Author: Fintech News Singapore

Japanese credit card company JCB International and Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, are expanding their partnership to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Europe. This collaboration will allow JCB cardmembers in those regions to make online payments with Stripe merchants. JCB and Stripe have been working together since 2017 to make it easier for businesses to accept JCB payments. Their initial partnership was focused on the Japanese market, but they have since expanded to other regions, including the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In August 2023, Stripe added JCB to its default payment scheme for merchants in the UK…

Fave, a fintech platform providing QR payments to restaurants and retailers in Southeast Asia and India, will be a part of the SGQR+ pilot led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). SGQR+ is a more interoperable version of the existing SGQR system, which was introduced in 2018. The new SGQR+ allows merchants to sign up with a single financial institution to unlock a diverse range of local and cross-border payment schemes. The SGQR+ pilot will be limited to selected merchant outlets in Districts 16 and 17 of Singapore throughout November 2023 and showcased during the upcoming Singapore Fintech Festival…

DBS had issued an apology for the series of digital banking disruptions this year and outlined a comprehensive roadmap to improve its technology resiliency. The bank said it is addressing the issues at hand with utmost priority and has taken onboard the recommendations of an independent review by Accenture that was completed in August. The review identified key gaps and deficiencies in four main areas: technology risk governance and oversight, incident management, system resilience, and change management. To address these areas of weakness, the bank has taken a number of steps, including establishing a new sub-committee of the Board Risk…

Southeast Asian SME digital finance platform Funding Societies secures US$7.5 million in debt funding from Norfund, a Norwegian Development Financial Institution (DFI). This is the first debt transaction by Norfund with a fintech SME lender in Southeast Asia. Through this debt fundraise, Funding Societies will be able to channel the funds via its range of tailored financing solutions to the SME segments across all the five markets it operates in  namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The fintech lender has achieved over US$3.2 billion in business financing serving about 100,000 SMEs across the region. This debt transaction will serve…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has imposed a six-month pause on non-essential IT changes at DBS Bank and prohibited the bank from acquiring new business ventures in response to recent disruptions to its digital banking services. DBS had experienced major disruptions to its banking services this year on 29 March, 5 May, 26 September, 14 and 20 October 2023. During this period, DBS was also directed against reducing the size of its branch and ATM networks in Singapore to ensure customers still have access to banking services during any disruptions. DBS anticipates that it will take up to 24…

A Swiss delegation representing the best of its financial technologies in the areas of AI, big data & analytics, and cybersecurity will be present at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2023 from 15 to 17 November 2023. At the Swiss Pavilion, hosted by Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) and the Swiss Business Hub ASEAN, the Switzerland participants will showcase proven fintech expertise and cutting-edge solutions. This year’s festival theme is “Applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Financial Services”. Renee Koh, Head of Swiss Business Hub ASEAN, said: “Swiss fintechs have grown more mature as they have emerged from an environment with strong…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Singapore Fintech Association (SFA) announced the finalists of the Singapore Fintech Festival’s (SFF) Global Fintech Awards. Supported by PwC Singapore, the awards recognises innovative fintech solutions by corporates and individuals that have transformed the industry, created new growth opportunities, promoted financial inclusion, and enhanced the delivery of financial services. Submissions were received across six award categories; Global Fintech, ASEAN Fintech, Singapore Fintech, ESG Fintech (thematic), Artificial Intelligence (thematic), and Leaders Award. A new initiative called “Fintech Gives Back” was introduced for the awards this year. Members of the fintech community such as…

Alternative assets marketplace Alta expanded its platform to Hong Kong through partnerships with multi-family office platforms Rockpool Capital and Cachet Group, and securities brokerage Quam Securities. The partnerships will enable Alta to bring its platform and network of investors to Hong Kong. The firm also recently received approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for a Capital Markets Services (CMS) custodial license. This allows its exchange arm AltaX to safeguard and hold assets, including securities, funds and other financial instruments, on behalf of their customers. This also includes custody of digital assets like blockchain-powered security tokens. Alta Exchange lists…

YouBiz, the corporate card and finance management platform for businesses by Singapore’s neobank YouTrip, has partnered with online marketplace Carousell. This partnership aims to help local SMEs and startups accelerate their business growth and save costs as they scale locally and regionally with digitalisation tools and resources. As part of the partnership, Carousell merchants will get a 10% upsized cashback for their CarouBiz package and Carousell coins, while YouBiz users are offered an exclusive 20% rebate for their purchase of Carousell coins. According to YouBiz, it has helped over 3,000 businesses save approximately S$20,000 and 480 manhours annually by eliminating…

Global cross-border payments infrastructure network Thunes appoints Chloé Mayenobe as its new Chief Operating Officer (COO) on the heels of its US$ 72 million Series C fundraise in July 2023. Mayenobe will be based in Thunes’ Paris office. She most recently the COO of fintech unicorn Solaris Group and prior to that, she was Deputy CEO of Natixis Payments. Mayenobe spent over 12 years at Ingenico Group, where she was appointed EVP of Governance and Risks before being appointed as Managing Director of Europe for the retail division. There, she was responsible for more than 1,500 employees and managed over €400…

