise innovation - improving lives in singapore and technological speech by mr tharman shanmugaratnam, chairman of the monetary authority of singapore, at the fintech awards, singapore, 17 november 2016. * * * mr wee ee cheong, chairman, abs and ceo, uob distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, 1 thank you for joining us here at our inaugural fintech awards prize presentation ceremony. 2 let me begin by thanking the participating teams, as well as the international cast of judges who helped evaluate the entries, for their time and inspiring work. 3 this evening, we are honouring winners from two competitions organised as part of the inaugural singapore fintech festival : the global fintech hackcelerator and the fintech awards. the global fintech hackcelerator attracted a total of 655 submissions from more than 50 countries. they produced solutions to address some of the 100 problem statements that the financial sector had put out. the fintech awards recognises innovative fintech solutions that have actually been implemented by financial sector players and technology companies. we received 210 entries, running the gamut from cyber security to payments. 4 we celebrate the winning entries this evening. but equally, we are celebrating the spirit of innovation that each of the participants in these competitions demonstrated. they represent the passion to make things better, to create value for firms in a way that gives customers value, and ultimately, to find innovative ways to improve everyday life. that is the fintech spirit. 5 these last four days of the fintech festival, there has been much discussion about technology, regulation, infrastructure, markets, funding. 6 tonight, i would like to speak briefly on the critical people factor – not just for success in fintech but more broadly in the innovation - driven economy of tomorrow : people having that spirit of enterprise and a willingness to be different ; and people developing deep skills, skills relevant to the market, and a keenness to learn continuously. 7 that ’ s at the heart of what it takes for us to sustain and grow the fintech movement – the entrepreneurial desire to find new ways, even disruptive ways, and the deep skills and continuous learning that we need to power innovation. enterprise and innovation 8 we are already seeing successes, and we want to provide a fertile ground for more new ideas and solutions to keep cropping up. mas has a regulatory sandbox framework to make it easier for fintech start - ups to test their business

##tech community so that students can apply their skills and gain hands - on experience. in october, we embarked on the “ polyfintech 100 ” initiative to secure 100 fintech mentors and 100 fintech internships for 2017. i am pleased to announce that we have secured these targets in the short span of a month. more than 2, 500 students in the banking and it - related courses in the polytechnics each year are expected to benefit from these initiatives. 16 mas is also partnering with the universities and polytechnics to expose students to perspectives from industry practitioners 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches next year, we will launch the mas tech talks, a series of talks by fintech professionals to share about their experiences in the industry. this will give students to better understand job opportunities available in fintech and define their career aspirations. 17 second, as part of our broader skillsfuture national initiative, mas is partnering various other players to enhance continuous learning. we must in particular equip financial professionals with stronger digital skillsets : the financial it academy ( fita ) is delivering a digital transformation programme for midcareers that includes topics such as data analytics and agile development, to deliver software faster and with high quality. the institute of banking and finance ( ibf ) will be offering new learning modules on a set of core capabilities covering data science, human - centric design, agile thinking, and cyber - risk awareness. to develop the cyber security talent pool in singapore, the info - comm & media development authority ( imda ) and the cyber security agency ( csa ) have introduced the cyber security associates and technologists ( csat ) programme1. the university of pennsylvania ’ s wharton school will also be launching a new executive education programme in singapore focused on financial innovation. i ) called the wharton fintech innovation program for financial institutions, it is expected to launch in the second quarter of next year. ii ) the program aims to expose senior managers in incumbent financial institutions to current topics in fintech. iii ) participants will learn to how to grapple with disruptive trends, and drive change and innovation across their organisations to compete in the fintech space. we also want to ensure that professionals trained in ict skills have good placement outcomes in the financial sector. we are doing this through the recently - formed finance committee of the technology skills accelerator, or tesa, programme. i ) tesa aims to identify specific ict skills in demand and work with training providers to meet these demands. ii