Interested in exploring collaboration with Indian IT, fintech sector: Singapore trade minister

By Ayushi Agarwal
New Delhi [India], March 13 : Calling India a strong leader in IT and fintech sector, Minister of Trade and Industry Singapore Gan Kim Yong said that Singapore is interested to explore opportunities and collaborate together in this sector with India.
He made this comment after the recent cross-border real-time payment systems linkage of India's UPI and Singapore's PayNow linkage between the two countries.
In what is a first-of-its-kind collaboration with another country, India and Singapore last month linked their respective online payments systems -- Unified Payments Interface (UPI) of India and PayNow of Singapore -- for seamless cross-border transactions between the two countries.
The linkage of these two payment systems of both countries would enable residents of both countries to the faster and more cost-efficient transfer of cross-border remittances. People in both countries will be able to send money in real-time via QR-code based or simply by entering mobile numbers linked to the bank account.
"India has a very strong leadership, knowledge, skills and innovation in IT and in Fintech as well. This is an area where we are very interested to explore opportunities and collaborate together. UPI and PayNow system, a great venture that we embarked together and this I hope will be the start of many partnerships with other country as Singapore and India can lead the way in the integration of the payment system", said the Minister in an interview to ANI.
The cross-border real-time payment systems linkage between Singapore and India was launched earlier in virtual presence of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das, and Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing ecosystems for fintech innovation and the PM Modi-led government has been instrumental in driving the globalisation of India's digital payment infrastructure.
Calling the linkage as an important development, Yong added that his country is also looking for collaboration in areas like Education, Sustainability and Skill upgradation.
"This was streamlined between two countries and this is a very important development in the fintech industry. We certainly look forward to more opportunities to collaborate in Fintech as well as many other areas of interest in Education, skill upgrading, in sustainability and these are all opportunities that are emerging and we are looking forward to our partnership with India", he said.
The trade minister is in Delhi for the launch event of the 3rd edition of the Singapore-India Hackathon (SIH) 2023 that NTU is taking the lead to organise with the High Commission of The Republic of Singapore in New Delhi as a key partner.
SIH 2023 is organised as a follow up of the meeting between Singapore Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Lawrence Wong with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2022 during DPM's visit to New Delhi.
SIH 2023 will be held as a special initiative in India as part of the G20 to support further building goodwill and bilateral education cooperation in innovation and entrepreneurship between start-ups and students in Singapore and India.
Speaking about his visit and Singapore - India Hackathon, the Minister said that it is very important as it brings together young people from both countries in terms of leading ideas and innovation.
"India is a very important trading partner for Singapore. I am here to meet my counterpart as well as to participate in the various activities. This Hackathon is very important as it brings together young people from both countries especially those who are inspiring us as entrepreneurs, to let them come together in terms of ideas, innovation and this way we forge friendships and partnerships between India and Singapore young people and hopefully this way we can encourage more entrepreneurship to encourage innovative ideas and this is very important for the enterprise of the future," he added.