(Rptg, correcting dateline)
New Delhi/Singapore, Nov 13 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will link Indian financial institutions with API Exchange (APIX), an online fintech marketplace aimed at promoting financial inclusion, which would be launched at the Fintech Summit here on Wednesday.
"The ASEAN countries have put together their financial institutions on one platform and Prime Minister would be launching that link with the Indian financial institution," said Vijay Thakur Singh, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs.
When the last time Prime Minister was in Singapore in June this year, the Rupay Card was launched.
The ASEAN Financial innovation Network (AFIN) spearheaded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the ASEAN Bankers Association and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, is launching APIX.
APIX is a banking technologyplatform designed to reach two billion people worldwide who are still without bank accounts.
It will enable financial institutions to discover and connect with fintech firms through API channels on a "globally curated" platform, said MAS Managing Director Ravi Menon.
It would also serve as a sandbox for financial institutions and fintech firms to collaborate and experiment on solutions.
“It is the world’s first cross-border, open architecture platform to enhance financial inclusion. APIX is both an online FinTech Marketplace and FinTech Sandbox. As a marketplace, it will enable FIs to discover and connect with FinTech firms through APIs on a globally curated platform.
"As a sandbox, it provides a platform for FIs and FinTech firms to collaborate and experiment on solutions in a contained environment," said Menon.
Modi will give the keynote address at the Singapore Fintech Festival where there is also an Indian Pavilion.
About 40,000 participants from more than 100 countries would be attending the festival, which ends on Friday, making it one of the biggest gathering of global fintech community.
"This is for the first time that a head of government will be giving the keynote address and it is essentially because there is a recognition that India has done a lot of work in leveraging technology for innovation, for development and for financial inclusion," said Singh.
The prime minister would also meeting the participants of the India-Singapore Hackathon. This hackathon was agreed to when Modi had gone to Singapore and met Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in June 2018.
About 80 participants from India and equal number from Singapore and the lead is being taken by Nanyang Technology University in Singapore and by the All India Council of Technical Education on the Indian side.
Menon also said MAS and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore are working with industry to facilitate financial institutions’ credit assessment of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using trusted government data.
Currently, young SMEs face difficulties in obtaining bank financing due to a lack of credit history.
The MAS plans to pool data from trusted government sources on the business and key individuals of the SMEs to facilitate informed credit assessment.
In addition, SMEs may see greater access to digital service providers.
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