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Reshaping Industries through Digital Transformation with Digital Technologies

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30th January 2023

To keep up with the increasing marketing competition, many companies have taken on the challenge to enter new business market by crossing over industry boundaries. One of the most important factors in succeeding in business under such a situation is to respond quickly to ever-changing customer demands with digital technologies.

In 2023, technologies such as AI, Blockchain, and IoT are expected to be the driving force behind digitalization in numerous industries, reshaping them. The scope of today's digitalization is broad, and digitalization is projected to grow at an impressive CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 21.1% between 2022 and 2027. Therefore, almost every industry and company would consider accelerating digital transformation.

In such a situation, one industry of interest is the finance industry.

One of the largest FinTech-related events, Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF), was held in Singapore in November 2022. The location cannot be more fitting as Singapore is ranked third in the Global Financial Centres Index. Themed “Building Resilient Business Models amid Volatility and Change”, this event attracted more than 570 companies from over 100 countries in the region to introduce their FinTech solutions and services.

There were some interesting FinTech introduced at the event such as Programmable Money / Purpose-bound Money (PBM) and Green FinTech. PBM is digital money described as building on the concept and capabilities of programmable payments and programmable money and works by tokenizing money and posting it on a distributed ledger.

During the event, The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) conducted a large-scale PoC with 5,000 selected individuals to issue PBMs as digital vouchers that can be used for purchasing food or beverage at the venue. In addition to this proof of concept (PoC), MAS is also working with government agencies and industry players to conduct some PoCs of the potential uses of the purpose-bound digital Singapore Dollar and the necessary supporting infrastructure.

Several major banks also participated in this PoC with the government agencies, for example, DBS and Govtech are using PBMs to disburse funds to selected individuals; and OCBC and the Central Provident Fund Board (CPFB) are using PBMs to disburse funds from government agencies. There is no doubt that the number of such trials will increase and attract more attention in near future.

As many companies aim to realize a sustainable world using technology, Green FinTech plays a critical role in helping ensure the quality and accessibility of ESG data and address concerns about greenwashing. At the event, MAS conducted a PoC of measuring the amount of CO2 emissions during the event, which will be used to help decarbonize the next event.

This was the first year that an ESG Fintech zone like this has been set up at the event but we expect to see more Sustainability-themed solutions being developed at not only financial event but at various events in the future.

NEC participated in the Innovation Lab Crawl at the Singapore FinTech Festival. Potential customers and partners were invited to NEC Laboratories Singapore to introduce our research technologies and solutions. We introduced some technologies including AI, face recognition, cyber security, and blockchain technologies that have been studied for many years at NEC's laboratories in Israel, Europe and Singapore, as well as solutions from partner companies.

We also had demonstrations on NEC Bank ID solution which supports banks’ requirements for digital transformation, and this fascinated many visitors during the event. Being completely digital, the onboarding process of clients can be done securely anytime and anywhere using your face.

This solution authenticates clients with NEC’s world-leading biometric authentication technology and the app automatically fills up the lengthy forms for the clients. With NEC Bank ID solution, the resulting technology supports Mobile, Desktop, and ATM Authentication, offers added convenience to users, meets the demand for touchless banking in the next normal. It also enables banks to lower the cost, optimize the process, and upgrade staff to provide value-added advisory roles.

We acknowledge that some clients are faced with challenges, with no clue how their issues can be resolved. This is where NEC’s Value Chain Innovation (VCI) team come in. VCI focuses on achieving future-oriented innovation without the restrictions of conventional framework. They leverage on their own expertise, backed by years of experience in the sector, together with the capabilities of their fintech partners to solve the problems faced by clients.

In addition to the demonstrations, we invited experts from the BSFI(Banking, financial services and insurance) sector to the panel discussion to talk through some of the hottest topics in the industry.

Many consumers have been concerned about the security of their information, as AI is increasingly applied to a variety of back-office tasks, not just in the financial industry. In the panel discussion, the experts brought up a theme, “Responsible AI”, and discussed how AI should be used under such a situation.
Also, experts discussed Web 3.0, where open financial protocols accessible to anyone with an Internet connection are gaining attention from the financial industry for their potential to change the way we interact with financial services.

In 2023, we believe that digital transformation (DX) will further accelerate our life. In Singapore, several government-led demonstration experiments are being conducted in collaboration with major financial institutions. At NEC, we will continue to play a role as a leading company through co-creation with customers and partners.

Hiroshi Yamaguchi
Senior Sales Manager
NEC Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd

After business application development and system planning for financial institutions as a system engineer, Hiroshi Yamaguchi was engaged in research, planning, and promotion of new technologies and services originating in the United States at Silicon Valley from 2016 to 2021.
Since April 2021, he has joined NEC Asia Pacific and has been in charge of sales for financial institutions in ASEAN region. He holds an MBA from the University of Massachusetts and a member of ΒΓΣ (Beta Gamma Sigma).

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