The Fintech Guide to Singapore

Singapore, as a colony, was founded in 1819 as a trading post of the British East India Company. By 1965 it gained independence and became a Republic, and today the Lion City is an economic tiger and along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan is one of the original Four Asian Tigers. With OCBC, DBS and UOB (Singaporean Banks) ranked amongst some of the strongest in the world by Bloomberg, the situation for Fintech StartUps and Banking in Singapore looks rosy, but does it?

On the 26th of February 1995, Barings, which had been the United Kingdom’s oldest merchant bank, was declared insolvent. Many people point the finger at Watford-born Nick Leeson, the man that many have dubbed the ‘Rogue Trader’.

Before Nick was extradited to Singapore in 1995, where he had been working for Barings since 1992, he attended Parmiters in Watford, about the same time as he was hanging around in Frankfurt, I did a semester at Parmiters too, we are both from the same town after all, so the chances were always high that we might attend the same school. This was probably the main reason I had ever really heard about Singapore, the story of Barings Bank and Nick Leeson. But this isn’t the only thing that I have in common with Nick, someone I consider to be an original Disruptor. With the growing role of Asia in Capital Markets, Singapore is once again gaining a lot of attention when it comes to Banking in Asia and it has caught my interest just as it once caught Nick’s.

Singapore is now a StartUp Hub, there is no question about this, and has come a long way since the collapse of Barings Bank. With favourable economic conditions, a good tax rate and one of the most corruption-free economies in the world, Singapore is an attractive investment destination. As a major financial hub, Hong Kong is still more important according to some, but Singapore’s economy is much more diverse and feels more Westernized which is in turn encouraging a stronger Tech scene than Hong Kong.

Some of the leaders (...) To see the rest of the article please visit https://www.disruptionbanking.com/2018/05/the-fintech-guide-to-singapore/