On Wednesday, 8 July 2026, the Global Fintech Institute welcomed 30 first-year undergraduates from leading universities, together with NTU School of Social Sciences faculty Dr Ernie Teo, Mr. David Lim Yew Ghee and Ms. Ong Kui Kim, to 80RR Fintech Hub SG for the 2026 edition of NTU Summer School @ GFI. Hosted with NTU, the half-day programme examined real-world applications of technology in finance, closing with a panel on how AI advancements are changing the industry and the careers this cohort will build within it.
Dr Janet Liu, CFtP, CEO of CapBridge and GFI Chartered Fellow, opened the session with AI in wealth management, drawing on senior roles at Citi and OCBC. Her argument: wealth management was never a scalable business, and AI now absorbs the research, screening and compliance work that kept advisers from serving beyond their top clients, freeing them for the work machines cannot do, trust and empathy. Vidushan Premathiratne, Founder of 8 Circle, followed with agentic payments: AI agents that already initiate, negotiate and reconcile transactions autonomously, from checkout to treasury. His caution to students was that adoption now turns on trust, and trust has to be demonstrated. Joanna Tang, CFtP, Director of Apex Edge Capital Singapore and GFI Chartered Fellow, closed the speaking programme with a tour of AI across payments, credit underwriting, insurance, fraud detection and capital markets, from buy-now-pay-later decisions made at the point of sale to large language models reading deal documents in M&A.
The closing panel, moderated by Dr Alfred Wu, CFtP, Founder of SolusFutura and GFI Chartered Fellow, drew the threads together around the school's brief: how AI is changing the industry, what skills students should build, and where the next decade of finance careers will be created. The panellists converged on a layered answer. AI fluency is becoming the base expectation, and Singapore has made it national policy: the Prime Minister now chairs the National AI Council, with finance among its four national AI missions.
"AI skills are the base layer, and they will be commoditised. Creativity, social skills, frameworks and critical thinking are what will differentiate you." Joanna Tang, CFtP, Director of Apex Edge Capital Singapore and GFI Chartered Fellow.
Closing the morning, Ho Hui Yi, Chief Strategy Officer of the Global Fintech Institute, set out what students can do next. Every participant left with GFI affiliate membership, which opens the Institute's insights portal spanning AI, quantum, Web3 and fintech. Those looking to enter the industry can find fintech roles through Flex International, the Institute's ecosystem platform connecting talent with fintech organisations. And for those ready to build a credential, the Chartered Fintech Professional (CFtP) provides the professional qualification to go deeper into fintech.
For the Global Fintech Institute, the session reflects a core part of its mandate: developing the talent pipeline for a financial industry being rebuilt around AI, and ensuring professional standards and education keep pace with the technology. The Institute thanks NTU, the visiting faculty, and all speakers for a candid and practical morning with the next generation of finance professionals.
To learn more about the Institute's education and certification programmes, including the Chartered Fintech Professional (CFtP), visit globalfintechinstitute.org or write to [email protected].