Pivot Fintech gets green light to offer AI-driven investment services

Pivot Fintech Pte Ltd, a joint venture in Singapore offering digital wealth management technology services, announced on Monday that it has obtained a Capital Markets Services license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

The license allows the company to offer AI-driven investment services directly to retail clients.

"This significant Singapore milestone marks the start of Pivot's ambition to deliver innovative wealth management solutions in Southeast Asia," said Victor Lye, CEO of the company.

Pivot's core shareholder, the Beijing-based Pintec Technology Holdings Ltd, has technology and expertise in delivering AI-driven global asset allocation and money management services to financial institutions in China.

By integrating proprietary risk profiling analytics and client onboarding portal with AI technology, Pivot has developed its own end-to-end digital investment management service powered by machine learning AI.

Strategically, Pivot will bridge Pintec's extensive AI-driven experience in China and Singapore's fintech development. A near-term goal is for Pivot to train a local AI talent pool in collaboration with Singapore educational institutions.

"At Pintec, we are very pleased to support Pivot's growth in Singapore with our asset allocation algorithms to meet the growing demand for low cost, transparent and risk-managed long-term investment portfolios," said Zheng Yudong, CEO of Pintec's Wealth Management Business.

Launched in 2016, Pintec's AI-driven asset allocation system in China has successfully implemented machine learning AI platforms for Chinese financial institutions such as Minsheng Securities Co Ltd, Bank of Zhengzhou Co Ltd, and Guoyuan Securities Co Ltd.

AI adoption in Chinese companies has benefitted from the rapid growth in R&D expenditure, said Zhou Xing, PwC North China and Beijing office lead partner.

PwC's 2018 Global Innovation 1000 study showed that Chinese companies' R&D spending increased by 34.4 percent year-on-year to $60.08 billion last year, marking the largest growth globally.

In the mean time, global investment in financial technology ventures more than doubled last year to $55.3 billion, led by a surge in funding in China and strong gains in several other markets as investors placed larger bets in more mature startups, according to Accenture analysis of data from CB Insights, a global venture-finance data and analytics firm.

The tremendous growth was due to a ninefold increase in the value of deals in China to $25.5 billion, which accounted for 46 percent of all fintech investments last year, Accenture said.