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Pieter Franken
Group Chief Technology Officer
Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN)
Pieter Franken is a passionate global Fintech Pioneer and a Deep Tech Innovator with many industry firsts under his belt. Career spanning well over 30+ years in the Financial Industry, specializing in technology leadership, FinTech, Financial Inclusion, GreenTech, AI, Cyber Security, digital innovation and large-scale digital transformations. C-level and executive positions with industry leaders such as Citigroup, Shinsei Bank, Aplus, Monex Group, Union Digital Bank and founded SAFECAST.ORG, a global NPO critically acclaimed for citizen sourced, open environmental data. Pieter served as a member of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) International Technology Advisory Panel (ITAP) and was a Founding Member of the ASEAN Innovation Network (AFIN, now Synfindo), a nonprofit company founded by MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore), IFC/World Bank and ABA (ASEAN Banking Association) to accelerate digital transformation across Asia and other developing regions to foster Financial Inclusion and bridging the gaps between FinTechs and Financial Institutions and operator of the APIX Platform. In 2023, Pieter co-founded the Japan Fintech Festival in collaboration with Japan Financial Supervisory Agency and Bank of Japan. Pieter holds a MSc in Computer Science from Delft University and currently is a Guest Professor and Senior Researcher at Keio University, an Adjunct Fellow with Griffith University Asia Institute (GAI) and MIT Media Lab alumni. He contributes to research in FinTech in Asia, Financial Inclusion, Citizen Science, IoT and Digital Assets.
Speaking at SFF 2026
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3:20–3:50pmFri 20 NovPolicy StageHall 3, Singapore EXPOOpenModerator
Policy Rewiring
Beyond Faster Payments: What’s Still Holding Cross-Border Payments Back?
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Shadab TaiyabiAsia Head of Fintech Sales, GPSHSBC
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Pieter FrankenGroup Chief Technology OfficerGlobal Finance & Technology Network (GFTN)Moderator
About this session
For years, the payments industry has shared one ambition: make cross-border payments faster, cheaper, more transparent and more inclusive. Progress has been made, but the hardest problems are no longer technical. Firms moving money across borders still face differing compliance requirements, inconsistent standards, limited interoperability and persistent first- and last-mile frictions. These costs fall hardest on merchants and small businesses.
With the G20’s 2027 targets for cross-border payments approaching, the question is what can actually be delivered, and by whom.
This session brings together practitioners who move money across borders every day, from merchant acquiring and cross-border platforms to the fintech industry. It looks at Asia’s corridors, where markets operate at very different stages of development. Which bottlenecks cost businesses most? What has worked in practice? And where does industry need to act together, or need policymakers to step in, to turn ambition into measurable progress? -
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4:00–4:30pmFri 20 NovCatalyst StageHall 3, Singapore EXPOOpenModerator
Technology Rewiring
Criminals Deployed Agents First. Can Real-Time Controls Catch Up?
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Venus LeungAPAC Business AML LeadBanking Circle
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Vincent LiGlobal Head of ComplianceAnt International
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Jan MorgenthalChief Transformation OfficerServiceNow
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Jackson HullChief Technology and Chief Product OfficerElliptic
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Pieter FrankenGroup Chief Technology OfficerGlobal Finance & Technology Network (GFTN)Moderator
About this session
Fraudsters didn't wait for a governance framework. Autonomous agents are already probing payment rails, spinning up synthetic identities and running social-engineering scripts at machine speed, while many institutions still triage alerts in batches. With instant payments and agentic commerce scaling fast, the window between attack and response is now measured in milliseconds. The panel looks at where real-time controls are keeping pace and where they are structurally behind. It also covers how to tell a legitimate customer's agent from a malicious one, and what defending with agents looks like when regulators still expect a human in the loop.
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