Financial Sector Development Fund

The Financial Sector Development Fund (FSDF) was established to promote Singapore as a financial centre by offering funding support to firms and individuals across a wide range of initiatives including talent development, technology and innovation as well as infrastructure development to support the financial services sector in Singapore. In Budget 2024, the Finance Minister announced that he will top up the FSDF by $2 billion to provide the MAS with more resources to extend Singapore’s lead in the financial services sector.

From 2019 to 2023, the total amount of grants disbursed under the FSDF was close to $1 billion. The top-up to the FSDF signifies the Government’s commitment to ensure that Singapore maintains its competitiveness as a key global and regional financial hub. The Finance Minister specifically called out for MAS to use the resources to build capabilities in new areas like FinTech as well as green and transition finance.

The global FinTech industry has witnessed unprecedented growth over the past few years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic as many countries transition into cashless societies. In PwC’s 2022 FinTech report, 60% of respondents in the payments and 35% in the lending sector reported more than $10 million in annual revenue and it is expected that the number of global digital payment users will reach 5.48 billion by 2027. As FinTech innovation continues to be an engine of growth with the creation of solutions for better financial services and supplant parts of traditional services, the announcement of the FSDF top-up to build capabilities in FinTech is a timely measure to capture the new opportunities in this sector.