The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Enterprise Singapore launched Start Digital, an initiative of the SMEs Go Digital programme. Start Digital will enable new SMEs to get a head start with two foundational digital solutions – with costs waived for minimum six months – to accelerate growth and scalability. Two other nationwide initiatives to accelerate our businesses’ digital transformation journey were also announced by Minister for Communications and Information, Mr S Iswaran at an industry networking session this morning. These initiatives are: Nationwide E-Invoicing Network: IMDA launched the nationwide e-invoicing network, which will enable companies, including SMEs, to adopt e-invoicing to…
Author: Company Announcement
SeedIn, a Singapore based Business Financing Platform, partners with Acudeen, a Philippine based online Peer-to-Peer Marketplace for receivable discounting. SME borrowers and Investors can leverage on the strengths of both platforms for their financing and investment needs, while being able to enjoy exclusive privileges, events and deals that will be rolled out in 1Q of 2019. Edison Tsai, Executive Director of SeedIn, said that “This partnership is a shared vision to transform Filipinos’ lives by providing them access to affordable financing and healthy investments”. Magellan Fetalino III, CEO and co-founder of Acudeen, agrees with this vision. “This partnership maximizes the P2P…
Fintech has grown above and beyond national borders and has become a worldwide phenomenon. Financial institutions and markets all over the world are experiencing growth at break neck speed and all of this has been possible due to the huge influence of the Fintech companies. Financial Market Places Bankbazaar is the fastest growing financial marketplace in Singapore. The growth of marketplaces can be said to truly explode once they hit critical mass, i.e. number of active users on the marketplace and Bankbazaar has reached that threshold and has been constantly achieving milestone after milestone. It takes its users through the…
OCBC Bank has rolled out a free online service to help Singapore citizens and residents aged 21 and above prepare their own wills within 10 minutes. It is common here to seek the help of a lawyer, who typically charges S$99 to S$500 to prepare a basic will. Yet there is no legal requirement in Singapore that a will must be prepared or witnessed by a lawyer. At the same time, few would know how to prepare a will entirely without guidance. In a survey conducted by OCBC Bank in 2017 involving 200 respondents between the ages of 55 and…
The world’s most influential leaders and innovators will converge in Singapore from 22 to 23 January 2019 at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre for EmTech Asia 2019. This is the sixth edition of the annual conference focusing on emerging technologies and their impact. Co-organised by MIT Technology Review and Koelnmesse Pte Ltd, the event attracts over 800 participants and leaders in their respective fields and showcases a curated group of 40 deep tech companies from around the world. “Participants of EmTech Asia 2019 will get to meet and hear from 40 exemplary speakers who are driving the…
OCBC Bank has rolled out a digital account opening service that simplifies account openings for multi-national companies (MNCs) and other large corporate customers – a first by a bank in Singapore. With the use of the digital service, the time taken to set up an account can be shortened from months to weeks, in some cases by as much as 75%. The number of data fields has also been reduced from more than 200 to less than 50. Unlike retail and SME customers, setting up an account for MNCs and large corporates is far more tedious and can take months…
LINE Plus Corporation (the chat app) announced last week that it has acquired GrayHash, an online security research center specializing in “offensive research” and counter-hacking techniques. With the acquisition, the Korea-based GrayHash has been renamed GrayLab and tasked with developing and optimizing security solutions for LINE’s services, including messenger, fintech, AI, blockchain and the digital asset exchange. GrayHash CEO and co-founder SeungJin Lee will continue as lead of GrayLab. Lee qualified for the finals of the Def Con CTF (Capture The Flag) in 2006, becoming the first person in Asia to do so. He also served as an advisor for…
This month Coinone Transfer, a payments business and a subsidiary of Coinone, introduced South Korea’s first blockchain-powered remittance mobile app and web service called Cross — offering faster, lower cost payments to Thailand and the Philippines. Unlike other remittance options in South Korea, Cross does not rely on traditional banking rails. Rather, it provides a safe alternative for those with or without a bank account, and the increased payment transparency and reliability inherent to Ripple’s advanced blockchain technology. With plans to aggressively expand across the region over the coming months, Coinone Transfer quickly rolled out the service through new financial institutions using…
The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has granted the first accelerated patent under its FinTech Fast Track initiative to Voyager Innovations, a technology company based in ASEAN. While patent grants typically take at least two to four years, and in many cases even longer, the fast track patent granted to Voyager took only seven months from application to grant. Built using a distributed ledger technology, the patented invention allows audiences at an onsite or offsite live event to participate in real-time activities such as surveys or prize draws through an app. The capabilities of this digital marketing technology is…
Siam Commercial Bank has introduced the Garmin Pay contactless payment solution. This has been done in collaboration with CDG Group, sole distributor of Garmin products in Thailand and MasterCard and Visa. With a virtual SCB MasterCard or Visa credit card added to a Garmin smartwatch, forgetting your wallet or Smartphone is no longer a problem. Catering to the lifestyles of a health-conscious generation, this new contactless payment solution is both convenient and secure, and welcomed at shops accepting Visa PayWave and MasterCard PayPass contactless payments. SCB is confident that this collaboration will be a key mechanism helping the bank achieve its goal…
