FinTech startups India

An expert with over ten years of international experience in advancement of financial services and mobility, Scott Bales is scheduled to speak at Day 2 of Echelon on the digital transformation in banks today.

He is also currently the Chief Mobile Officer at, a mobile money service that helps you spend, save, and live smarter. In this article, e27 interviews Scott about the startup opportunities in the Banking scene and focuses on Asia and its potential for banking innovation.

What is your opinion of the FinTech scene in Singapore and Asia as a whole?

FinTech is an interesting space to be in the region, mainly due to the huge opportunities that exist. Countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and more still have huge gaps in the provision and availability of financial services. So people tend to be forced to pay a premium price for a legacy or traditional services, like sending money to someone. Due to historical margin squeezes, most of the traditional banks steer away from marginal business like mobile money, payments & commerce as their business models don’t have the cost-to-income ratios required to serve these markets. My guess is there is close to 200 million under served consumers in the region that would jump at Fintech offerings if they were available and met their needs.

Singapore is also a huge opportunity, as one of the nations with the highest ‘readiness’ for a cashless society. With the right mindset and innovation we could lead the world. The challenge is that the incumbents are very conservative when it comes to cash replacement offerings. Plus, there are many regulations that prevent some world leading innovations from even starting. Businesses like Square, Dwolla, Mint, Simple and Moven can’t operate under current regulations. This creates two large barriers to entry, strict regulation and a small market. There is definitely an opportunity to open up to allow innovators and entrepreneurs a chance to build truly transformative startups.