Money20/20, one of the world’s leading fintech shows, has arrived in Thailand for the first time, serving up three days of insights into the latest fintech trends.
Money20/20 Asia 2024, taking place from 23 to 25 April at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Bangkok, is the event’s third host city following successful stints in Amsterdam and Las Vegas that have welcomed more than 20,000 fintech and financial services professionals every year.
Richie Santosdiaz brings you his highlights from day one of Money20/20 Asia.
On the agenda
During the morning’s activities on the Vision stage, a keynote session led by Daranee Saeju, assistant governor, payment systems policy and financial consumer protection group from the Bank of Thailand, highlighted the bank’s innovative strides in digital finance, including cross-border central bank digital currencies (CBDC) payments and real-time payment use cases between Thailand and Singapore.
We also enjoyed insights on businesses’ responsibilities in addressing societal challenges, including rural empowerment, during the fireside chat ‘Championing Financial Inclusion: Empowering the Underserved in the Asian Fintech Landscape” between Chetna Gala Sinha, founder and chairperson at Mann Deshi Foundation & Bank, and Scarlett Sieber, chief strategy and growth officer at Money20/20.
Another session that caught our eye on the Vision stage included ‘Connecting for Change: MUFG’s Strategy for Fintech Integration’, a presentation and discussion with Masakazu Osawa, managing executive officer and chief executive, APAC at MUFG Bank, which outlined how MUFG identifies and collaborates with promising startups.
Osawa was joined on stage to explore this topic further with Shivashish Chatterjee, co-founder and joint managing director at DMI Finance and Worachat Luxkanalode, country head at Grab Thailand; a panel moderated by Gina Clarke, content director Europe for Money20/20.
Elsewhere at Money20/20 Asia
Beyond the Vision stage, there were plenty more fascinating discussions. For instance, on the Pathways stage in the afternoon, we delved into ‘The Magic of Wealth Management Among the Gen Zs’ which saw Yada Piyajomkwan from Ajaib and Mehnaz Rabbani from the BRAC Insititute of Governance and Development in a fireside chat.
Over near the Collision stage, there was the chance to throw some moves of our own against the Muay Thai experts!
Announced at Money20/20 Asia
During day one, we also heard an array of announcements from companies including HSBC, Mambu and Standard Chartered. HSBC announced a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Thai Fintech Association to help further engage the next generation of Thai tech unicorns. It also announced a new white paper on how corporate treasury can navigate the dynamic payments landscape.
Standard Chartered launched a new Open Banking Marketplace, a one-stop platform that enables both existing and prospective clients to discover, identify, and test application programming interfaces (APIs) that best meets their business objectives in a sandbox environment.
While, Mambu, the software as a service (SaaS) cloud banking platform, unveiled new research that reveals over a quarter (26 per cent) of Gen Z Muslims solely use Islamic banking, though 85 per cent of them are interested in banking with a financial institution that offers Shariah-compliant products, an increase from 2021.
Nium, a real-time cross-border payments, announced a partnership MOU with Artajasa, one of Indonesia’s major payment infrastructure companies. It also revealed that its partner Jeonbuk Bank in Korea is now live with a real-time remittance service, enabling the bank to serve a growing number of immigrant clients better.
Digital public infrastructure PlatON also showcased its latest advancements in deposit tokenisation technology to a global audience through its Web3 payment solutions, including TOPOS MINT, a blockchain-based professional tokenised deposit issuance system, TOPOS RemiNet, a DEX-based open remittance network, and TOPOS, an on-chain payment acquiring product.
