The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has made public the specifics of its S$150 million (US $112 million) commitment to aid in the development of the fintech sector over the ensuing three years.
Projects that focus on important areas of development in the fintech industry will be funded by the Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme (FSTI) 3.0. MAS chairman Lawrence Wong first disclosed the initiative in November 2022.
Six tracks will be available in FSTI 3.0, each of which will cover a different investment activity. Three of these tracks—AI and data analytics, regtech, and industry-wide projects—have been carried over from the previous iteration of the curriculum.
The three new tracks are the Innovation Acceleration track, which aims to invest in fintech solutions from emerging sectors like Web3, the Centre of Excellence track, which will concentrate on supporting innovative projects within financial institutions, corporate venture capital firms, and international tech companies, and the ESG Fintech track, which seeks to back projects tackling ESG data, reporting, and analytics.
Wong stated that the earlier iterations of the program helped create more than 200 jobs when he announced FSTI 3.0 in November. Nearly 500 projects received funding from FSTI 1.0 totalling $74.6 million, while more than 1,000 projects received funding from FSTI 2.0 totalling US $149.1 million.
