SINGAPORE – Financial institutions (FIs) will soon find it easier to seek out fintech firms to work with, through a global fintech registry that is set to go live next month.
The ChekFIN platform aims to help FIs identify and evaluate fintech companies for collaboration and development opportunities, said the Asean Financial Innovation Network (Afin).
“FIs have struggled with the time-consuming effort of finding and evaluating fintech firms before collaborating with them. Many of these issues… stem from the lack of a platform that consolidates all relevant information,” said the non-profit organisation.
FIs also face challenges in assessing the firm’s compliance readiness and credibility, and are unable to share key information with relevant parties in a single repository, it added.
ChekFIN will provide a “decentralised, open standard and trust-based solution” that reduces the amount of time financial institutions need to search for and assess a suitable partner firm, said Afin, which created the registry in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group FinTech Control Tower and Temasek-founded Affinidi.
The platform was unveiled by Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Ravi Menon at the Singapore FinTech Festival on Tuesday (Nov 9). It goes live on Dec 1.
It will include a taxonomy and tagging system to facilitate easier searches for information on firms in a single place.
FIs will also be able to assess fintech players’ reputation and credibility using verifiable credentials, which are secure digital certificates that can be used to represent any type of information about their holder.
For a start, fintech firms will be allowed to share three specific credentials: business references from existing financial institution customers; hackathon and other technical awards; and funding support and grants they have obtained.
More verifiable credentials will be added in the future, said Afin.
Ten financial institutions are working with Apix – Afin’s fintech innovation platform – to issue the first set of credentials. They are BNY Mellon, Cantilan Bank, Credit Agricole, Emirates NBD, ING Group, OCBC Bank, Prudential, Swiss Re, Union Bank of the Philippines and UOB.
