Singapore continues to lead the way in innovation for the global cash logistics market. However, rather than creating yet another solution for the city-state’s growing cashless ecosystem, alternative fintech start-up soCash aims to reduce the island’s heavy reliance on ATM networks by turning ordinary stores into cashpoints. In doing so, it is helping to improve the country’s cash infrastructure and management for banks, their customers and even its small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Despite global shifts toward e-payments, cash remains the most preferred transaction form for Singaporeans. The cash circulation remains at 8.8 percent of the national GDP and has…
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Yoma Strategic Holdings Ltd. plans to acquire a 34% stake in Digital Money Myanmar Co., Ltd. (“Wave Money”) from First Myanmar Investment Company Limited for US$19.4 million, which is subject to completion and will be funded within existing capital plans (the “Acquisition”). Post-acquisition, Telenor will hold a 51% stake, Yoma Strategic 34%, and FMI and Yoma Bank will hold 10% and 5% respectively in Wave Money. The acquisition of Myanmar’s leading mobile financial technology provider will spearhead Yoma Strategic’s expansion into the Financial Services sector. The Company plans to leverage the significant potential of reaching Myanmar consumers through Wave Money’s…
Singapore leads the global adoption of fingerprint biometrics and voice recognition technologies to authenticate a customer’s identity in the financial services sector, according to a new international study “Leaders in Financial Services are Experts in Customer Identity” commissioned by identity data intelligence specialist GBG and conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study surveyed 315 traditional firms as well as fintechs and challengers across the globe in Singapore, China, Australia, the UK, and the US, to examine customer experience maturity and found that Singapore leads in certain areas of customer identity technologies. In terms of fingerprint biometrics, Singapore comes in first (61…
Further to its announcement made on 10th October 2017, Financial Technology group ayondo announces the lodgement of a preliminary offer document with the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited in connection with the initial public offering and listing of ayondo Ltd. on the Catalist Board of SGX-ST. ayondo remains on track to be the first FinTech company to be listed in Singapore. Robert Lempka, CEO ayondo group says “We are excited to enter the final stages in the process of the planned IPO. The proposed listing on SGX will provide an excellent platform for ayondo’s future growth.” ayondo is a global FinTech…
IDC Financial Insights announced the 16 winners of the annual Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA) at the Asian Financial Services Congress 2018. This year’s recipients were chosen for setting technological and business precedents to drive new, successful practices within their peer ecosystems. Every year, IDC Financial Insights invites financial institutions across Asia/Pacific to nominate their flagship initiatives which were undertaken within the past 18 months. With over 130 highly-qualified submissions put forward in over this period, the FIIA program continues to be one of the most sought-after awards in the industry. These are the organizations which IDC Financial Insights judged…
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and Alibaba Group officially launched the Alibaba-NTU Singapore Joint Research Institute today at a ceremony graced by Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources and Ministry of Health, Singapore. The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between NTU Singapore President Professor Subra Suresh and Alibaba Group Chief Technology Officer Mr Jeff Zhang marked the establishment of Alibaba’s first joint research institute outside China. This multimillion dollar per year partnership from Alibaba is for an initial five years, starting with a pool of 50 researchers from both organizations. The joint institute will seek to combine NTU’s human-centred AI…
EY has selected 30 promising entrepreneurs from across Asia-Pacific, the Americas and EMEIA to take part in its 2018 Accelerating Entrepreneurs (AE) program. Of these, three entrepreneurs are from Singapore: Olivier Berthier, CEO, Moneythor Navin Suri, CEO, Percipient Partners, Pte. Ltd Neeraj Sundarajoo (Raj), Founder & COO, Zeemart The 2018 class of entrepreneurs represent dynamic businesses that focus on innovative and disruptive fields like artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, customer interface, analytics, robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT). The program will commence in Amsterdam from 21-24 April, 2018, and over the course of the year, EY will support the…
Two of Singapore’s largest consumer platforms are collaborating to make personal finance even more accessible to Singaporeans. MoneySmart, Singapore’s leading personal finance comparison website, announced a strategic partnership with Carousell, Asia’s top mobile classifieds app, to reach out to the next generation of mobile-first consumers. The partnership will see MoneySmart-recommended financial products directly available on the Carousell marketplace, in a brand-new Finance category. While Carousell is known for preloved goods, a category is being created exclusively for new products for the first time. The new Finance category will exclusively feature MoneySmart listings, ensuring that listings are trusted and reliable. Users can now also…
FinTech Network announces that the Blockchain for Finance Conference, Asia Pacific will be returning to Singapore on June 20-21 with the most innovative organisations sharing DLT developments from across APAC including: Singapore: MAS will share their vision for DLT with an update on the campaigns that are at the forefront of blockchain innovation Hong Kong: HSBC and CryptoBLK will look at how blockchain technology can create value for customers through trade finance applications Australia: Digital Asset will discuss the opportunities and risks of private blockchain deployment in post-trade India: Join panel sessions with Yes Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank that…
A recent Safe Cities survey offers a revealing snapshot into the plans and progress of public safety initiatives across Asia Pacific, and why integration is the key to success. If Asia Pacific is on track to emerging as the world’s most powerful economic region, its cities are also on their way to becoming some of the planet’s smartest. A recent report predicted the number of smart cities worldwide to quadruple over the next ten years, with Asia Pacific expected to see the highest number of smart cities, reaching 32 by 2025, ahead of Europe and the Americas. But what does…
