Singapore needs more fintech talent says Michael Page

BUILDING a fintech company is quite rewarding, but it needs the right people to support it.

The APAC, which has been championing fintech companies and supporting them with monetary and regulatory support, is expected to see the industry grow at by 72.5 percent for the five year period up to 2020.

Recruitment agency Michael Page recently published the 2019 Salary Benchmark Index, which revealed that this year, fintech companies are looking for a very specific set of skills, such as AI, machine learning, data science, UI/UX, and digital transformation.

Singapore, the hotbed of fintech in the APAC, therefore, is advising hiring managers to belt out comprehensive plans to ensure businesses in the region aren’t suffocated by a lack of talent.

The message is loud and clear — companies not only need to attract the right kind of tech talent but also groom its own for various projects in the fintech industry.

Contractual employment on the rise 

The scarcity of suitable fintech talent has led to a surge in contractual employees.

Michael Page Singapore’s MD, Nilay Khandelwal told Tech Wire Asia that contractual employment might be a tangible solution to the immediate talent crunch in the country — and in the APAC.

“Contractual employment is a pretty good balance in the West. In the Asian context, contracting was not socially accepted as a form of work.”

The flexibility of contractual employment enables fintech companies to hire people with new skills and roles that to help take their venture to the next level, which is critical in a market that is constantly looking to be wowed by technology.

Khandelwal believes that contractual employment is also a good way for fintech companies to find out if people are the right fit for their business.

“Contracted skills and roles companies see value in would likely be converted into a permanent headcount over time.”

In some cases, companies would have projects which may or may not get rolled out in specific markets. These are the projects that would most likely benefit from contractual employment.

In 2018, Michael Page revealed that there was a 20 percent increase in contractual employment. The increase will continue this year.

“Singapore’s future lies in innovation and highly skilled talent, and this trend is something we will continue to witness across industries, including functions that have not typically subscribed to contracting strategies,” he said.

Khandelwal highlighted that business intelligence, data analytics, and application engineering are domains where the fight for fintech talent is very high on the global stage.

“Most of the [talent] in these areas are not constrained by geography, but rather the quality of work that happens in each organization and to whom they report to.”

At the end of the day, the value of training your own talent domestically can’t be emphasized enough, and companies need to act now to groom the right talent.

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