The Monetary Authority of Singapore, Smart Nation and Singapore's Digital Government Group launched Singapore's Financial Data Exchange on Dec. 8. The news was announced at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2020, by Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, according to a press release.

The SGFinDex claims to be the world's first public digital infrastructure that enables individuals access to their financial information such as deposits, credit cards, loans and investments across financial institutions and government agencies for more effective financial planning.

To ensure data protection of the user, SGFinDex will not store but only transmit personal financial data which will be encrypted and be read only by the financial planning application(s) receiving the data.

The SGFinDex was built on Singapore's National Digital Identity, or SingPass, and developed by the public sector in collaboration with The Association of Banks in Singapore and seven participating banks which include DBS Bank; Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation; United Overseas Bank; Citibank Singapore; HSBC Bank; Maybank Singapore and Standard Chartered Bank.