Singapore Selects 42 FinTech Finalists for S$505,000 in Prizes

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) named 42 finalists for two Singapore FinTech Festival competitions with S$505,000 in total awards and prizes, according to the regulator. The announced total excludes finalist travel and participation stipends.

Eighteen Global FinTech Hackcelerator teams will pitch on Nov. 18, with winners due at the awards dinner on Nov. 19. The shortlist includes projects involving stablecoin settlement and crypto-wallet screening.

MAS chief fintech officer Kenneth Gay said: “There is a need to better harness technology to deliver meaningful improvements in financial services.”

The Hackcelerator pairs cash prizes with a separate route to corporate pilots. Its 18 finalists can explore pilot engagements with the challenge sponsors and apply for a scale-up grant. The grant application is separate from the fixed cash prizes and the S$20,000 travel and participation stipend.

How do the two competitions differ?

The competitions have separate shortlists, prize pools and organizers. MAS and the Global Finance & Technology Network organize the Hackcelerator. MAS and the Singapore FinTech Association organize the FinTech Excellence Awards, with support from PwC Singapore.

The Hackcelerator selected its 18 teams from 195 applications submitted across 52 jurisdictions. Six finalists will contest each of three sponsor challenges:

• GXS Bank: credit and fraud risk modeling.
• Julius Baer: private banking for digitally native clients.
• Zurich Insurance: small-business risk exposure.

One team in each challenge will receive S$80,000, creating an S$240,000 Hackcelerator prize pool. Each finalist team is also listed for a separate S$20,000 travel and participation stipend. Those stipends fall outside the S$505,000 total.

The sponsor format concentrates the pitch process on a defined banking or insurance problem. For the sponsors, it supplies a shortlist of technology providers to assess for potential pilot work. For the teams, the competition offers a fixed cash award and a route to sponsor engagement.

Which projects focus on digital assets?

The FinTech Excellence Awards shortlist includes 20 companies and four mentor nominees. One winner in each of five corporate categories will receive S$50,000, while three mentor award winners will receive S$5,000 apiece.

The corporate award categories are:

• Emerging FinTech
• Financial Inclusivity
• Regulatory Leader
• Sustainable Innovator
• Thematic (AI Champion)

The five corporate prizes total S$250,000. The three mentor awards add S$15,000, bringing the awards and Hackcelerator prizes together at S$505,000, again excluding finalist stipends.

The announced shortlist breaks down into 18 Hackcelerator teams, 20 corporate award finalists and four mentor nominees.

Four shortlisted names concern digital-asset applications. Working Ants Inc. describes Sera as a foreign-exchange settlement service using stablecoins. AML Watcher describes its compliance platform as screening crypto wallets.

Kubix Digital Asset describes a platform for tokenizing carbon credits. LinqAlpha is listed in both the Julius Baer Hackcelerator challenge and the Thematic (AI Champion) awards category.

The digital-asset work spans foreign-exchange settlement, compliance screening and carbon-credit tokenization. LinqAlpha’s dual listing connects a private-banking challenge with the AI-themed corporate award category.

What happens next?

The Hackcelerator finalists will pitch on Nov. 18, and both competitions will name winners at the Nov. 19 awards dinner. Three challenge prizes, five corporate awards and three mentor awards will be allocated.

For the sponsors, the contest offers a way to assess outside technology against specific banking and insurance problems. For the finalists, it combines cash support with a possible corporate pilot path.

The next fixed point is the Nov. 18 pitch session, with winners due to be named at the Nov. 19 awards dinner.