Written by: Keren Orian Nadel, Saga’s Managing Director

Singapore has been home to a hot-bed of discussion, debate, sharing and learning for the fintech and crypto communities over recent weeks. With The Singapore Fintech Festival, Blockshow Asia and The Capital all happening in the same place, players from all corners of these industries and the globe were brought together.

These events were a great opportunity for us to meet our industry counterparts, put faces to names and discuss the work we’re doing at Saga. As our conversations progressed throughout the week, I realised that we are all striving to solve the same problems; and, for me, what stood out the most were the challenges around adoption. To truly embed our work within the mainstream of financial services I believe there are four factors that need to come together to deliver success through increasing adoption:

Education underpins ecosystems

In the crypto-space, building ecosystems and communities are a top priority and our industry is a supportive one. But we know that to outsiders it often seems overly complicated and impenetrable, and it is our collective responsibility to be accessible and open to new ways of thinking and doing. An understanding of how the ecosystem works, will encourage new market entrants, drive adoption and growth and provide the foundation from which healthy communities and ecosystems can naturally arise.

The right regulation

As an industry, we are currently awaiting regulatory updates from several key markets around the world, and these decisions will shape the future of our industry and impact many of its participants. Whether you’re supportive of increased regulation or not, reducing regulatory uncertainty will provide a framework that aids adoption of new currencies.

A product that resonates

Even with a positive regulatory environment, adoption of alternative currencies will not increase unless the product answers a genuine need — products with clear purpose will be the true drivers of adoption. In any sector, new products need to answer a specific need to be successful; and we are no exception. Differentiation is key to avoid becoming background noise.

User friendly

It sounds simple, but being user friendly takes down huge barriers to adoption. As I mentioned earlier, we know we’re not a straightforward industry, so we must do all we can to smooth the process of becoming involved for our potential investors, customers and users.

At Saga we developed a proprietary KYC platform because we couldn’t find one mature enough to suit our needs for compliant onboarding. Ease and smooth functionality was central to its development and of course, having great technology at hand helped to make this a reality.