Singapore’s fintech companies raised $499 million across 53 deals in the first half of 2026, according to KPMG’s Pulse of Fintech, published on August 27. A year earlier, the figure had been $1.45 billion across 97 deals. A single round, a $320 million investment in a cross-border payments company, accounted for nearly two-thirds of the half-year total. KPMG in Singapore observed that “investors are being far more selective, consolidating capital behind a small number of scaled, high-conviction platforms,” while insisting that the city’s fundamentals, “a trusted regulatory environment, deep cross-border connectivity, and strength in payments and digital assets,” remained intact. [1] The round in question was Airwallex’s Series H, which valued the company at $11 billion. Airwallex reported annualized revenue of $1.3 billion, more than 2,300 staff and more than 85 licenses around the world, and appointed a new global head of financial crime compliance alongside the raise. [2] Without that one deal, Southeast Asian fintech funding in the first half would have fallen 49%, according to analysis published by Entrepreneur Asia Pacific. [3]
Hong Kong spent the same period expanding what fintech companies are permitted to do. On April 10, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority granted the city’s first stablecoin issuer licenses, to HSBC and to Anchorpoint Financial, a venture of Standard Chartered, HKT and Animoca Brands. The authority had received 36 applications by the end of September 2025. Its chief executive, Eddie Yue, said the licenses provided “an orderly operating environment for the stablecoin issuers.” [4] By the end of May, Hong Kong had 13 cryptocurrency trading platforms licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission, with eight more applications pending, alongside eight virtual banks and two stablecoin issuers, and first-quarter IPOs had raised HK$109.9 billion, up 488% year on year. [5] The commission has introduced frameworks for perpetual contracts and margin financing and for secondary trading of tokenized products, and licensing regimes for crypto dealers and custodians are expected to be legislated this year. [6]
On September 16, Hong Kong’s Policy Address added AI-related categories to the city’s Talent List, relaxed the requirements of the Top Talent Pass Scheme for technology start-ups, extended talent schemes to applicants from Central Asia and the Middle East, and widened the financial sector’s generative AI sandbox to securities, wealth management and insurance. [7] Earlier in the year, the HKMA’s fintech blueprint had committed the authority to support skills development in AI and distributed ledger technology, with its deputy chief executive, Arthur Yuen, arguing that “the future of finance will be defined by those who can harness sophisticated technology.” [8] Each of these measures widens the pool of businesses that need licensed, compliant staff.
Singapore’s regulator has taken a more restrictive path in digital assets, though not a hostile one. When its licensing regime for digital token service providers took effect in June 2025, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said that licenses under the new regime were “generally not expected to be issued,” and several exchanges began preparing to move staff elsewhere. [9][10] On September 1, the MAS published draft legislation for a stablecoin regime of its own, proposing a new issuance license, reserves at least equal to the par value of tokens in circulation, a ban on paying interest, and powers for issuers to freeze or burn tokens. [11] Singapore is building a framework for the same activity Hong Kong has already licensed, but it is letting fewer firms in while it does so.
The two cities are also taking different approaches to foreign talent. Singapore announced in its 2026 budget that the minimum qualifying salary for an Employment Pass in financial services would rise from S$6,200 to S$6,600 a month for new applications from January 2027, and up to S$12,700 for candidates aged 45 and over. [12] Hong Kong has moved in the opposite direction, loosening its schemes to attract people from more countries. For an employer weighing where to place a regional compliance or engineering team, the cost of bringing in a mid-career specialist is rising in one city and falling in the other.
The conflict in the Middle East has played into Hong Kong’s argument. Within a day of the first strikes on Iran, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said he expected “increased volatility in financial markets, with faster and less predictable capital flows.” [13] Hong Kong has since leaned into its role as a center for wealth management and digital assets, although it is too early to say whether any capital that moved because of the conflict will stay.
Gartner’s research on finance functions points to the same constraint in both cities. In a survey published in March, chief financial officers named acquiring and developing AI and digital talent as their most pressing near-term challenge, and Mallory Bulman, a senior director analyst, warned that “hiring AI and digital talent to meet their top challenge is not easy and it’s expensive.” [14] In May, Gartner found that 66% of finance organizations reported efficiency gains from AI but 63% had seen slower deployment than expected, and Marco Steecker, a director analyst, said CFOs “now need to prove that AI is improving decisions.” [15] Banks and fintechs in Singapore and Hong Kong face the same pressure, and the people who can deploy AI in a regulated environment are in short supply in both.
