Commentary

With less than six months to go to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), scheduled to be held in the city of Glasgow in November under the presidency of the UK, now is the time for Singapore to flex its green fintech credentials.

According to Singapore’s largest bank DBS, the volume of cash deposits and withdrawals fell by an unprecedented 11% in the first 3 months of 2020, a 6% fall from where the figure had been since 2017. Coupled with extraordinary growth in the adoption of e-payments, it’s safe to say that COVID-19 has altered consumer behaviour—and fast. 

In 2020, one in three people in Southeast Asia experienced online fraud amid a boom in online shopping and activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Asia-Pacific already has the highest number of internet users in the world, so the opportunities for scammers were already aplenty before the crisis of 2020.

There is no question that the wealth of the world continues to grow, even amidst the rise of unprecedented and unexpected events of the 2020s. In 2019, the number of billionaires rose by a whopping 38.9%, and with this rise in figures, Asia became one of the major magnets for wealth. A growth of almost 7.9% in the regional high-net-worth sector has resulted in a rise in the number of family offices in Singapore.

Singapore has long been a mainstay of the financial world, offering political stability, geographic gateways, excellent legal framework and of course, a smorgasbord of tax incentives for foreign investment. The traditional banking system has branded the skyscrapers and inhabited the office space within them; in fact, up until 2014, the finance industry took up almost half of new office space in Singapore.  

The sudden shift to work-from-home due to COVID-19 has been a steep learning curve for companies and corporate leaders around the world. Arguably, in no area has this been felt so acutely as employee engagement and development. Whether it is awkward silences on Zoom calls or wondering if anyone is still listening to your virtual presentation, connection and motivation at work have been tested.

Over the past 12 months, we have come up against two public health crises. The first, a global pandemic. The second, misinformation that has run rampant in Singapore of late, amid the rise of COVID-19 cases and several clusters that have recently come to light.

Over the past 12 months, we have come up against two public health crises. The first, a global pandemic. The second, misinformation that has run rampant in Singapore of late, amid the rise of COVID-19 cases and several clusters that have recently come to light.

Employee engagement and wellness is key to ensuring employers thrive, and that technology has a major role to play

The Group of Seven (G7)  has recently agreed on a basic framework for overhauling the modern global tax system, in an effort to stop the world’s largest corporations from avoiding tax, as well as keeping up to pace with a rapidly changing digital economy.

The rapid transition from on-premises to remote workforces in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis will be looked back upon as a world-historical event. For enterprise IT, it was an earthquake that fundamentally changed the landscape on which we stand.

Singapore’s introduction of the Variable Capital Company (VCC) investment vehicle in early 2020 was lauded by many as a ‘gamechanger’ — and rightly so. The VCC brought Singapore into the same realm as other global investment titans by allowing investors to hold multiple segregated sub-funds under one umbrella fund — that is the ‘Variable Capital’ in ‘Variable Capital Company’.

2020 was an unprecedented year for everybody, startups to established enterprises, to humanity. Now that we are nearly halfway through 2021, truly little has changed. Lockdowns and lack of mobility as well as congregations continue, which is the new normal for businesses. For marketers specifically, new challenges emerged that drove them back to the drawing board. As business priorities get rejigged, this has been a testing time. With tighter budgets, and limited resources, they are having to think out of the box to reach their audience through newer ways, formats, and platforms.

Trade finance is generally seen as sound finance, underwritten by long-standing practices and procedures. The World Trade Organization (“WTO”) estimates that some 80 to 90 per cent of world trade relies on trade finance. These estimates are made with the acknowledgement of the absence of comprehensive and reliable data on trade finance flows.

Digital banking has been an innovation darling of 2020 as payments increasingly moved to digital channels and economies went cashless during COVID-related lockdowns.

The term VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) had become somewhat overused and watered down in recent years until 2020 threw a spanner and greeted us with the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. Now, VUCA has never been truer, as we witnessed the upending of lives, businesses and economies, and the rapid changes governments had to make to ensure survival and recovery of their countries.