Daily Briefing: Singapore charges 3 with $5.6b market fraud; GIC hires big data expert

And here are the highlights of Singapore's first fintech festival.

Singapore charges three people following the alleged fraud which wiped $5.6b off the Singapore stock exchange. Malaysian John Soh Chee Wen and Singaporean Quah Su-Ling are accused of being the "masterminds" behind a plot that involved using over 180 trading accounts to inflate the share prices of three companies, authorities said. Get to know the full story here.

The city-state's sovereign wealth fund GIC appointed big data expert Michael Recce in the newly created role of chief data scientist last month to work in the GIC Data and Analytics Department. Recce, a former associate professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, is based in Singapore and is focusing on collecting publicly available data and analyzing them for patterns. Check out the full story here.

Startups and all things fintech were given a special week-long culmination as Singapore celebrates the first ever Singapore FinTech Festival. The festival’s purpose was to bring the global financial community together in Singapore through a number of workshops, conferences, startup competitions and award ceremonies. Check out the highlights of the event here.