management, singapore ’ s thriving family office ecosystem is helping wealthy asian families to professionalise the management of their wealth and support their growing interest to invest for impact, as wealth is transferred to the next generation. in insurance, new capabilities are being developed to provide risk advisory services for complex and structural risks in asia, like cyber - attacks, pandemic, and climate risks. the increasingly pervasive use of technology in our financial sector will be another key driver of growth. financial institutions in singapore are making significant investments in technology. major banks and insurers are accelerating their digital transformation and ramping up hiring in application development, data science, and artificial intelligence. example : ocbc bank recently announced that it plans to hire 1, 500 technology staff over the next 3 years, with the majority of those positions to be based in singapore. bank of america has based one of its two overseas global cyber security centres in singapore. the bank currently has more than 800 headcounts in singapore focusing on technology. another example is shanghai pudong development bank, which set up its first overseas innovation centre in singapore. likewise, global insurers like scor have established innovation labs in singapore. local insurers have invested heavily in technology too. singapore has made a name for itself as providing one of the world ’ s most conducive environments for financial innovation. we are now home to over 50 global and regional innovation labs and more than 1, 400 fintech firms. last year, we saw record high fintech investments of us $ 3. 9 billion last year, up from uss $ 2. 5 billion in 2020 [ 2 ]. leading players at the forefront of digital asset innovation have anchored their operations in singapore. jp morgan has partnered dbs bank and temasek to establish partior, which is a multi - currency, cross - border settlement platform, leveraging blockchain technology. r3, a global distributed ledger technology provider with roots as a banking consortium, has grown its innovation hub in singapore to become the regional headquarters for asia. the newest and possibly most promising area of growth is sustainable finance where we aspire to support asia ’ s transition to a low carbon economy. the task of reducing emissions is urgent, as pointed out by the most recent report of the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change. all sectors of the economy need to achieve progressive and deep emission reductions. some us $ 2 trillion in infrastructure investments will be needed over the next decade

ravi menon : " chongqing connectivity in digitalisation and sustainability " keynote speech by mr ravi menon, managing director of the monetary authority of singapore, at the singapore - china ( chongqing ) financial summit, 23 november 2021. * * * mayor tang, minister teo, colleagues from asean, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. welcome to the 4th singapore - china ( chongqing ) connectivity initiative ( cci ) financial summit. i thank the chongqing municipal people ’ s government for hosting this summit. financial connectivity between singapore and the western region has strengthened. crossborder financing volumes have grown substantively over the years. since 2015, there has been a total of 192 financing deals between the western region and singapore, amounting to over us $ 17 billion. this year, despite the pandemic, cross - border financing amounted to us $ 3 billion. globally, we are seeing the two big trends of digitalisation and sustainability. it is thus appropriate that chongqing and singapore have identified trade digitalisation and green finance as two of the focus areas under the cci finance pillar. first, digitalising the cci - international land sea trade corridor ( cci - ilstc ). the cciilstc, first conceptualised in 2018, has proven to be a viable alternative for traders looking to transport goods between western china and southeast asia. despite the pandemic, trade flows along the cci - ilstc increased by almost 30 % in 2020. we should now aim to turn the cci - ilstc into a main thoroughfare for regional trade. but to do this, we must address some of the challenges inherent in its multi - modal nature. the rail - to - sea modality requires greater coordination than single modal transportation. for example, traders on the cci - ilstc have to rely on the multi - modal transport bill of lading or mtbl as proof of title as the goods are being carried on land, by rail, and over sea. however, the mtbl is currently not widely used as a negotiable document, unlike ordinary bills of lading which have clear legal status. this limits the access to trade financing facilities for importers and exporters using multimodal trade routes. we must step up efforts to enhance the acceptance of mtbls amongst trade players in china and asean. in fact, the mtbl will need to be recognised as a negotiable document, not only in its