The Future of Fintech

On Our Radar

Nasdaq TradeTalks is covering the Singapore Fintech Festival for the seventh year in a row, focusing on the insights that will frame 2025, including the roadmap for quantum computing and AI, blueprint for digital assets, global payments and bridging the financial gap.

Nasdaq President Tal Cohen, who leads Nasdaq's Market Services and Financial Technology divisions, discusses the future of fintech, addressing data privacy and regulatory compliance challenges, and integrating cloud computing and AI solutions.

What are the biggest trends shaping the iGaming industry today?

Fully regulated online casino has been legal for roughly a decade, starting with New Jersey and rolling out to a number of other states in recent years. Right now, we are an inflection point in a number of these states where it is clear that digital options are starting to erode land-based gambling venue performance and or curtailing some of the growth in a post-COVID climate. Sports betting has been the Trojan horse leading the charge and, thematically, whether that serves as a tipping point for these states to expand to online casino is a big question mark across the industry. If states ultimately are scratching for more tax revenues, legalizing online casino is a much faster option than land-based alternatives.

How will these trends impact investors?  

You are seeing a nice maturation from some of the larger industry players, such as Flutter and DraftKings, as well as hybrid companies like MGM Resorts and Caesars, toward operating more profitability, focusing on customer retention and streamlined marketing versus merely trying to acquire new customers. What we are following very closely is the continued growth of emerging platforms like daily fantasy sports and sweepstakes platforms, which are targeting players in states where digital gaming is in a grey zone. These businesses are collectively generating billions of dollars in top-line revenue and have become a hot button topic for those that follow our sector closely.

What are the biggest challenges facing the iGaming industry?  

As noted earlier, the pace of regulation and adoption of online casinos or other options like daily fantasy sports and sweepstakes are closely followed as adverse regulation, concerns of higher gaming taxes, efforts to expand gaming (for example, Missouri’s recently approved sports betting amendment), and other negative news flow (for instance, sports betting integrity headlines) can greatly impact the sector.

Do you have any unique predictions on the outlook of the iGaming industry?

While we have standard industry concerns and are very deep in the weeds as a firm working closely with many of the emerging startups across the space, we are very long-term bullish on the continued growth of digital gaming in the U.S., not dissimilar to what we have observed in Europe. Simplistically, whether its online sports betting or online casino, consumers will continue to embrace these options given convenience, social marketing efforts, and a plethora of options not dissimilar to the decades-long expansion of online retail. We see plenty of similarities and still feel that we are in the very early innings of a long ball game. 

Regulatory Developments and Responsible Innovation

We discuss regulatory developments and responsible innovation with:

• Nilmini Rubin, Chief Policy Officer at Hedera

Key Reforms and Developments in the Capital Markets

We discuss key reforms and development in the global capital markets with:

• Priya Jundamal, General Manager and Head of DTCC Data Repository Singapore at DTCC

Gen AI and the Future of Banking, Stages of Adoption and Challenges to Overcome

We discuss Gen AI and the future of banking, stages of adoption and challenges to overcome with:

• Michael Abbott, Global Banking Lead at Accenture

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