UOB today released its first net zero progress report, showing that the bank is on track to meet its 2050 net zero target. The report shows that the bank has reduced emissions intensities across all five of its focus sectors: power, automotive, real estate, construction, and steel. UOB said that it is taking a holistic approach to operationalizing its net zero commitment. This includes developing sectoral plans, supporting customers, embedding net zero in its operating model, and driving effective stakeholder engagement. The bank has also extended S$38 billion in sustainable financing as at the end of September 2023, and it…

SBI Digital Markets, the digital asset arm of Japanese conglomerate SBI Group, and UBS Asset Management have completed a technical pilot for the issuance and distribution of a tokenised Variable Capital Company (VCC) fund. This is a part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Guardian, a collaborative industry initiative that seeks to test the feasibility of applications in asset tokenisation and decentralised finance (DeFi) while managing risks to financial stability and integrity. The pilot was executed on a permissioned environment of the Ethereum network. As part of the pilot, SBI Digital Markets and UBS Asset Management tested various scenarios between…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will launch a proof of concept (POC) for a new QR payment system called SGQR+. The POC will explore the feasibility of enabling merchants in Singapore to accept QR payments from a variety of payment schemes through a single financial institution. SGQR+ is a more interoperable version of the existing SGQR system, which was introduced in 2018. SGQR combined multiple payment QR codes into a single SGQR label, but merchants that wish to accept a range of payment schemes still need to maintain commercial relationships with different financial institutions. The new SGQR+ will address this…

Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), highlighted critical issues surrounding Asia’s insurance protection gaps in a keynote address at the 19th Singapore International Reinsurance Conference. Menon emphasised the significant data gaps in Asia’s insurance landscape and called for collective efforts to improve risk mitigation, address data deficiencies, and expand insurance capacity. In his speech, he pointed out that data is fragmented and unstandardised across various stakeholders. He urged the creation of trusted platforms for data pooling to support informed risk underwriting. Initiatives like the Global Resilience Index and the Global-Asia Insurance Partnership’s pandemic risk database…

Thailand’s KASIKORNBANK (KBank) has acquired a 97% stake in the parent firm of crypto exchange Satang for 3.705 billion Thai baht (US$102.8 million). The bank intends to rename the crypto exchange to Orbix Trade Company, according to a filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand. The acquisition was done via KBank’s subsidiary Unita Capital, an entity that invests in companies operating digital asset businesses. The investment comes just a month after KBank’s tech arm  had launched a US$100 million fund targeting AI, Web3.0, and deep tech fintech startups globally Additionally, KBank had also set up three subsidiaries to double down on digital…

Real-time payments software provider ACI Worldwide announced that it has named Abe Kuruvilla as its Chief Technology Officer. In this role, Kuruvilla will lead ACI’s innovation agenda, optimising the way the company develops and delivers its software solutions globally to banks, merchants and billers. Kuruvilla has over 20 years of experience leading global technology organisations, most recently as Chief Information Officer at CoreLogic and prior to that he held the same position at Dell Financial Services. “Abe’s appointment comes at a pivotal time for the industry and ACI. We are focused on advancing our leadership in real-time payments, accelerating SaaS-enabled…

The E-Invoicing Exchange Summit will open its doors in Singapore from 4 to 6 December 2023, at a time when e-invoicing adoption is growing rapidly across the globe. The summit is a unique opportunity for attendees to get in touch with leading experts from governments and industries who will share their insights on the recent developments and future trends in the field of e-invoicing and e-reporting – with a strong focus on APAC countries. Among the speakers and thought leaders confirmed to speak at the summit are; Kiren Kumar, Deputy Chief Executive, IMDA (Singapore); André Hoddevik, Secretary General, OpenPeppol; Mark…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has partnered with regulators from Japan, Switzerland and the UK for responsible digital asset innovation. This collaboration is called the Project Guardian policymaker group, comprising the Financial Services Agency of Japan (FSA), the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), and the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). According to the regulator, the group aims to discuss legal, policy, and accounting treatment of digital assets as well as explore the potential risks and possible gaps in existing policies and legislation relevant to tokenised solutions. They will also look into setting up common standards for the…

E-commerce has evolved significantly in the last few years, ushering in an era of connected payments. This era is characterised by the emergence of innovative payment types, cutting-edge payment infrastructure, and novel business models. A key symptom of the connected payments era can be observed in the fact that successful businesses have started to embrace the power of payments as a revenue accelerator. Payments are no longer viewed as the cost of doing business but rather as an opportunity to accelerate revenue, reduce the overall cost of processing and improve the customer experience. Payment departments in today’s environment are focused…

Payments firm Payoneer has partnered with online marketplace Etsy to streamline payments for sellers in emerging markets. The collaboration will utilise Payoneer’s global infrastructure to offer Etsy sellers more services and seamless payouts in their preferred currency. It will initially be launched in Ukraine and Thailand, followed by India, Japan, Argentina, Chile, and Peru by the end of 2023. The partnership is expected to help Etsy create economic opportunities for more entrepreneurs in emerging markets by making it easier for them to get paid for their goods and services. Ya Wen, SVP Americas at Payoneer said, “As a leader in…