3D Secure is a three-domain (3D) structure connecting the issuer, the acquirer and the merchant page to prevent fraudulent transactions. It is a payment security system where the customer enters a one time password (OTP) in a secure page to validate their identity and complete the transaction.
Account Information Service Provider (AISP) provides third-party access to account information with the customers’ consent. AISPs help customers reduce manual work by offering quick access to their financial information, savings and approval of loans, and are used in open banking.
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), originally known as Rijndael, is one of the most secure encryption algorithms available. The symmetric-key block algorithm is the FinTech industry standard to encrypt and decrypt classified data.
See also: Singapore FinTech Association and 10x1000 to nurture 100 local fintech talents
Alternative finance refers to a range of finance solutions that sit outside of traditional forms (stocks, bonds or cash). It is a term used to describe financial products, instruments and tools that have been developed outside of the traditional financial services system, with peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding as examples.
Alternative lending refers to the various loan options beyond a traditional bank loan. Generally, these forms of loan are more flexible in terms of repayment and approval, but often have higher interest rates. Alternative lending may be necessary for either an established business or start-up as they can exceed the maximum loan amount of a bank and do not necessarily require an established credit history.
An angel investor (also known sometimes referred to as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor or seed investor) is an affluent individual person who provides funding capital for to a business start-up business, usually in exchange for a stake in the business — often in the form of shares or equity, convertible debt or ownership equity.
Anti-money laundering (AML) is carried out by a financial institution that consists of laws, procedures, and regulations that aim to achieve legal requirements. AML monitors suspicious activities by preventing practices that involve disguising illegal funds as legitimate income.
Altcoin is cryptocurrency or a category of cryptocurrencies that are an alternative to bitcoin
Application programming interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications that essentially allows multiple systems or applications to ‘speak’ to one another. This allows customisation of applications, depending on the needs of the user and can streamline day-today processes.
Artificial intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making and translation between languages.
Asset tokenisation is the process by which an issuer creates digital tokens on a distributed ledger which represents physical assets.
Atomic Settlement is a riskless transfer of assets and proceeds.
Banking-as-a-Platform (BaaP) enables third-party developers to build products and services for bank customers software and services technology firms provide applications, development tools, middleware, operating systems, virtualisation, servers, storage and networking to banks and other financial services providers. The platform can then be used to deliver custom solutions, services and experiences to customers.
Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) is an endto-end process ensuring the overall execution of a financial service provided over the web. Such a digital banking service is available on-demand and operates within a set time-frame
Big Data refers to structured and unstructured data that is too large or too complex to be processed by a traditional data management application. Financial services use Big Data to better understand their customers’ behaviour using predictive data analytics. Typically, Big Data is implemented for sentiment analysis, fraud detection, fraud prevention and personalising customer interaction.
Blockchain is essentially a secure digital record of transactions. Each block contains data around an individual transaction such as date, time, amount and is designed to be difficult to alter. Blockchain is structured so that individual blocks are linked together in a single list, called a chain. They are popularly used in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a digital currency created on a blockchain that uses peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments. Consensus protocol is a process, encoded in software, by which computers in a network — called nodes — reach an agreement about a set of data.
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency in which transactions are verified and records maintained by a decentralised system using cryptography.
Decentralised Application (dAPP) is an application that uses an Ethereum smart contract as its back-end code.
Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is a collective term for financial products and services that are accessible to anyone who can use Ethereum.
Digitalisation is the process of making existing data digital, embracing the ability of digital technology to collect data, establish trends and make better business decisions.
Digitisation is also the process of converting information from a physical format into digital units, including assets.
Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is a system for creating a shared, cryptographically secured database or which blockchain is the most well known.
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a “joke”, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time.
Embedded Finance is the use of financial tools or services — such as lending or payment processing — by a non-financial provider.
Ethereum is an open source, decentralised platform based on blockchain technology created by Vitalik Buterin in 2013. It runs smart contracts on a custom built blockchain that allows developers to create markets, store registries of debts, and so on.
