Seven in 10 businesses to adopt fintech in the next year: report

Mobile payments will be utilised more in the next 12 months.

More Singapore businesses (73%) are expected to adopt fintech products or services over the next 12 months as an effort to boost operational efficiency, according to a CPA Australia study.

This is a higher rate compared to the 67% in the past 12 months.

Mobile payments and digital wallets will drive the usage, with 42.7% saying that these will be used most in the year to come, followed by robo-advisory chatbots (23.6%) and open banking APIs (19.1%).

Six in ten (59.1%) believed that fintech adoption is a key factor in improving business operations, with almost half (43.6%) seeing fintech as helping them better understand and improve customer experience. Just over a third (36.4%) felt the need to adopt fintech as a new way of operating due to disruptions caused by COVID-19.

On the downside, the top two factors identified as barriers to fintech adoption were cybersecurity (33.6%) and a lack of understanding within senior management (30%).

“To mitigate these risks, it is important that senior management and the boards of companies have the relevant expertise to drive the company’s cybersecurity strategy, as well as invest in systems and people to build up cyber defences,” said Chng Lay Chew, Singapore divisional president of CPA Australia.