How MAS-founded APIX is solving problems for regulators from India to Indonesia

When it comes to real-time payments, India is the leader. The country accounted for 46% of all real-time transactions worldwide in 2022. These payments are handled by India’s flagship program, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which saw 74 billion transactions worth US$1.5 trillion in 2022.

With millions of people using the UPI platform, there was a real need to improve personal identification number (PIN) authentication to make the process faster.

Entering the UPI PIN, a unique four- or six-digit code that confirms all bank transactions, typically takes a few seconds, so whittling that down could elevate user experience.

To do that, India sought help from Singapore – or more specifically, the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) initiative, APIX.

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Launched in 2018, APIX, which is operated by LemmaTree (Temasek founded)- and Mastercard-backed Synfindo, helps regulators, banks, and insurers network with fintech firms for their technology needs.

The brainchild of MAS, the ASEAN Bankers Association, and the International Finance Corporation, APIX is a “cross-border, open-architecture API marketplace and sandbox” for regulators. It’s the first of its kind, says regulatory officials and bank executives that Tech in Asia spoke to.

To put what APIX does more simply, it’s a place where regulators can test out ideas with fintech firms without putting a nation’s data at risk.

This helps regulators move more quickly. For instance, after MAS launched APIX, global regulators like Bank Indonesia, the Reserve Bank of India, and the Insurance Regulatory Authority of India have found solutions to financial problems within the span of a few months.

Before APIX, officials Tech in Asia spoke with said it would take them a year or two to onboard a fintech firm and its financial solutions.

India’s UPI takes MAS help

APIX’s work with UPI is an example of the MAS initiative’s potential. In less than six months, it identified a fintech firm with a biometric solution that could make UPI’s PIN authentication quicker.

In the lead-up to this, the quasi-government regulator National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which developed the UPI platform, conducted a hackathon on APIX in February 2021.

APIX, which currently has more than 1,700 registered fintech companies, saw as many as 550 firms from over 40 countries participate in the hackathon, says Umang Moondra, CEO of Synfindo.

Of the 550, 108 submitted detailed proposals, and 10 were invited to participate in the sandbox.

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