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In the first episode of our series on financial technology, we sat down with Sopnendu Mohanty, the Chief Fintech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). We invited Sopnendu to speak with us about the role of fintech in Singapore’s financial system and the central bank’s approach to encouraging innovation while managing risk.

Singapore is one of Asia’s leading financial centers, a hub of global trade, and a natural place for fintech to take root. The rapid growth of Singapore’s fintech sector has implications for both the financial sector and real economy. The MAS has recently announced a new “regulatory sandbox” approach to encourage existing financial institutions and non-traditional firms to develop fintech solutions in Singapore. The MAS itself has acted as a middleman to bring together banks and startups and has created a “regulatory sandbox” a space for experimenting with new technologies on a small scale without running into regulatory barriers.

As Chief Fintech Officer, Sopnendu is responsible for creating MAS’s development strategies and regulatory policies around technology innovation to “better manage risks, enhance efficiency and strengthen competitiveness in the financial sector”. Prior to joining MAS, he was with Citibank as their Global Head of the Consumer Lab Network and Programs, which included driving innovation programs and managing innovation labs across multiple geographies globally.

Sopnendu has held various roles in technology, finance, productivity, and business development over the past twenty years and he has been awarded four patents in the area of retail distribution of financial services.

MAS Smart Financial Center

MAS Fintech Innovation Group

Sopnendu on LinkedIn and Twitter

The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or of the Federal Reserve System.