Financial Information eXchange (FIX) is a vendor-neutral electronic communications protocol for international real-time exchange of securities transaction information, which is useful to funds, investment managers, and firms.
Fork is a change to the way a blockchain’s software rules define valid transactions, or blocks. Fractionalisation divides an asset into smaller value parts without loss of the original value or attributes
Git is an open source program for tracking changes in text files, and is the core technology that GitHub, the social and user interface, is built on top of.
HACKcelerator connects ambitious hackers with thought-leaders and experienced entrepreneurs to help them become more versatile.
Hackathon is a gathering of technology enthusiasts and to give them a platform to build apps that can make banking and finance easier and more accessible.
Hash rate is the speed at which a cryptocurrency miner operates.
Hash is a string of characters that serves as a virtually unforgeable digital fingerprint of data.
Initial coin offer (ICO) is an unregulated means by which a cryptocurrency venture, typically early stage, can raise money from supporters by issuing tokens. It is often referred to as a crowdsale as ICO participants may potentially earn a return on their investments (as opposed to crowdfunding, where supporters donate money to a project or cause). Ethereum is currently the most popular platform for launching ICOs.
Insurance Technology (InsurTech) is the process that is designed to increase the efficiency of insurance companies.
Ledger is a system of records.
Machine learning is the concept that a computer program can learn and adapt to new data without human intervention
Mining is a process where transactions are verified and added to a blockchain. It is also the process where new bitcoins or certain altcoins are created.
Nodes are a communications end-point, and form the backbone of any blockchain network.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique and non-interchangeable units of data stored on a digital ledger. NFTs can be used to represent photos, videos or audio and use blockchain technology to establish a verified and public proof of ownership.
Open banking is a term that references the practice of sharing financial information securely, and in a way in which the customer approves of. This is achieved through use of open APIs, which enable developers to build applications and services.
Open source refers to something people can modify and share because its design is publicly accessible. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending enables individuals to obtain loans directly from other individuals, cutting out the financial institution as the middleman.
Proof-of-concept is evidence, typically deriving from an experiment or pilot project, which demonstrates that a design concept is feasible.
Proof-of-stake is an algorithm that rewards participants that solves difficult cryptographic puzzles to achieve distributed consensus.
Proof-of-work is an algorithm that rewards the first person that solves a computational problem (for example, mining) to achieve distributed consensus.
Regulatory sandbox is a framework set up by a financial sector regulator to allow small-scale, live testing of innovations by private firms in a controlled environment under the regulator’s supervision.
Regulatory technology (RegTech) is the use of information technology within the financial services industry to enhance the regulatory processes.
Security Token Offer (STO) are typically the issuance of digital tokens in a blockchain environment in the form of regulated securities.
Security tokens are digital tokens in a blockchain environment in the form of regulated securities.
Segregated witness is the process where the block size limit on a blockchain is increased by removing digital signature data and moving it to the end of a transaction to free up capacity.
Simplified Payment Verification or SPV clients are Bitcoin lightweight clients which do not download and store the whole blockchain locally. These wallets provide a way to verify payments without having to download the complete blockchain.
Smart contracts are an automated mechanism involving two or more parties where digital assets are put in and redistributed at a later date based on some preset formula and triggering event. The contract can run as programmed without any downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose values are tied to fiat currencies like the US dollar, precious metals, or shortterm securities as a way to mitigate the inherent volatility of digital coins.
Start-up accelerator or seed accelerator is a system specifically designed to help facilitate growth in new businesses.
Tokenisation is the process by which real assets are turned into something of digital value called a token, and the ability to offer ownership of parts of this asset to different owners, similar to asset tokenisation.
Unicorn is used to define a start-up company with a valuation of over US$1 billion ($1.3 billion).
Venture capital (VC) is a cash injection provided to start-up companies and small businesses that appear to have high growth potential.
Zero knowledge proof enables one party to provide evidence that a transaction happened without revealing private details of the transaction.
