Singapore’s leading life insurers join SGFinDex

Just over a year ago, we published a blog post showcasing the launch of the Singapore Financial Data Exchange (SGFinDex). It is the world's first public digital infrastructure that uses a national digital identity and centrally-managed online consent system to provide citizens with access – via applications – to their financial information, held across different government agencies and financial institutions.

The launch of SGFinDex was part of the Open Banking wave sweeping the world, opening up new revenue opportunities for banks. At that time, SGFinDex’s participants included Singapore’s leading banks, the Singapore Exchange Group (SGX Group), and government agencies.

Today, SGFinDex has become bigger and better with the addition of Singapore’s largest life insurers onto the service. The result? New features are now in place for consumers to gain a comprehensive overview of their financial position at the click of a button – and share those insights with their chosen banks or life insurers to make better decisions about their personal financial planning and management.

What makes SGFinDex ground-breaking is the close involvement of the Singapore government. Previous open-finance marketplaces have mostly been driven by private sector players such as banks. With SGFinDex, the service has been launched under the government’s Smart Nation programme by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG), with the support of the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). SGFinDex also enables citizens to use their Singpass digital ID to access government-held data such as their Central Provident Fund (CPF) balances, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) yearly assessable incomes, and Housing & Development Board (HDB) loan instalments and outstanding balances.

Helping to navigate SGFinDex’s latest evolutionary step

All these factors mean citizens now have easier and faster visibility into their finances, and can gain a consolidated view of their holdings more quickly and with less effort. The latest phase of SGFinDex’s carefully-planned evolution has enhanced that visibility still further – with seven of Singapore’s leading life insurers joining SGFinDex, following a complex two-year journey that Accenture is proud to have supported.

In the earlier phases of SGFinDex’s development, our team worked with the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) and served as test managers coordinating complex industry-wide testing of APIs across the seven banks, MyMoneySense, and SGX Group. In contrast, our work with the seven insurers and the Life Insurance Association, Singapore (LIA) has been broader in scope. In addition to test management, we were also involved in the end-to-end project management, including facilitating and coordinating business, technology, and legal workstreams.

Throughout the project we leveraged two key capabilities. First, our deep experience in managing complex, large-scale industry-wide change programmes. Second, our proprietary project management assets – including centralized management of documents, issues and tasks.

Drawing insights from the successes to date

As with any complex and ground-breaking project, some valuable lessons for the future emerged, and with SGFinDex, three stood out. The first was around technology readiness for joining an open finance platform. While the underlying concept of open finance is not new, turning it into reality can still be a step into the unknown for many institutions. This is dependent on their technology and infrastructure maturity, especially in areas like security. Therefore, it is vital not to underestimate the effort that will be required to be technologically ready.

The second lesson was that different institutions within the same industry can take very different approaches to such initiatives. Companies often assume that their counterparts in the same sector think and behave exactly as they do, which is not necessarily the case. These differences may become even bigger as the ecosystem expands to include more industries, requiring strong overarching governance. What is imperative, however, is that participants in such ecosystem initiatives adopt a mindset of collaborating for shared success; after all, these initiatives are opportunities to create win-win-win situations for public and private institutions, and for the people they serve.

The third and final learning was to start small and iterate fast. The SGFinDex initiative took years of planning and engagement across industries to arrive at its current state. It started with the banking industry, followed by the securities exchange, before the onboarding of the life insurance industry. This incremental approach allowed participants time to make the necessary preparations as well as to manage risks and complexities appropriately.

Blazing a trail for others to follow

With Singapore’s major life insurers on board, the benefits SGFinDex offers both to citizens and member institutions have increased dramatically. Customers now have a comprehensive view of their financial position, comprised of their life insurance holdings, their banking and government accounts, as well as their SGX equity and bond holdings. Financial institutions can offer their clients more holistic and informed advice, and life insurance companies and agents are also able to join the conversation more easily.

When it comes to financial convergence, Singapore is blazing a trail for others to follow – and Accenture is proud and humbled to contribute to this successful government initiative that is going to change finance in Singapore.

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