Author: Fintech News Singapore

Regtech provider Know Your Customer announced that it has formed two new partnerships in Singapore with Volopay and Coda Payments. Know Your Customer’s innovative compliance platform will streamline client onboarding and periodic review tasks for both clients, delivering a more seamless due diligence experience to their vast pool of SME and corporate clients. Founded in 2020 in Singapore, Volopay offers corporate cards as well as receivable and payable management software in order to help businesses streamline approvals and expense workflows, lending complete control and visibility over their expenses. Since then, Volopay has expanded globally to Australia, Indonesia, and India as…

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC has increased its stake in United States-Israeli fintech Pagaya Technologies from roughly 7% to 9%. The details of the transaction was not disclosed. GIC and Pagaya has also extended their existing funding agreement earlier this week for an additional 3 years on top of the original 5-year term, on the same terms as the existing agreement. GIC is one of Pagaya’s top shareholders and has supported Pagaya in delivering a comprehensive, one-stop solution for institutional investors to invest at scale in consumer credit and real estate assets originated by more than 25 financial institutions and…

Xiaomi-backed online brokerage Tiger Brokers has launched an AI-powered chatbot TigerGPT, claiming that it is the first AI investment assistant in the industry. The feature is now in user testing and will soon be rolled out on the flagship platform Tiger Trade to provide intelligent global investment decision-making support for users. TigerGPT leverages Tiger Brokers’ vast content library and access to paid sources including listed companies’ profiles and data, financial knowledge and investor education materials as well as market and stock insights, in a response to users’ investment-related queries in easily digestible conversations within a span of seconds. This feature…

Despite a global pullback in fintech funding and regulatory headwinds, investments in India remained strong in 2022, driven by large deals in lending and fintech infrastructure-focused players as well as a dynamic early-stage funding landscape in emerging segments, including insurtech, embedded lending and wealthtech, a new report by management consulting firm Bain and Company says. The India Venture Capital Report 2023, released on March 15, 2023, looks at the state of startup funding in the country, delving into trends observed in 2022 and key predictions for the year to come. According to the report, fintech funding in India in 2022…

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has halted plans for the pan-India New Umbrella Entity (NUE) for retail payment systems that was meant to rival that of the United Payments Interface (UPI). The Indian central bank had opened up bids for licenses to operate new retail payment and settlement systems across India through the NUE project. Amazon, Reliance, Facebook, Tata Group, Google, HDFC and ICICI were among the license applicants. The Economic Times quoted the Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar saying, “Of the proposals that we have received, we did not quite see any innovative or infrastructural solution that had…

Thailand has a small and nascent startup ecosystem that’s mostly made up of early-stage ventures focusing on product development as well as securing their first group of customers. Within this small yet burgeoning ecosystem, fintech is not only the largest sector by the number of companies, but also the vertical that has secured the most funding, according to a 2023 report by consultancy Deloitte. Of the 290 tech startups identified in Thailand in 2022, 10.2% or 30 companies operated in the fintech sector. Additionally, the fintech sector had accounted for 60% of total capital funding since 2020, the report says.…

Payments giant Mastercard announced that it is accelerating efforts to remove first–use, PVC plastics from payment cards on its network by 2028. The firm said that this move further reinforces its sustainability commitments and scales the accessibility of more sustainable card offerings for consumers seeking a way to reduce the environmental impact of their wallet. Mastercard will support its global issuing partners through the transition away from virgin PVC. From 1 January 2028, all newly–produced Mastercard plastic payment cards will be made from more sustainable materials – including recycled or bio-sourced plastics such as rPVC, rPET, or PLA1 – and…

OCBC Bank has set up a virtual branch OCBCx65Chulia on the metaverse platform Decentraland which is named after its headquarters on Chulia Street, Singapore. The virtual branch OCBCx65Chulia allows visitors to learn about OCBC’s historical milestones along with the latest banking products and services. They can open a bank account and apply for a credit card through instant access to the bank’s website from the metaverse platform. Occupying nine plots of virtual land, the futuristic-looking spherical design of OCBCx65Chulia is modelled after OCBC Bank’s red logo. To build the bank’s presence on Decentraland, the in-house technology team collaborated with homegrown…

Oracle announced that it had recently launched Oracle Banking Cloud Services which is a new suite of six componentised and composable cloud native services. The six new services available provide banks with highly scalable corporate demand deposit account processing; enterprise-wide limits and collateral management; real-time ISO20022 global payment processing; API management; retail onboarding and originations; and new self-service digital experience capabilities. Built on a microservices architecture, they help banks renovate and modernise their business capabilities faster and with less risk. The services can run standalone, work seamlessly together, and coexist with existing applications to help banks lower cost and risk…

Interactive Brokers (IBKR) has teamed up with online money transfer service Wise to provide its clients with a simple and seamless experience when making deposits in their trading accounts. The automated global electronic broker offers clients from over 200 countries and territories the ability to trade stocks, options, futures, currencies, bonds, funds, and more on 150 global markets from a single unified platform. With IBKR, clients can fund accounts and trade assets in up to 26 currencies. This way, they can trade worldwide without opening multiple accounts in different currencies. With today’s launch, clients of Interactive Brokers can now elect…

