Singapore Spotlight: Digital Transformation During a Pandemic

Singapore Fintech Festival was a forum for BNY Mellon senior executives and other leaders to discuss some of the issues reshaping the financial industry. More than 60,000 participants representing more than 130 countries joined a hybrid of virtual and physical events from December 7-11, 2020.

The pandemic has been a stimulus for many firms to fast-track their respective digital transformations. BNY Mellon responded by speeding up the way it works with clients to digitize solutions and to help employees become more digitally savvy. This industry shift was one of the most popular overall conference themes this year.

BNY Mellon delegates also discussed what firms and fintechs can do today to help build and sustain a culture of innovation, develop successful alliances and collaborations, as well as how to prepare for a post-pandemic world. Singapore’s digital and financial ecosystem has been one of the bright spots of the year, and BNY Mellon is doing its part to help grow the market by blending global lessons learned with key client takeaways to enhance existing as well as build new digital capabilities.  

BNY Mellon Chief Executive Officer of Asset Servicing and Head of Digital Roman Regelman, who was a main summit featured speaker at the event, said, “It’s more important than ever, particularly given today’s remote working operating environment, for the need to collaborate with fintechs and other ecosystem participants to help solve real business challenges for the industry. Collaboration is a main pillar of our digital strategy and we have aggressively advanced our network of partners this year to meet client needs in Singapore and globally overall. Additionally, we are proud to expand our relationship with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), who organized the festival, to help strengthen Singapore’s vibrant and emerging fintech and innovative technology environment.” 

Speaking to his panel topic about sustaining a business and developing a culture of innovation, Robin Vince, Vice Chair of BNY Mellon and Chief Executive Officer of Global Market Infrastructure, added, “For more than two centuries BNY Mellon’s story has been anchored around the ideas of resilience, reinvention, and renewal – and it was fantastic to share some of that story last week. Openness is at the heart of our strategy – and we embrace the new ideas, leading innovations, and different collaborations that are exemplified by Festival’s powerful community and ecosystem. We look forward to staying on the leading edge of innovation in our industry and beyond and continuing to put our clients at the center of everything we do.”

BNY Mellon was awarded one of the MAS FinTech Awards that were announced during the festival. The awards recognize fintech solutions that have been implemented by fintech companies, financial institutions and technology companies. BNY Mellon was recognized for its ESG Portfolio analytics solution that has earned other awards for its unique ability to help investors manage, monitor and analyze environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors across their portfolios. ESG is a key priority for BNY Mellon, which launched an ESG Data Analytics application earlier this year, adding to its capability suite. This innovation was recently named “Best New Technology Introduced over the Last 12 Months” as part of the WatersTechnology American Financial Technology Awards.

“BNY Mellon is a tremendous role model for collaboration in the industry and we are honored to have a significant number of their senior executives and thought leaders present during the festival about need-to-know topics that are having a major impact on the way fintechs operate,” said Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, “We have worked together for several years now and they have been a leading voice in helping to establish and grow Singapore as a key fintech hub in the financial sector. A big congratulations to them on winning one of the MAS FinTech Awards for their innovative ESG solution and we look forward to them joining us next year to help educate festival attendees about the importance of collaboration and how to deliver increased value to clients.”

BNY Mellon Singapore Fintech Festival Highlights At-A-Glance

Following is a round-up of all BNY Mellon Singapore Fintech Festival speaking engagements and activities which included main summit sessions, lab crawls where we opened the doors to our physical Singapore Innovation Center for exclusive content with select executives, as well as through OXYGEN by APIX (a new series in collaboration with the Singapore Fintech Festival featuring specially curated masterclasses, panels, firesides, presentations and demos): 

Main Summit Featured Speakers

• “How will the Financial Services Sector Respond in 2021” featuring Roman Regelman, Chief Executive Officer of Asset Servicing and Head of Digital, BNY Mellon (panelist)
• “Driving Innovation: From Sustaining to Sustainability” featuring Robin Vince, Vice Chair of BNY Mellon and Chief Executive Officer of Global Market Infrastructure (panelist)
• “Keeping the Organization Culture Alive Amid COVID-19” featuring Hans Brown, Head of Enterprise Innovation and Chief Information Officer for Corporate Technology, BNY Mellon (panelist)

BNY Mellon Singapore Innovation Center Lab Crawls

• “Impactful Innovation” featuring Johnny Wijaya, Head of the APAC Innovation Center, BNY Mellon (panelist) and Donald Raab, Managing Director of Technology, BNY Mellon (panelist)
• “The Transformation of Asset Servicing Through Collaborations” featuring Rohan Singh, Global Head of Asset Owners and Asia Pacific Head of Asset Servicing, BNY Mellon (moderator), Mark McKeon, Head of Front-to-Back Solutions, BNY Mellon (panelist), Noam Tasch, Co-Head of Digital Partnerships, BNY Mellon (panelist)

OXYGEN by APIX Sessions

• “Collaborating and Innovating in Financial Services” featuring Adam Levine, Co-Head of Digital Partnerships, BNY Mellon (panelist)
• “A Nimble Giant and Fintech Innovator- how BNY Mellon is Building a Data Platform for the Industry” featuring Hans Brown, Head of Enterprise Innovation and Chief Information Officer for Corporate Technology, BNY Mellon (panelist) and Bhargavi Sunkara, Head of Asset Servicing Technology, BNY Mellon (panelist)