This week, Singapore has been at the centre of the global artificial intelligence ( AI ) conversation as it hosts SuperAI, Asia’s largest AI gathering. The event is exploring how AI is reshaping industries, with a sharp focus on banking, financial services, economies, and everyday life.

The Asset sat in on a panel that brought together heavyweight institutions to tackle one of the most pressing questions in the region’s digital transformation: how to harness AI in financial services responsibly.

The discussion featured three distinct voices, Annabel Lee, director of APJ strategic policy engagements and campaigns and Asean at Amazon Web Services ( AWS ); Kenneth Gay, chief fintech officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore ( MAS ); and Rajeev Hassamal, head of GenAI and the future of work at DBS Bank.

Regulation as a competitive edge

Despite their differing mandates, all three speakers aligned on a central theme: making AI in financial services both ethical and scalable.

MAS’s Gay set the tone of the discussion, underscoring his institution’s dual role as regulator and central bank. “We see regulation not as a constraint, but a strategic advantage,” he says, noting how trust and safety are embedded into Singapore’s financial DNA.

Gay explains that MAS’s AI journey began with machine learning for fraud detection and has since expanded to generative AI initiatives, firmly governed and internally applied. MAS now uses its own large language models ( LLMs ) for tasks like horizon scanning, compliance summaries, and automated news aggregation, demonstrating that regulators can innovate too.

Hassamal shares how DBS transitioned from traditional AI to enterprise-grade GenAI in under five years. “We’ve gone from 18 months to build a model to two months,” he says. The bank now operates over 1,500 models, contributing to nearly a billion dollars in economic value.

He also highlights DBSGPT, the bank’s internal GenAI platform that connects to multiple knowledge systems while embedding strong governance. More than a productivity tool, it's designed to foster strategic transformation, streamlining customer service, empowering staff, and embedding GenAI fluency across the bank. “We have to upskill 41,000 employees,” Hassamal notes, describing the initiative as both technological and cultural.

Blueprint for safe scale

Annabel Lee of AWS, herself a former regulator, emphasizes the need for co-development between governments, cloud providers, and financial institutions. “Innovation only works if it’s responsible,” she asserts, adding that AWS invests heavily in internal tooling, governance frameworks, and sandbox environments for AI experimentation.

She points to the rapid acceleration of AI adoption in financial services across Asia. “The Japanese FSA found 90% of their financial institutions are already using AI,” she says, while in Hong Kong, 75% of banks have at least one GenAI use case. This signals a regional race not just for innovation, but for responsible deployment.

The discussion did not shy away from challenges. From the risks of agentic AI ( autonomous systems ) to the “garbage in, garbage out” dilemma when indexing internal data, panellists acknowledge the tension between velocity and vigilance.

Still, the consensus is clear, that with the right frameworks, partnerships, and people, AI can reshape finance safely.

Singapore’s own strategy is emerging as a global reference point, combining robust public-private collaboration, innovation sandboxes, and regulatory clarity.

As Hassamal concludes, “You can’t scale what you don’t trust.” In an AI-powered future, all three panellists concur that trust, more than just technology, will still remain a strong currency.