The Singapore office of Mastercard Labs, a research and development center managed by American multinational financial services company Mastercard, recently hosted a showcase for innovation in digital commerce solutions that will be developed by various similar units around the world.

The Innovation Showcase of the Mastercard Labs in Singapore on Friday exhibited financial technology (fintech) innovations developed by various Mastercard Labs worldwide to support digital payment services.

The innovations include interactive features with robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), automated retail, virtual reality and biometrics.

"Mastercard's expanded labs in Singapore underscores our commitment to work together with our partners and key stakeholders to focus on addressing the biggest friction points and real-world issues across the commerce and payment eco-system," said Tobias Puehse, vice president of innovation management, digital payments and labs at Mastercard's Asia Pacific office.

Mastercard's new Innovation Showcase in Singapore is the largest among all of their innovation showcases across major cities globally, including Singapore, Dublin in Ireland, Dubai in United Arab Emirates, New York City in the United States (US) and London in the United Kingdom (UK).

Aside from showcasing key innovations in payments, the Mastercard Innovation Showcase also acted as a platform to drive regional fintech growth through dialogues between key stakeholders and young talent as well as partnering with Citibank through an innovation competition called the Citi Tech for Integrity (T4I) Demo Day. (bbn)