1 - Don’t say the F word. 

No not that word. Fintech. The Founder of The Asian Banker, Emmanuel Daniel, drove this point home by holding up a jar during his opening speech on the first day of the event demanding a person pay S$1 each time they said the f word. 

 The point he seemed to be making is that we have come to use fintech so loosely that it has lost its meaning. Fintech is short for financial technology and it’s so broad and all encompassing that we, especially in financial services, lose sight of the gravity of the digital transformation happening before our eyes.

He stressed the new power of the consumer demanding friction-less financial services in many different verticals including payments, lending and investing. He left the audience with a somber warning that the banks that become leaders in the digital economy will survive and the ones that don’t will die within the next 20 years.