Eightwire HQ is based in Wellington, NZ, but we’ve been active in Singapore for 11 months, with a Singapore office and growing Singapore team.
As we develop our product into the Southeast Asian market, it was a no brainer to enter the 12 week Global FinTech Hackcelerator programme. We were delighted to be one of 20 finalists (RegTech and SupTech category), from over 300 applications across 40 countries. Our problem statement for the entry was “How do we encourage people and institutions to aggregate and exchange data from different data sources whilst ensuring data privacy concerns are met?”. A problem that many in the FinTech industry are grappling with, all over the world.
Our experience in running government data exchanges, for NGOs and agencies, provides a secure and private way to aggregate sensitive data about families, children and victims. A data exchange for a financial services company has similar requirements, but manages data for our customer’s customers.
Being part of the Singapore FinTech Festival, allowed us to take our product and contextualise it for the Southeast Asian market, something we’ve been working on one-on-one with our local partners. We focused on automating MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore) compliance reporting, improving KYC (Know Your Customer) across the region, and powering data science teams based in Singapore that rely on personal data from across the Southeast Asian region.
Growing our brand presence in Southeast Asia, and attending events such as this has made us realise how important partners are for scaling internationally. Building on our relationships with NZ and Australian partners has guided us, and opened doors to working with global brands in Singapore. For any startup that is working in the enterprise space, partners are vital for market entry and scale. Taking a long-term view on partnerships and managing them for delivery is a gateway to enter for scaleups wanting to launch into new markets. We now have a strong Singapore pipeline of partners and customers that we are continuing to work with closely.
A big thank you to KPMG, MAS and HSBC for their help over the 12 week Hackcelerator programme, and of course congratulations to the winning businesses. It was a fantastic opportunity and has really changed us as a company. After 11 months working to enter the Singapore market, this event was the icing on the cake in terms of gaining a significant foothold in the Southeast Asian market. Check out our Hackcelerator pitch below:
