Queen Máxima to promote financial health at Singapore FinTech Festival
On Wednesday 6 and Thursday 6 and 7 November, Her Majesty Queen Máxima will attend the Singapore FinTech Festival in her capacity as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health (UNSGSA). The event, taking place from 6 to 8 November at the Singapore EXPO convention and exhibition centre, will focus on technical innovation in the field of financial services (FinTech).
Her Majesty will attend the opening of the festival on Wednesday morning. That afternoon she will officially open the ‘Global FinTech Hackcelerator’, which aims to improve financial health. The hackcelerator is a competition for representatives of FinTech companies and financial service providers. Over the past several months they have been working together to develop financial products and services that contribute to the financial health of both households and businesses. The products can, for example, help people manage their daily income and spending, so that they can invest responsibly in a company or save for their long-term goals. The products can also help people protect themselves from risks and increase their confidence in their financial future. These four elements together make up financial health. In the hackcelerator 18 finalists from several different countries will present their innovative, market-ready solutions.
On Wednesday evening Queen Máxima will meet with several CEOs of partners of Dutch development bank FMO to share good examples of tools that contribute to their clients’ financial resilience and health. Clients in good financial health help make financial institutions more robust and enhance financial stability.
On the morning of Thursday 7 November Her Majesty will join the ‘fireside chat’ on ‘From Financial Inclusion to Financial Health’ to discuss her 15 years’ experience as UNSGSA for Inclusive Finance for Development, and the relationship of this previous mandate to her new mandate as UNSGSA for Financial Health. This discussion will be a dialogue with Tilman Ehrbeck, with whom Her Majesty has worked since 2009. He is a co-founder and managing partner of Flourish Ventures and Chair of the UNSGSA Reference Group. On Thursday evening the winners of the hackcelerator will be announced and receive their FinTech Excellence Awards from Queen Máxima. There will also be time on both Wednesday and Thursday for one-on-one talks with financial service providers and FinTech firms.
As UNSGSA, Queen Máxima works for financial health worldwide through advocacy for financial products, services and policy in which users’ needs are the top priority. The indicators that determine financial health vary by country and culture, requiring a global approach that allows for tailored solutions. Discussions and events like the hackcelerator, which advance the search for solutions, make major contributions to achieving this goal.
The Singapore FinTech Festival, organised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), is the largest conference in the field, attracting about 66,000 participants.
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