Fintech equity funding activity in Singapore declined in 2022, with investment value dipping by 8% and deal count declining by nearly 26%, a new report produced by DealStreetAsia and Enterprise Singapore, shows. These findings are consistent with global trends observed last year during which fintech funding worldwide slumped by 35% from a record 2021 amid market instability, geopolitical turmoil, and looming fears of a recession. The Singapore Venture Funding Landscape 2022 report, released on March 01, 2023, examines the venture capital (VC) market activity in the city-state, sharing key data and growth metrics for Singapore and other prominent Southeast Asian…

InterSystems, a provider of data management solutions, announced that it has formed partnerships with three new Southeast Asian firms namely Ascertain, Doxa and Jonda Health. The three firms are using InterSystems IRISâ to quickly build and deploy solutions that effectively harness and derive value from data wherever it resides. Ascertain is based in Malaysia and provides innovative technology solutions to the finance industry, working with banks in the region on their digital transformation journeys. The IRIS data platform will enable Ascertain to aggregate data from multiple systems to help customers enhance risk management and regulatory compliance. Doxa is a Singapore-based…

MUFG Bank announced that it is set to invest INR 19.1 billion (approximately US$232 million) in Indian fintech company DMI Finance which focuses on consumer digital lending. DMI Finance is a Non-Bank Financial Company (NBFC) that provides fully digitalised personal loans and point-of-sale (POS) loans where the entire application and origination process is completed online within partners’ ecosystems. The fintech has provided credit to 11 million customers as of December 2022 where it has been providing services to underbanked/unbanked individuals receiving credit for the first time. MUFG Bank has been working to support the growth of Indian startups through the…

Singaporean payments provider Alchemy Pay announced that it has secured US$10 million in funding from multi-stage web3 investment firm DWF Labs. Alchemy Pay is now estimated to be valued at U$400 million and will be using the new funds to expand its payment business in South Korea to capitalise on the region’s high level of cryptocurrency acceptance. The firm has also introduced its NFT Checkout service in addition to its payment services to enable customers to acquire NFTs using fiat payment options. With this function, users can easily purchase NFTs using their domestic local currencies. Alchemy Pay has expended its…

Tranglo, a cross-border payment processing hub, has announced the launch of instant Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payments to Europe as part of its first large-scale expansion in that region . Supported SEPA payout countries are the United Kingdom, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden, with more to follow. The firm said that it expects cross-border transactions to SEPA countries to increase significantly in the coming months, especially among the increasing number of European businesses and consumers abroad looking for real-time payments. Tranglo’s instant SEPA payout is available 24/7 and supports individual and business…

DBS Bank has set up a special board committee with immediate effect to conduct a full and detailed investigation on the digital disruption that it had faced last Wednesday (29 March). This was announced by DBS’ Chairman Peter Seah during its Annual General Meeting held on Friday (31 March) where he said that the bank will also engage external experts with broad and deep experience in overseeing large-scale IT systems and operations to work with the committee. The committee will include board members; independent director Olivier Lim, Board Audit Committee Chairman Tham Sai Choy, veteran banker and tech expert Dr…

Crayon Data, an artificial intelligence and big data company headquartered in Singapore with a presence in Asia, Middle East and Africa, has announced its partnership with Visa. The partnership will empower Visa’s global issuers to create digital experiences for their customers with AI-led relevance and personalisation solutions. Crayon Data’s flagship platform, maya.ai, powered by patented algorithms and Machine Learning (ML), generates simple, easy-to-understand, and relevant insights based on non-personally identifiable information (non-PII) consumer data. maya.ai has been leveraged by a card issuer in India to create digital personal storefronts; digital wallet in ASEAN; and personalised lifestyle marketplace for an Islamic…

The cross-border QR code payment linkage between Singapore and Malaysia has gone live, enabling customers of participating financial institutions to make payments by scanning NETS QR and DuitNow QR codes. This will support in-person payments through the scanning of physical QR codes displayed by merchants, and online cross-border e-commerce transactions. This cross-border QR code payment linkage is made possible through the strong collaboration of various industry players from both countries, including Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS), the Association of Banks in Singapore, Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet), and participating financial institutions from both countries. Participants from Singapore are DBS Bank, OCBC…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said that the disruption of DBS’ digital services yesterday is unacceptable especially since the bank experienced a similar incident in November 2021. MAS added that it takes “seriously the reliability of banks’ critical IT system” and the regulator warned that appropriate supervisory action will be taken following an investigation into the incident. DBS had notified MAS yesterday morning that its customers were experiencing difficulties logging in to its digital banking services. According to DBS’ Facebook post, services were only restored at 5.45 pm after being unavailable the whole day. Netizens had flooded DBS’ social…

DBS Bank announced that its access to its digital services including the digibank Online as well as Mobile, PayLah! is currently unavailable in a Facebook post at 10.20am today. While these services are down, the bank said that customers can still continue to use their DBS/POSB cards for transactions. DBS attempted to reassure its customers that its “systems remain secure and uncompromised” and is working on resolving the issue and said that it will be updating its customers as soon as its services are recovered. In November 2021, DBS had experienced disruption of its digital banking services that lasted for…