Singapore Fintech Festival 2020: bringing you into Digital Singapore

With 60,000 attendees in 2019, the Singapore Fintech Festival is the world’s largest event of its kind and a global platform for the FinTech community.

From 7 to 11 December 2020, the SFF showcased purposeful stories to inspire and help advance businesses, markets, nations and society by placing ‘people & talent’ at their core, people who have made a difference in the world of financial services and shown their resilience in these challenging times. This year the Covid-19 situation undeniably took center stage as it has not only disrupted many lives but also accelerated digitization and innovation within the financial industries. What will be the road to global recovery with a focus on resilience and sustainability?

Well known speakers shared their vision like Bill Gates, New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. AXA, as a global insurer, showcased the key role of insurance in a pandemic and the way emerging technology and data enables us to find new ways to fulfill our mission to protect what matters.

Paving the way for trustworthy technology

The panels focused on a number of tech-related topics, including regulation. Indeed, Artificial Intelligence represents a great opportunity to create progress and value for AXA customers. This potential to change lives calls for regulation. To build an effective set of controls for responsible/ethical AI, regulated institutions, such as insurers, should be part of the discussion and focus on governance and on the way processes impact operations.

“We are reaching a point in performance where AI has human-like, and sometimes super-human abilities. This brings new challenges to us and our customers. The question is not about regulating “AI”, meaning a particular set of technologies. It is about making sure that nothing goes wrong regardless of the technology we use. Since AI is “new” in several contexts, we should keep it in mind when anticipating what could go wrong” said Marcin Detyniecki, AXA Group Chief Data Scientist. “What we do care about is the impact of technology on human beings”, he concluded, calling for companies to put effort in an agile AI governance and invest in research both internally and externally.

By leveraging several existing organizational governances, AXA has implemented a Responsible AI Circle to ensure the way AXA leverages AI is effective and trustworthy.

Digital sustainability embedded in AXA’s purpose

“Sustainability is inherent to AXA’s purpose to “act for human progress by protecting what matters". We should all look for sustainable development to protect our environment, at both the individual and business levels. To make this a reality, we have powerful digital and innovative tools. For example, beyond orienting our investments on climate transition, we also provide innovative services to protect businesses and communities leveraging parametric technology, thanks to our unit AXA Climate” affirmed Delphine Maisonneuve, CEO of AXA Next and Group Chief Innovation Officer.

As an insurer, AXA helps people and businesses be sustainable. Corporate responsibility is at the heart of its strategy dedicated to building a better society, with ambitious climate commitments.

Preserving our culture and imagining new ways of working under the COVID-19 context

The week ended with Astrid Stange, AXA Group Chief Operating Officer and AXA Group Operations CEO, speaking about ways to keep the organization culture alive amid COVID-19.

The pandemic has been a catalyst in (i) laying strong foundations for a smart working environment and (ii) furthering thinking on remote working in the long-term.

Thanks to hard work and careful planning over several years, AXA proved successful in swiftly enabling 120k employees to work from home - through a set of tech and cultural measures.

"Throughout the journey, technology has been key in reinforcing AXA’s ‘protection’ culture, for our customers (through telemedicine and the use of AI to respond to increasing demand), our employees (with remote support for matters such as  mental health) but also the broader community. We offered our support to French hospitals on data topics during the crisis."

Without collaboration there is no innovation

Annemieke de Groot, Scaling & Transition Expert at AXA, spoke about how AXA leverages communities and collaboration.

“As an insurer you don’t only exist within your own narrow space. Even though we aim to be a tech-led company we cannot always invent the wheel ourselves and we have to keep in touch with innovative ideas and tech around us. Therefore, we welcome collaboration and leverage different solution to fit our business.”