Singapore is committing S$220 million (US$173 million) over three years to accelerate fintech innovation and technology adoption, with artificial intelligence among the main priorities. The funding comes under the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s renewed Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme, FSTI 4.0, which will also support infrastructure, frontier technology and talent development.
The programme includes support for at least 1,000 fintech internships over the next three years. Singapore’s fintech sector now has more than 1,800 firms and close to 10,000 professionals, while fintech investment reached S$2.9 billion in 2025. MAS said the latest programme is intended to help firms develop and deploy technologies including AI, distributed ledger technology and quantum computing.
Why is AI becoming central to Singapore’s financial strategy?
Singapore is moving from encouraging AI experiments to pushing firms towards more adoption. AI use in the country’s financial sector is already relatively high, with 56.4% of financial and insurance firms having adopted AI, according to Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower. Across all firms, however, adoption remains much lower, with 71.5% yet to adopt AI.
The gap suggests that the next stage will be about getting more companies to use it effectively. Cost and expertise remain major barriers. Among firms already using AI, 44.9% cited implementation costs and 42.4% cited a lack of in-house expertise as constraints.
There are already signs that the technology can deliver measurable gains. 70.7% of AI-adopting firms reported improvements in worker productivity, while Singapore’s digital economy accounted for 18.6% of GDP in 2024, up from 14.9% in 2019. That makes the S$220 million commitment more about helping Singapore’s existing financial sector make the jump from pilots to production.
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Can Singapore turn AI adoption into a fintech export advantage?
The more interesting question is whether Singapore can use AI to sell financial technology beyond its own market. The country’s fintech companies already operate regionally; therefore, if firms can develop AI tools for fraud detection, risk management, payments or wealth management in Singapore, they can potentially take those products into other Asian markets.
Ant International, for example, recently partnered with six major banks, including Citi, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and Barclays, to use an AI model designed to improve liquidity forecasting. The company said the technology could reduce foreign-exchange hedging and allocation costs by more than 60%.
Singapore is also building infrastructure around these changes. MAS has been developing PathFin.ai to help financial institutions find market-tested AI solutions. At the same time, its planned Future of Finance Institute will connect financial institutions, fintechs and technology providers around areas such as agentic AI and fraud detection.
Also, Singapore has already supported more than 350 fintech projects through the FSTI programme, while finalists from its Global FinTech Hackcelerator have raised more than S$3.8 billion. If FSTI 4.0 can build a similar AI pipeline, Singapore could strengthen its position not just as a fintech hub, but also as a testing ground for how AI changes financial services.
The real test for Singapore will be whether this investment produces AI products that can compete beyond its borders. If fintechs turn government-backed projects into widely used financial tools across Asia, FSTI 4.0 could give Singapore a stronger role in the region’s AI-driven financial market.
Meanwhile, most businesses in Singapore have assigned responsibility for artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Still, far fewer can actually show how those systems arrive at their decisions, according to a new report.
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