How Singapore’s fintech sector is faring

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Hello reader,

One of my good friends works in finance, and he recently attended an outing with his work colleagues during the Christmas period. We’re always ribbing each other, so I took a jab and played on the stereotype of guys working in his industry – let’s call them “finance bros.”

I asked him: “Did you wear a white shirt with rolled sleeves and some kind of rolled-up slacks or chinos, as well as a nice watch to top it off?”

He stared at me before replying: “No I didn’t … but the other four did.”

Damn I’m good.

Here in tech, we’ve got our own stereotype as well – the “tech bro,” which The Guardian describes as: “A US-born, college-educated, Patagonia-clad male whose entry-level salary at one of the FAANG companies is at least US$125,000 and who frequently insists that his female co-workers give him high-fives. Typically works in product management or marketing. Had he been born 10 years earlier, he would have been a finance bro instead.”

It all adds up. I wonder what happens when you combine both of these stereotypes for the fintech industry. People who work in the sector, I’d love to hear from you.

All jokes aside, we’ve got an article about the key players in Singapore’s fintech space. While it might not help us define what a fintech bro might look like, it’s – unlike my musings – actually helpful in figuring out what’s important in the sector.

Today we look at:

• The makeup of Singapore’s fast-growing fintech industry
• An India-based deeptech startup building a new electric vehicle (EV) engine
• Other newsy highlights such as Carousell appointing a new head of luxury and Microsoft adding ChatGPT to Azure OpenAI.

Premium summary

Red hot fintech peppers

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Funding winter? What funding winter? Singapore’s fintech sector didn’t get the memo – it’s seen an increase in deals and funding year on year, from US$2 billion across 66 deals in 2021 to US$2.3 billion across 85 deals in 2022. Here’s how the sector is faring.

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Beat the fundraising winter

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