Sopnendu Mohanty

Sopnendu Mohanty is a Singapore-based fintech executive who served as the Chief FinTech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) from 2015 to 2025. During his tenure, he led initiatives to position Singapore as a global fintech hub, including the launch of the Singapore FinTech Festival and the implementation of cross-border payment linkages between Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and India.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

In June 2021, he was profiled by Bloomberg as Singapore’s “fintech honcho”, highlighting his vision of building an “Asian Silicon Valley” for digital finance.^[7] He has also been featured in the Financial Times, Fortune, and Forbes for his leadership in cryptocurrency regulation, financial inclusion, and AI governance.^[8][9][10]

In 2025, he became the founding Group CEO of the Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN), a not-for-profit body promoting international collaboration in digital finance.^[8][11]

Mohanty is a native of Balasore, Odisha, India. He is an alumnus of Utkal University and Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra.^[12]

Before joining the MAS, Mohanty spent around 12 years at Citigroup, where he held senior roles in global consumer banking and innovation. He served as the Global Head of Consumer Innovation Lab Networks and Programs before leaving the bank in 2015 to take up the Chief FinTech Officer role at MAS.^[13][12][14]

In 2015, Mohanty was appointed as the first Chief FinTech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), a newly created role to foster financial innovation in the city-state.^[2][6]

Under his leadership, MAS launched several flagship initiatives, including the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) in 2016, which grew into the world’s largest annual fintech gathering, attracting policymakers, investors, and startups from more than 100 countries.^[2][14]

He also oversaw Project Ubin, a multi-phase initiative exploring blockchain and distributed ledger technologies for interbank settlement, widely cited as one of the earliest wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilots.^[3][15]

In 2021, Mohanty was appointed as an adviser to the Mojaloop Foundation’s Board of Directors, making the MAS the first central bank to take a strategic role in the initiative. He emphasized that the partnership would advance financial inclusion by reducing cross-border remittance costs, citing Singapore’s payments linkage with Thailand as an example.^[9]

In 2021, Mohanty played a key role in MAS’s participation in Project Dunbar, a joint initiative with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub to develop a shared platform for cross-border settlement using multiple central bank digital currencies (m-CBDCs).^[16] That same period, he oversaw a CBDC trial with the Banque de France that facilitated near-instant conversion of a Singapore-dollar CBDC into a digital euro on a shared Quorum network.^[16]

Mohanty emphasized that these experiments were designed to spark “the next generation of innovation in cross-border payments on a retail level,” aiming to reduce remittance fees to “sub-dollar” amounts, a goal he linked to promoting financial inclusion.^[16]

In explaining MAS’s approach, Mohanty argued that while the Central Banks should regulate financial activity, the private sector should be entrusted with building and operating the technological infrastructure powering next-generation finance.^[16]

In 2022, MAS introduced cross-border QR payment linkages between Singapore’s PayNow and Malaysia’s DuitNow, a system later expanded to Thailand and India.^[1][4][6] His regulatory philosophy emphasized that fintech companies should act as “enablers” rather than “disrupters” to mainstream banking, underpinned by a S$225 million sector investment strategy.^[6][5]

In 2022, Mohanty described the launch of Ant Group’s ANEXT Bank, one of Singapore’s first digital wholesale banks licensed by MAS, as “yet another milestone in Singapore's digital bank development journey,” highlighting its role in keeping the financial sector “progressive, globally competitive and vibrant.”^[17][18]

By 2022, Mohanty had taken a tougher stance on digital assets. Speaking to the Financial Times, he warned that Singapore’s regulator would be “unrelentingly hard” on risks from private cryptocurrencies and questioned their long-term value.^[10] Around this period, Bloomberg reported his evolving regulatory position, including warnings to crypto firms and calls for tighter oversight of the sector.^[19][20]

From 2023 onward, Mohanty increasingly linked fintech with artificial intelligence. He told Bloomberg that AI would be a central theme of the Singapore FinTech Festival and emphasized Singapore’s “long game” in AI adoption.^[7] At Fortune’s Brainstorm AI Singapore conference in July 2025, he urged banks to prioritize AI applications that advance financial inclusion rather than workforce reduction.^[8]

In 2025, Mohanty co-founded and became the first Group CEO of the Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN), a not-for-profit organization spun out of MAS programs. The network was established to promote international collaboration on digital finance, with an emphasis on inclusive finance and regional innovation hubs.^[8][11]

In addition to his work at MAS, Mohanty has advised governments and international bodies on digital finance and financial technology. In 2019, MAS approved his advisory role with an Indian state government in his personal capacity.^[14] He has also participated in global policy dialogues on blockchain adoption, CBDCs, and cross-border financial regulation, where his contributions have been cited in both professional and academic works.^[21][22]

In 2016, Mohanty was named to Institutional Investor’s Fintech Finance 35, which highlighted leading figures shaping global financial technology innovation.^[12] In June 2021, Bloomberg profiled him as Singapore’s “fintech honcho,” noting his vision of turning the country into an “Asian Silicon Valley” for digital finance innovation.^[7] His policy perspectives and leadership have been widely cited in professional and academic publications on digital finance, blockchain adoption, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).^{[5][6][23][24][21][25][15][22][14][26]}

The following works contain substantive references to Mohanty, including his appointment as Chief FinTech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, his regulatory philosophy, his leadership of Project Ubin and the Singapore FinTech Festival, his recognition by Euromoney, and his published views on cryptocurrencies, financial crises, and cross-border payments.

• Woo, Jun Jie (2017), 3-in-1: Governing A Global Financial Centre, World Scientific, p. 166, ISBN 978-9-8132-2118-5

• Lee, David Kuo Chuen; Low, Linda (2018), Inclusive Fintech: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency And Ico, World Scientific, pp. Page xix, ISBN 978-9-8132-3865-7

• Allen, Robert; Blakstad, Sofie (2018), FinTech Revolution: Universal Inclusion in the New Financial Ecosystem, Springer International Publishing, p. 104, ISBN 978-3-3197-6014-8

• Pranay, Gupta; Tham, T. Mandy (2018), Fintech:The New DNA of Financial Services, De Press, pp. Page 20, ISBN 978-1-5474-0090-4

• Popkova, Elena G. Popkova (2019), Growth Poles of the Global Economy: Emergence, Changes and Future Perspectives, Springer International Publishing, p. 1236, ISBN 978-3-0301-5160-7

• Tee, Maxson J. Y.; Krishnakumar, Arunkumar (2021), Restartup: A Founder's Guide to Crisis Navigation, Wiley, p. 145, ISBN 978-1-1197-5440-4

• Scott, Stephen (2023), Culture & Conduct Risk in the Banking Sector: Why It Matters and What the Industry Is Doing to Address It, Starling Insights, p. 69, ISBN 979-8-9859-2201-1

• Koh, Lillian; Mittal, Varun (2023), Fintech Nation, The: Excellence Unlocked In Singapore, World Scientific Publishing Company, p. 180, ISBN 978-9-8112-4917-4

• Thong, Ming Sen (2025), Blockchain for Financial Governance in Malaysia and Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore, p. 22, ISBN 978-9-8196-1281-9