Author: Fintech News Singapore

Payments company Finmo has secured a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) just 4 months after it received the in-principle approval in March this year. This license marks Finmo’s official entry into the Singapore market and the company will turn its focus on expanding its product suite. Finmo said that its focus is currently on the treasury needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) beyond payments. In line with this, the firm’s all-in-one Treasury Operating System (TOS) assists SMEs in effectively managing their mission-critical treasury functions. Among Finmo’s other offerings in Singapore include global…

Despite being somewhat of a laggard compared with the likes of Indonesia and Singapore, Thailand’s fintech industry is developing well and featuring today some 107 startups, a new startup map released by the Fintech News Network shows. The Fintech Thailand Startup Map 2023, which takes a look at the country’s fintech startup ecosystem and key verticals, reveals that the landscape has evolved steadily, growing from 97 companies in 2020 to 107 in 2023. Data show that the blockchain sector is rising in prominence to become the top fintech vertical with 21 ventures. This comes to the detriment of the payment…

Cloud-native core banking platform 10x Banking announced its APAC expansion plans fueled by its study revealing that a third of banks in key markets across the globe are losing large numbers of their customer base to rivals due to slow transformation. 10x is a cloud-native, API-enabled platform offering fully managed services developed to modernise core banking through flexible and modular solutions. This offers banks a higher level of agility and personalisation capability at a lower cost to serve. The research commissioned by 10x Banking revealed that less than 8% of banks in APAC are focusing on their core banking capabilities.…

The year 2023 marks the arrival of the connected payments era. This period is characterised by the emergence of innovative payment types, cutting-edge payment infrastructure, and innovative business models. Consumer expectations are also shifting. Today’s savvy consumer is looking for personalised payment journeys that are flexible, prioritise data security and streamline the checkout process. But these expectations often differ by location – and payment localisation is paramount to business success. One way businesses can localise their payment experience is by employing the right mix of payment methods at the checkout. From the rise of mobile wallets and contactless payments to…

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) have developed an app as part of a retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot project. The pilot programme is limited to a select group of whitelisted participants who will have the opportunity to try out the CBDC SCB app available for download at the App Store or Play Store. The app’s features include topping up funds, scanning, making payments, transferring money, and converting CBDC back into regular currency. The bank has made it mandatory for the eligibility screening of test participants where the KYC identity verification and top-up procedures…

Southeast Asian SME financing platform Validus announced that it had named Vineet Agarwal as CEO of Validus Capital in Singapore, effective 1 August 2023. He succeeds Jayanta Roy who is retiring. Vineet joined Validus in January 2022, where he led the digital financial services and payments strategy, product development and go-to-market plans for the roll-out of the company’s full-suite SME financial services offering. This includes business accounts, corporate cards, local and cross-border payments, and expense management solutions, in addition to its existing SME loan products. Prior to joining Validus in 2022, Vineet held various senior leadership roles at DBS and…

All corporate cheques will be phased out in Singapore by the end of 2025 amid the steady decline in use and the rising processing cost as well as growing adoption of e-payments. Individuals will still be able to use cheques for a period after 2025. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will further study the use of cheques by individuals, and develop appropriate initiatives to assist remaining individual cheque users in their transition to alternative payment methods such as PayNow, FAST, GIRO, and MEPS+. The regulator is also working closely with The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), the financial…

Justin Choi has resigned as the CEO of Spenmo, a Singapore-based payables management software platform, just one month after he took up the position for “personal reasons”, according to a report by DealStreet Asia. Choi took over from Mohandass Kalaichelvan who had then stepped into an advisory role while remaining on the company’s Board of Directors. He has more than 20 years of experience as a senior operating executive in the technology sector at companies such as Gojek and Coinbase and as a private equity investor at firms including CVC Capital Partners. Spenmo said that its Chief Product Officer Jo-ann…

Local insurtech Surer announced that it has formed a partnership with Singapore-based motor and travel insurance provider DirectAsia. The partnership aims to empower insurance intermediaries to offer highly customisable car insurance policies to serve their customers, the end policyholder, with greater flexibility. Both companies will work on integrating Surer’s technology with DirectAsia’s customisable car insurance product for this. Regardless of the complexity of the customisation, intermediaries will still be able to derive quotes instantly and work with their customers on a fully digital quote. DirectAsia and Surer will also work together on other products including motorcycle insurance. Ronnie Brown, Chief…

Singapore-based venture capital firm Peak XV Partners has promoted former principle investor Rohit Agarwal as its Managing Director to focus on early and growth stage investments in the region. The appointment comes just a month after Peak XV Partners’ rebrand from Sequoia India and Southeast Asia following the VC firm’s three-way split to avoid “brand confusion and portfolio conflict”. Rohit has been with the VC firm since 2015 and moved to Singapore in 2016 where he advises on investments in fintech, SaaS, consumer goods and e-commerce. He currently serves on the board of companies including Insider, Bibit, Tonik, Kopi Kenangan,…

