The financial sector is on the cusp of profound change. In the words of Piyush Gupta, Chief Executive Officer of DBS Group: “If financial institutions fail to adapt to the challenges posed by the rise of financial technology (FinTech), they risk disappearing in the next five to 10 years.”

Speaking at the 2016 Singapore Forum, Mr Gupta was one of 10 public and private sector leaders discussing the ways shifting paradigms and disruptive technologies can create opportunities and help major economies get back on the path to sustainable growth.

Organised by Temasek’s S Rajaratnam Endowment and titled ‘Asia and the World – Shared Opportunity, Shared Prosperity’, the two-day event brought together some 250 business, policy and thought leaders who analysed the ways new technologies, economic globalisation and financial interdependence can help new economic and financial frameworks emerge.

According to a recent Citi GPS report, Mr Gupta’s apprehensions are not unfounded. The report found that the rise of Fintech could spur a 30% decline in banking jobs across the US and Europe over the next decade – the equivalent of nearly 2 million jobs.

Such a decline would certainly threaten the existence of older financial institutions operating in rigid environments. But, argued Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), FinTech companies cannot simply replace banks and insurance companies, no matter how much they disrupt or even displace traditional players.

“Established financial institutions have something that unregulated FinTech entities do not,” he said. “And that is trust.” Trust based on a track record of performance. Trust in a responsible and ethical management of assets. And most importantly, trust in the ability to adapt to fast-changing circumstances, Mr Menon added.

Indeed, financial institutions are not sitting still, waiting for smaller entities to show them the way. They are actively harnessing new technologies to enhance their product offerings, opening their own in-house FinTech units to gain the flexibility of start-ups and funding ‘innovation labs’ around the region to find the most ground-breaking entrepreneurs.

For Paul Schulte, financial analyst and founder of Schulte Research, unique opportunities are thus being created by the most agile players who have already started harnessing the sector’s impending transformations.

“Much like other sectors, the financial sector has its pioneers,” he said. “At the moment, the pioneers creating new protocols for a new world are in emerging markets such as China and India, not the US or Europe.”

With an urban population expected to reach 1 billion by 2030, China is set to create huge investment opportunities in the areas of urbanisation, infrastructure, consumption and tourism. India’s growing youth and middle-class markets, meanwhile, will continue to drive domestic, regional and global demand for goods and services.

“Coupled with a strong investment environment, India’s demographic structure can transform the country into the largest and most influential start-up ecosystem,” said Vinod Kumar, Chairman, Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer of Tata Communications.

From a global perspective, the panellists acknowledged that lower trade and economic growth, geopolitical tensions, territorial disputes, rising income inequality and changing demographics are creating a number of challenges for Asian economies.

Chew Gek Khim, Executive Chairman of The Straits Trading Company, urged investors to “view these global challenges and uncertainties not as disasters but as new opportunities” to rethink conventional paradigms.

Panellists agreed that what matters most is the ability to ensure that these new paradigms are built and sustained as balanced ecosystems that promote shared stability and prosperity.

For Yorihiko Kojima, Chairman of Mitsubishi Corporation, investing in soft infrastructure such as education and human resource development will truly boost the region’s economic growth and development, as fast-growing innovative industries rely on highly skilled human resources.

What’s more, governments, start-ups and financial institutions are ideally positioned to make the financial sector more inclusive than it has ever been. Gao Hongbing, Vice President of Alibaba Group and Director of AliResearch, put it this way: “The time is right to build a new financial system.”