Recruiters describe a market in which one category of hiring has held up regardless of funding. Larson Maddox’s guide to Hong Kong compliance hiring, published in June, called compliance hiring “structurally strong and non-discretionary,” with AML and KYC associates with three to six years of experience earning base salaries of HK$420,000 to HK$700,000 and compliance vice presidents HK$900,000 to HK$1.5 million, and noted that Mandarin had become increasingly essential for roles serving mainland clients. [16] Selby Jennings described Singapore in March as “a governance hub with less hiring across risk management, but steady hiring across legal and compliance,” and reported salary increases of up to 56% for specialists in AI and machine learning. [17]
The evidence describes two fintech markets moving in different directions on regulation but converging on the same talent shortage. Hong Kong’s licensing expansion is creating demand for compliance officers, AML and financial crime specialists, treasury and reserve management professionals for stablecoin issuers, and product and engineering teams able to build regulated digital asset services, with a growing premium on mainland experience and Mandarin. Singapore’s demand is narrower and more senior, concentrated in payments infrastructure, tokenization, AI governance and the compliance functions of the firms that have chosen to stay. In both cities, the hiring that has survived the funding slowdown is the hiring that regulators require.
Looking to the fourth quarter, I expect Hong Kong’s licensing pipeline to keep compliance and digital asset hiring active, particularly as dealer and custodian regimes move toward legislation and the first stablecoin issuers build out their operations. The Policy Address measures should make it easier to bring in AI specialists from abroad early next year. In Singapore, the Fintech Festival from November 18 to 20 will be the clearest test of whether investor sentiment has turned, and I expect hiring to remain selective until the stablecoin framework is finalized after consultation closes in October. [18] Employers with roles that depend on foreign hires should plan for the higher Employment Pass threshold now rather than in January. Cross-border payments infrastructure will remain a source of demand in Singapore, with Project Nexus, which links the domestic instant payment systems of India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, targeting launch in 2027. [19]
For employers in both cities, compliance and financial crime specialists with digital asset experience will remain the hardest people to hire this year, and the strongest candidates will be weighing offers from Hong Kong and Singapore at the same time.
Singapore’s first-half funding total showed how much of its fintech sector now depends on a small number of large companies such as Airwallex. That concentration may continue, but the company’s decision to appoint a new head of financial crime compliance alongside its largest funding round says something about where value sits in fintech today. In both Singapore and Hong Kong, the firms that attract capital are increasingly the ones that can demonstrate they will meet their regulators’ expectations, and that depends on the specialists they can hire.
Sources
- KPMG Singapore, Singapore fintech investment moderates in H1 2026 as capital concentrates in fewer, larger deals, August 27, 2026.
- FinTech Futures, Airwallex reaches $11bn valuation with $320m Series H funding round, June 26, 2026.
- Entrepreneur Asia Pacific, Airwallex’s $320 mn mega round masks deeper pullback in Southeast Asia fintech funding, July 21, 2026.
- Fintech News Hong Kong, report on the HKMA’s first stablecoin issuer licenses, April 10, 2026.
- InvestHK, Hong Kong FinTech factsheet, May 28, 2026.
- Withers, via Mondaq, update on the SFC’s digital asset roadmap, May 18, 2026.
- Human Resources Online, Hong Kong unveils first five-year plan and Policy Address prioritising AI talent and population development, September 16, 2026.
- Hong Kong Government, HKMA fintech promotion blueprint, February 3, 2026.
- Tiger Brokers (iTiger), report on MAS digital token service provider licensing, June 30, 2025.
- CCN, Global crypto exchanges rethink Singapore presence under MAS rules, June 12, 2025.
- Allen & Gledhill, MAS consults on draft stablecoin legislation, September 11, 2026.
- EIG Law, Singapore announces major increases to work visa salary thresholds beginning January 2027, February 19, 2026.
- South China Morning Post, report on Financial Secretary Paul Chan’s comments on the Middle East conflict, March 1, 2026.
- Gartner, Gartner Survey Reveals Acquiring and Developing AI and Digital Talent Is CFOs’ Top Near-Term Challenge, March 23, 2026.
- Gartner, Gartner Says CFOs Must Stop Mistaking Finance AI Deployment for Value Creation, May 28, 2026.
- Larson Maddox, Hong Kong sell-side legal and compliance hiring trends and salary guide 2026, June 2026.
- Selby Jennings, APAC financial services hiring outlook 2026, March 2026.
- Daily FT, Singapore FinTech Festival 2026 in November to bring global leaders together, July 10, 2026.
- Business Wire, Nexus Global Payments announcement, February 9, 2026.