MAS Pledges SG$250m to Boost Financial Sector Innovation

Source: Regulation Asia Editors, Regulation Asia 2020-08-16

Maximum funding under the POC Grant and AIDA Grant will be increased. Support for large-scale innovation projects and staff training will also increase.

MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore) has committed SGD 250 million over the next three years to accelerate technology and innovation-driven growth in the financial sector.

The enhanced ‘Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme’, or FSTI 2.0, was announced by MAS managing director Ravi Menon on Thursday (13 August) at the Singapore FinTech Festival: Green Shoots Series, virtual meet-ups for the fintech community.

To enhance support for early stage experimentation in technology, MAS will double the maximum funding quantum under the Proof-of-Concept (POC) Grant from SGD 200,000 to SGD 400,000, and will increase the maximum funding support of qualifying project cost from 50% to 70%.

The higher funding support will enable financial institutions and fintech firms to undertake larger-scale POC projects to experiment, develop and deploy innovative solutions, MAS said.

A merit-based tiered funding mechanism will also be introduced to replace the existing flat 50% funding support of qualifying project cost, whereby a higher level of funding will be allocated to projects which demonstrate stronger merits.

MAS will also raise the maximum funding quantum for all qualifying AI (artificial intelligence) projects under the Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (AIDA) Grant, from SGD 1 million to SGD 1.5 million, to provide greater impetus for financial institutions to implement innovative AI solutions.

A new AIDA-Lite track will also be introduced, providing half the funding quantum of the AIDA track, enabling financial institutions to obtain funding support to adopt proven AI solutions to enhance their operations.

Under FSTI 2.0, MAS aims to also strengthen support for large-scale innovation projects, and build a stronger pipeline of Singaporean talents in fintech.

MAS will co-fund existing innovation labs for new Singaporean hires to encourage the expansion of existing labs and groom Singaporean talent.

In addition, all new projects under the Financial Institution-Level Projects, Industry-Wide Projects and AIDA Tracks will now qualify for funding support for capability transfer-related training costs. Such training costs include expenses incurred to engage specialists to train the local talent pool, and expenses incurred to send local employees for overseas training.

Funded by the FSDF (Financial Sector Development Fund), FSTI 2.0 aims to invigorate the culture of innovation in Singapore, catalyse the implementation of innovative solutions, and deepen the cybersecurity capabilities in the financial sector, MAS said.

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MAS

MAS Pledges SG$250m to Boost Financial Sector Innovation

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