In an effort to accelerate the adoption of embedded finance in Singapore, multinational financial services firm KPMG has launched the city-state’s first hub dedicated to providing incubation support to enterprises and financial institutions.  

The new Embedded Finance Hub is set to run for at least two years and is expected to provide support to over 120 non-financial enterprises and financial institutions looking to progress into financial areas like payments, blockchain, lending, insurance and wealth. 

KPMG will manage the hub with its financial services experts providing best practices and venture acceleration support to companies keen on entering the embedded finance sector.

Embedded finance is already simplifying financial processes in the consumer and business markets by reducing barriers to entry for financial products and services. Start-ups keen on entering the embedded finance space will be able to trial their embedded finance innovations at the hub, gaining feedback from its ecosystem participants on how to get these ready for market.

Beyond this, the hub will also see collaborative efforts between non-financial service sector organizations – such as healthcare, agriculture, technology, media, and telecom or retail companies – and financial services businesses as they test new value propositions infused with the latest digital technologies.

The hub also aims to drive developments for payments, gamification of finance, decentralized finance and platforms, and will work with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the broader ecosystem to accelerate the adoption of embedded finance in Singapore.

“The next phase of the fintech disruption is moving beyond open banking to embedded finance,” says Anton Ruddenklau, partner, global head of innovation, financial services, KPMG International. “This unleashes new opportunities to create ecosystems for financial services to develop their as-a-service business, and work with corporates to partner for new embedded finance initiatives, improve customer experience and create new sources of revenue.”