We have come a long way since we began our FinTech journey in 2015. Singapore is widely recognised as one of the leading FinTech hubs in the world.

We have remained true to our vision to harness the power of technology and innovation to increase efficiency, manage risks better, create new opportunities, and improve people’s lives.

The ultimate global commons challenge

We are making green finance a major theme of the FinTech Festival. Finance, technology and innovation will be critical for our transition to a sustainable world. And Pavan Sukhdev from WWF just gave us an eloquent and compelling case for why this is so important. Singapore will do its part, as a responsible global citizen, to reduce carbon emissions and help make the world greener. As Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put it recently, “climate change is the ultimate global commons challenge”.

Singapore accounts for only 0.11% of carbon emissions in the world. By our actions alone, we cannot change the world. But through our actions, we hope we can inspire it, we can catalyse change. We are developing our long-term low emission strategy. We are not building up from scratch, but from a strong foundation.

• We are one of few countries in the world, and the only in Asia to have introduced a broad-based carbon tax to put a price on emissions.
• We are also one of few countries in the world that limit our car population, and price their usage. Today, growth of car population is 0%.
• As a principle of planning, we build greenery into our cityscape. We have a natural reserve in the middle of the city. We systematically create wetlands and mangrove swamps to absorb flood water and cushion storm surges.

Today, we have a linear system of ‘take, make and dispose’. Our Zero Waste Masterplan will transform Singapore to a Circular Economy, one that reuses resources in a continuous loop.

The role of...