The inaugural Singapore Fintech Festival has kicked off with more than 11,000 participants from 50 countries in attendance.

Organised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the Festival began this week with an Innovation Lab Crawl, followed by the Hackcelerator Demo Day for the demonstration of market-ready fintech solutions. Over the course of the week-long event, conferences on tech risk, fintech trends and regtech as well as the fintech awards and various networking and community events.

The festival, in partnership with The Association of Banks in Singapore, is sponsored by Citibank, Deloitte, Master Card, V-Key, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and United Overseas Bank which Sopnendu said represents key players in the alternative ecosystem.

MAS chief executive officer, Sopnendu Mohanty, said the festival would build collaborative international relations and birth a worldwide fintech ecosystem.

“Standing on the cusp of financial technology transformation, the [festival] will foster the thriving fintech ecosystem,” he said.

“Standing on the cusp of technology transformation…we strive toward establishing Singapore as a Smart Financial Centre.”

Festival attendees are able to hear from more than 100 executives and market specialists on global trends, technology developments, market-ready and future solutions, financial regulations, and technology risk.

Participants will also visit an exhibition to be held at the Singapore Expo where they can live experiment innovative technological finance solutions.

The Festival concludes on November 18th.