“Hey Siri, what’s my bank balance?” OCBC Bank says it is the first bank in Singapore to enable its customers to do their day-to-day banking and make cashless payments using just their voices. OCBC Bank’s retail banking customers are now able to check their bank account balances, outstanding credit card balances and details, as well as make instant e-payments to friends and family – using Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant. The e-payments can be made instantly to any bank account in Singapore, including bank accounts not linked to the PayNow service. PayNow is a nationwide peer-to-peer funds transfer service that enables…
Tokio Marine Life Insurance Singapore introduced a new functionality to their TOMI chatbot. The update will enable users to conveniently find suitable TMLS panel clinics within their designated search area. With filters such as doctor specialisation and clinic location, consumers can identify clinics based on their various needs and schedules, reducing any pre-appointment administrative hassle. Previously, advisers and consumers needed to scan through an extensive list of 539 panel clinics online. While they could filter results with a location search, the previous interface may not have been immediately intuitive for most users. According to available data, information on TMLS panel…
Naviaddress, the first global digital addressing system being deployed onto the blockchain, which provides users with naviaddresses as unified digital IDs for any places or objects in physical and virtual worlds, announced strategic partnership with The Crypto Capital Group (CCG). CCG is an expert team of private equity professionals from the U.S., Europe and Asia, whom have also been early investors in projects such as WaBi, Qlink, APEX, Matrix, and several other projects. Dmitri Moiseev, CEO of Naviaddress, made a statement: “After many successful events, where NaviAddress was voted #1 on different occasions – we have seen a huge…
IDC Philippines announced its top 10 predictions for the Philippine ICT industry for 2018 and beyond. This year’s predictions highlighted the maturity and growth of the Philippines’ digital economy as many local organizations are accustomed to leveraging strong digital innovation platforms. The Philippines has made significant developments in its overall digital ecosystem throughout the years. But in order to lead in the digital transformation (DX) economy, organizations must become digital-native enterprises (DNEs). DNEs can harness the power of technology to multiply innovation and accelerate their businesses’ transformation. Therefore, IDC urges local enterprises to accelerate innovation as the emerging technology trends…
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has been working to facilitate digital payments in the country with globally recognised products like Bharat Interface for Money BHIM – Unified Payments Interface (BHIM UPI). We follow well-defined guidelines for BHIM UPI services with the objective of making our platforms interoperable and based on open standards, convenient and secure, offering multiple choices to consumers for rapid adoption for digital payments through banks and payment ecosystem players. Currently, NPCI has given its consent to roll out WhatsApp BHIM UPI beta launch with limited user base of 1 million and low per transaction limit. Four…
Singapore registered fintech startup AND Global today announces the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of its Mongolian subsidiary LendMN, a smartphone-based instant lending service provider. The IPO will launch on February 20, 2018 on the Mongolian Stock Exchange, following LendMN’s monumental success over the past year. LendMN brings emergency loans to consumers who are either under-banked or are totally outside of the formal financial system. Since its soft launch in January 2017, the company has issued $9.5 million in loans to roughly 28,800 active borrowers. Thanks to the region’s high demand for financial services coupled with the company’s highly capable…
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore and the ASEAN region see the need to invest more in technology in order to succeed under increasingly challenging conditions. These are the findings of the ASEAN SME Transformation Study by United Overseas Bank (UOB), EY and Dun & Bradstreet. The study found that three in five (60 percent) of ASEAN’s SMEs will focus their investments on technology over other fixed assets in 2018 to help drive business performance. Singapore SMEs (63 percent) echo the same preference for technology over investments in assets such as factories and machinery. Seventy-eight percent of ASEAN’s SMEs…
InstaReM, Southeast Asia’s leading digital cross-border money transfer service provider, is entering into a strategic partnership with an enterprise Blockchain payment solutions provider, Ripple. Through this partnership, InstaReM will facilitate quick and secure payouts for RippleNet members in Southeast Asia. RippleNet is Ripple’s global network of banks and other financial institutions which provides real-time messaging, clearing and settlement of financial transactions. The new partnership will allow RippleNet to offer their corporate and SME customers quick and hassle-free payouts to a number of destinations in the region. Prajit Nanu, co-founder and CEO of InstaReM said, “We are pleased with this…
NEC Asia Pacific and NEC Corporation announced the successful testing and roll-out of a facial recognition system at OCBC Bank’s Holland Village branch to identify Premier Banking customers. OCBC Bank is one of the first in Singapore’s banking sector to adopt such a system as part of its digital efforts to improve service excellence. Facial recognition is a growing form of biometrics used to identify and authenticate persons in a wide range of industries. With the widespread usage and acceptance in immigration systems, and secured identity card systems, biometrics is now expanding into commercial applications (e.g. banking, retail etc.). Implemented since 4…
PowerVision, an AI robotics and technology company unveils the PowerRay, an innovative underwater robot with groundbreaking features to revolutionise recreational fishing enthusiasts and marine photography. Going beyond the catch for fishermen and the casual hobbyist, the consumer underwater drone redefines the underwater and diving experience in enabling premium photography and videography with innovative functionalities. As a financial hub and trusted gateway to the emerging Asian markets, PowerVision has strategically selected Singapore to lead the Southeast Asian release following the global launch of PowerRay in San Francisco (USA), Munich (Germany), Beijing (China) and Tokyo (Japan). Singapore is the fifth city to…