CIMB Bank unveiled its first Digital Lounge in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and launched its OCTO by CIMB mobile banking app for consumers. Ho Chi Minh City hosts CIMB Bank Vietnam’s first branch presence following the establishment of its headquarters in Hanoi in 2016. The launch also marks the beginning of CIMB Vietnam’s digital banking proposition, inaugurated by OCTO, which offers fast, secure and convenient 24/7 mobile banking. The digital lounge launch was witnessed by representatives from the State Bank of Vietnam, as well as the Consulate General of Malaysia and Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation based in Ho…
The third edition of the Singapore FinTech Festival wrapped up its week-long event last Friday, which drew close to 45,000 participants from almost 130 countries, ranging from Afghanistan to Zambia. The Festival continues to be the biggest FinTech event in the world and a provides a global platform for the FinTech community to connect, collaborate and co-create. The Festival also featured more than 250 speakers, almost 500 exhibitors – 60 percent of which were foreign, and 16 international pavilions. The Singapore FinTech Festival will return next year from 11 to 15 November 2019 along with Prudential, who has committed to…
Standard Chartered is introducing new secure instant messaging and file-sharing features on mobile, tablet and laptop. Private and Priority Banking clients will now be able to interact with their Private Bankers and Relationship Managers to share banking-related and personal information securely within the Bank’s mobile applications, while viewing their portfolios and the Bank’s market insights, as and when it suits them. These new capabilities will change and improve how we collaborate and engage with our Private Banking and Priority Banking clients. With secure instant messaging, they can now start up a chat while on the go to discuss their banking…
Clik, a Phnom Penh-based startup building a Fintech platform has raised USD$2 million in seed funding from global partners and investors and is officially launching in Cambodia in Q2 of 2019 upon receiving its Payment Service Provider license from the National Bank of Cambodia. Funding was led by global tech firms, Limestone Technology, and OpenWay, along with several angel investors from Cambodia’s retail sector. The startup is considering raising an additional USD$1 million to further complement its latest seed / pre-series A funding round. Founded in 2016 by serial entrepreneurs, Matthew Tippetts, Skye Cornell and Darren Jensen, Clik is a…
Rate3 envisions a future where all forms of assets – including money, stocks, real estate, intellectual property and even an individual’s time – are interchanged seamlessly between application users of various public blockchains. Over the past few decades, global economic trade has almost single-handedly propelled developing economies into significantly higher standards of living. Blockchain technology has the potential to further improve upon the legacy infrastructure used for such trade, which will in turn, through the trade of tokenized digital assets, lead to further wealth creation among individuals and enterprises. The addressable market of assets applicable for tokenization is worth in…
Traditional wealth management was popular for many decades. Given the large volume of managed funds and inclination of affluent clients to adopt conservative strategies, this investment approach was very successful. It was tough to imagine that anything could disrupt this traditional market that was based on personal relationships between the client and the advisor. How could it be different? Wealthy people historically required a different approach for managing their finances. It included all aspects of their financial life. However, changes in the financial markets and a shift in the preferences of the wealthy forced the wealth management industry to search…
Blockchain technology can help people, companies and governments carry out a variety of tasks such as banking more efficiently and securely. However, several key issues need to be addressed, including its ease of use. These were the views of experts in a panel discussion titled “Blockchain and the Decentralised World” at SGInnovate’s Deep Tech Summit, which was held on the second day of the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH). The annual SWITCH, which was held from 17 to 20 Sept 2018, was organised by Singapore’s National Research Foundation and Enterprise Singapore to bring together technology, innovation and enterprise…
The gaming industry is growing at an extraordinary, exponential rate. From just shy of $140bn in 2018, should the trend line continue to grow at the same rate, the industry should be worth over $180bn by 2021. It is not just titles that are helping this sector advance so rapidly. A game alone does not carry such significance. However, when the player experience is changing, be it with a new style of console or additional accessories enhancing the gameplay, that is where the interest is sparked. So, that’s where virtual reality (VR) comes into it. Many remain sceptical about VR…
EMQ, a financial settlement network in Asia based in Hong Kong, and FOMO Pay, a qr code payment solution provider in Singapore, has announced a partnership to support the growing demand for real-time international settlements from Singapore to China, with the ability to expand across other countries in Asia. The partnership will also help facilitate and support the government’s 2020 Smart Nation Initiative to accelerate Singapore’s shift to a digital economy. “Singapore is an extremely important market in our global growth strategy and we are excited to support the government’s ambition to transform Singapore into a Smart Nation by creating new…
Blockchain technology rose to the forefront in 2017 as the cryptocurrency bitcoin experienced a massive price boom. Suddenly bitcoin was everywhere, and it wasn’t just traders and financial experts trying to get to grips with this exciting new digital currency, the mainstream media, and casual investors were interested too. Even though the furor surrounding bitcoin has died down somewhat, there is still a lot of attention on blockchain. This is the underlying technology that powers bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but it is now being touted for a variety of other applications. Border Controls Immigration has been a big global issue,…
