Technology
Singapore FinTech Festival 2021 sees 33% year-on-year growth in attendees
Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on November 17, 2021
6 min readLast updated: January 28, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on November 17, 2021
6 min readLast updated: January 28, 2026
The Singapore FinTech Festival 2021 focused on Web 3.0, attracting 60,000 attendees and over 2 million views globally, marking a 33% growth.
Singapore, 17 November 2021… The sixth edition of the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) with the theme “Web 3.0 and its impact on financial services” concluded on 12 November 2021. The week-long event attracted 60,000 attendees, representing a 33% year-on-year growth.
2 SFF 2021 drew over 2 million views. Viewership was extended with live broadcasts on local and international television networks and social media. Of the more than 160 countries represented, 52% of the registrations came from outside of Singapore – reflecting the global appeal of the Web 3.0 theme, and the quality of the content.
3 SFF 2021, which comprised keynote speeches, panel discussions, meetings, online learning, live events and innovation showcases saw participation from over 7,500 organisations and featured more than 700 speakers who shared insights across 240 hours of content. More than 260 exhibitors set up virtual booths, including 14 International Pavilions and 11 World FinTech Festival partners who hosted international satellite events. In keeping with the SFF’s mission to promote dialogue, over 4,000 virtual meetings conducted through the business matching platform.
4 22 innovation labs hosted physical and virtual tours and meetings for 3,800 participants1, while side events including OXYGEN by APIX, SME Day, 11 World FinTech Festival events, SFF Mini Symposium2, Elevandi Forum3 and Deal Fridays4, took place during the week.
Key highlights
The following are the key highlights of SFF 2021.
A platform for continued learning
5 In line with the theme of Web 3.0, SFF 2021 introduced a Web 3.0 certification programme to support learning, development and upskilling in Web 3.0 focus areas. Over 5,000 knowledge certificates were awarded digitally via blockchain technology to participants from over 80 countries. The certificates were issued by The Asian Institute of Digital Finance in partnership with the National University of Singapore. More knowledge certificates are expected to be awarded as the programme continues until 30 September 2022.
6 Also new this year was a dedicated SME Day where SME leaders and academics shared practical learnings on building strong and resilient businesses for the future. SME Day participants received a Digital Certificate of Knowledge. As of 14 November 2021, 84% of SME Day learners successfully earned a knowledge certificate. In collaboration with Digital Pilipinas in the Philippines, SFF supported the local community through the development of the I-ITERATE Digital Knowledge Certification. This programme focused on digital infrastructure to support Open Finance, RegTech, Risk & Cybersecurity, and InsurTech & HealthTech.
7 A new initiative launched at SFF this year is ATOMS, a not-for-profit initiative which provides a community where entrepreneurs connect and share meaningful insights. During SFF, ATOMS featured more than 45 short form videos across Asia-Pacific, USA and Northern Europe, that entrepreneurs can listen to and learn from in 120 second, bite-sized videos via a free mobile app.
Launch of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’ tech and innovation initiatives 8 MAS and its partner agencies made the following announcements to bring about new digital efficiencies and benefits to the financial sector:
Industry collaboration and innovation initiatives
9 Several industry collaboration and initiatives were launched to drive innovation in the future of finance:
Innovation Awards
10 SFF 2021 also saw the launch of two new innovation challenges to solve industry problems – the Global CBDC Challenge which seeks to identify and develop retail CBDC solutions that increase payment efficiencies and improve financial inclusion and the Global Veritas Challenge which aims to address key challenges in validating the fairness of AI solutions for specific banking use cases. SFF 2021 also celebrated the winning solutions of the Global FinTech Hackcelerator, the SFF Global FinTech Awards and the Most Innovative FinTech e-Gifting Award.
International co-operation
11 A number of important international cooperation initiatives were also announced at SFF 2021, such as:
MAS and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas signed an enhanced FinTech Cooperation Agreement to facilitate interoperable payments between Singapore and the Philippines;
12 SFF is organised by MAS and Elevandi, in partnership with The Association of Banks in Singapore and in collaboration with Constellar Holdings. The SFF organising team thanks all our sponsors, partners and participants for being a part of this year’s event. We look forward to continued collaboration with the industry to bring together an exciting and impactful SFF 2022, from 7 to 11 November 2022.
The main topic is the Singapore FinTech Festival 2021 and its focus on Web 3.0's impact on financial services.
The festival attracted 60,000 attendees, marking a 33% year-on-year growth.
New initiatives like the Web 3.0 certification program and ATOMS were launched.
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