Singapore’s digital banks have recently raised their deposit caps, but this move is not expected to significantly impact the profitability of local banks DBS, OCBC and UOB, according to Fitch Ratings. Grab and Singtel’s GXS Bank as well as Sea Group’s MariBank have already increased their individual savings account caps to SGD 75,000, signaling the possible lifting of the SGD 50 million cap on aggregate deposits for each digital bank. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has yet to officially confirm this. However, this is no match for the three local incumbent banks which had accounted for 65% of all Singapore-dollar…

OCBC has appointed Mike Ng for its newly created Group Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) role, effective 1 August 2023 onwards. Ng will actively lead OCBC’s sustainability agenda, including the transition to Net Zero economy on both the lending and wealth management fronts. He will also actively lead the efforts in supporting clients’ transition and delivering products and services to help clients achieve their climate action plans. Ng has been at the forefront of OCBC’s sustainable finance efforts since he joined the bank in 2010 before expanding his role to drive the offerings of sustainable finance solutions among large corporates in…

All-in-one finance platform Aspire announced that it has enabled bi-directional payments with PayNow, Singapore’s real-time payment system. Users can make PayNow transfers to other business or personal accounts via QR code, mobile number, National Registration Identity Card (NRIC), Unique Entity Number (UEN), Virtual Payment Address (VPA). Additionally, businesses will also be able to make employees’ CPF contributions directly to the government from their Aspire accounts via PayNow. This feature is now available to all Aspire users with no additional cost for unlimited local SGD transfers. Aspire said that the ability to make ingoing and outgoing business payments directly through PayNow…

MoneyLIVE Asia will be held at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore this 12-13 September 2023 to unite some of the most innovative banking and payments leaders from across Asia. At the event, industry leaders will discuss and assess emerging industry trends and challenges from payments innovation to data strategy and more, ultimately exchanging expertise and producing solutions. Across two days of cutting-edge content, attendees will gain insights from the likes of Techcombank, Bank Danamon, and Trust Bank to unlock the transformational strategies they need to adopt to remain in pole position. Attendees will also hear from senior decision makers that…

Identity verification platform Sumsub announced its plans to make Singapore its APAC headquarters with the aim to forge vital partnerships and serve new clients in the island-state and Hong Kong among other countries in the region. Sumsub said that this move comes in response to the escalating threat of identity fraud in the APAC region with the rise in digital startups. The company offers customisable know your customer (KYC), know your business (KYB), anti-money laundering (AML), Transaction Monitoring, and Fraud Prevention solutions. Sumsub has dozens of existing Asian clients in its portfolio including Binance, DiDi, Huobi, Bybit, Bitwallet. The firm…

The future of banking will be shaped by several forces and megatrends, including the accelerating digital revolution, new consumer expectations and efforts by governments to combat persistent economic and social inequities. To stay relevant, banks will need to adapt and center their strategy around purpose and profitability, a report by Economist Impact, sponsored by SAS, says. The report, titled Banking in 2035: Three possible futures, presents three potential scenarios to the future of the banking sector and explores the major forces set to revamp the industry through 2035. The first trend presented in the report is the digital revolution, which…

The Fintech Connect Leaders Asia, a flagship summit for senior professionals from regional financial institutions, will take place from 28-30 August 2023 at the Raffles City Convention Centre, Singapore. The summit will bring together over 250 CIOs, CTOs, COOs, Chief Product Officers, heads of digital transformation and payments for 2.5 days of peer-led high-level discussions and networking. The conference returns for its third year now, with a refurbished focus of bringing together Asia’s foremost heads of payments, digital transformation, regulators, and industry experts from Asia’s biggest banks and financial institutions to drive the industry forward. This year, a refreshed speaker…

Grab and Singtel’s GXS Bank has made its savings account available on a first-come, first-served basis. The digital bank has also raised the deposit cap for its GXS Savings Account to S$75,000. This move possibly indicates that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has raised the cap limit from S$5,000. All deposits in GXS will continue to be fully covered by the Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation (SDIC). The GXS Savings Account aims to encourage better saving habits with a feature that allows customers to allocate funds into different Saving Pockets for their savings goals. Customers using the Saving Pockets can…

Flywire, a global payments enablement and software company, announced that its Singapore entity has been granted a Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) earlier this month. The firm had secured the in-principle approval just six months ago. With the license, Flywire can continue to extend its merchant acquisition, domestic money transfer and cross-border money transfer services to its customers in Singapore. This comes on the heels of Flywire’s new office opening in Singapore, which became its Asia Pacific (APAC) headquarters in March this year. Flywire said that it had tripled its APAC team in the…

DBS Bank has inaugurated its IFSC Banking Unit (IBU) in the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) at Gandhinagar in India. GIFT City houses India’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), offering a conducive regulatory environment, tax benefits, and other business enablers. The DBS GIFT City IBU will initially focus on delivering corporate banking services, encompassing a range of foreign currency denominated loans, including external commercial borrowings (ECB) and trade finance products. The bank said that it expects to build a book exceeding US$ 1 billion in the first year of operations. DBS will also expand the suite of offerings…