Major payments institution licensee FOMO Pay announced that it is now officially a member of the Singapore Clearing House Association (SCHA). The SCHA is an association formed in December 1980 to establish, manage and administer clearing services and facilities for cheques as well as debit and credit items of its members. It comprises MAS and the commercial banks in Singapore that wish to become members. The association is responsible for the Singapore Automated Clearing House (ACH), which runs the Singapore Dollar Cheque Clearing System, the United States Dollar Cheque Clearing System and the Interbank GIRO System. FOMO Pay will be…
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Digital banking software provider Backbase has been ranked as a leader in a report this year by Omdia, a London-based independent analyst and consultancy firm. The “Omdia Universe: Digital Banking Platforms, 2023” report recommends Backbase as a candidate in all digital banking vendor shortlists. Backbase had scored consistently strongly across all areas of the evaluation and achieved the highest overall ratings for solution capability and customer experience, according to report authors, Philip Benton and Ouliana Smith. The report highlighted Backbase’s strong solution capabilities and breadth of out-of-the-box journeys, combined with the ability for further customisation. The breadth of Backbase’s Engagement…
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will be launching its live central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot in the next few months. The central bank has been collaborating with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) on a research project to explore potential use cases and economic benefits of a CBDC. The project involves selected industry participants demonstrating potential use cases for a CBDC using a limited-scale pilot CBDC that is a real digital claim on the Reserve Bank. The project received a large number of use case submissions from a range of industry participants. A range of criteria were…
Singapore-based cross-border payments firm Tazapay has partnered with real-time payments gateway Volt to add open banking to its growing stack of payment offerings. This is in line with its plans to accelerate its international growth across the UK and Europe. The company will also roll out the offering in Brazil later this year. The partnership will enable Tazapay’s customers to roll out and increase their cross-border sales, especially for APAC and MENA-based merchants who are looking to expand and increase sales in the UK and Europe. Volt’s real-time reconciliation capabilities enable businesses to track payments from end-to-end. Over 70% of…
Thought Machine, a cloud-native banking technology company, will increase its global headcount by more than 20% in 2023 by hiring in India, Japan and South Africa. As part of the next phase of its expansion plans, Thought Machine said that it will be making 125 new hires over the year. While most newly created roles will join Thought Machine’s engineering team in its London HQ, the company will also make its first hires in the abovementioned countries. Thought Machine is also opening a new office in Miami, complementing existing offices in London, New York, Singapore, and Sydney. This is not…
Online money transfer service Wise has unveiled its complete visual makeover and rolled out new features on its app which now has 16 million customers worldwide. The Wise app now features a fresh green palette and a bold new font that is designed to make the customer experience consistent regardless of the place or language they sign up in. Wise also announced the launch of Assets in Singapore today, enabling local users to invest from as little as SGD$1. The company also revealed plans to to launch more services in India including the multi-currency account and card soon. The app…
Southeast Asian used car marketplace Carro announced that it has secured an investment from Singapore-based insurtech company ZA Tech Global for an undisclosed sum. The investment enables Carro to leverage ZA Tech’s suite of insurtech solutions to distribute personalised insurance products and process real-time claims backed by AI capabilities. This offering is now available for Carro’s customers in Singapore and Malaysia. Insurers include Income, MSIG and DirectAsia for Singapore as well as Takaful Malaysia, MSIG, Allianz, and Zurich for Malaysia. Carro said that it plans to expand to other insurers and markets within the next 6 months. With an initial…
DigiFT, a decentralised digital asset exchange (DEX) for asset-backed tokens (STO), has closed a US$ 10.5 million Pre-Series A funding round led by Shanda Group, global privately-owned investment group. Other investors include HashKey Capital, Hash Global, Xin Enterprise, the Co-founder of Fosun Group as well as North Beta Capital. DigiFT said that the new funds will be used to support its license applications in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, go-to-market plans, and technology development. The firm added that plans for its team’s expansion is also in the pipeline. Founded in 2020, DigiFT is a DEX in the Monetary Authority…
Blockchain Founders Fund (BFF) announced the final close of its US$ 75 million Fund II to invest in pre-seed and seed stage Web3 and blockchain startups. The fund was joined by Polygon, Ripple, Octava, NEO Global Capital (NGC), Appworks, Sebastien Borget COO of The Sandbox, GSR, LD Capital, Metavest Capital, and more. BFF has made 50 investments in the past 12 months alone and has funded over 100 startups to date including Altered State Machine, Splinterlands, GRID, Krayon and Magna. The firm BFF has also built a global collective of more than 350+ executive advisors in its Expert Network to…
Over the past years, Asia has emerged into one of the world’s leading fintech regions, recording the highest fintech revenues worldwide, data from Statista show. In the region, Vietnam is among the emerging fintech markets. Vietnam has seen its fintech sector grow steadily amid increased customer adoption and sustained venture capital (VC) funding activity. The number of new firms grew by over 180% between 2018 and 2022, and fintech funding reached US$720 million in 2021, a figure that made fintech one of Vietnam’s biggest tech segments that year by accounting for more than half of all VC funding secured. Cashless…
In Southeast Asia, banks are embarking on the next phase of their digital transformation, focusing heavily on improving customer experiences, leveraging data and analytics, and investing in cloud-based core banking systems as well as intelligent technologies, a new study by digital transformation consultancy Publicis Sapient found. This year’s Global Banking Benchmark Study, which polled over 1,000 senior executives at banks from around the world, revealed that financial institutions across Southeast Asia are moving forward in their digital transformation journey. While COVID-19 pushed incumbents to focus on business continuity, establish remote operations and enable digital customer interactions, they’ve now moved into…
Mastercard and end-to-end fraud protection platform Vesta has partnered to provide fraud management solutions for merchants in the Asia Pacific region. The partnership will involve the integration of Mastercard’s Cyber & Intelligence (C&I) products and solutions into Vesta’s transaction guarantee platform, and will allow merchants to eliminate online fraud, approve more transactions and grow their business. The combination of the cyber security solutions include behavioral biometrics, pre-dispute resolution, and identity verification, and Mastercard’s market expertise. This will provide merchants with 100% fraud chargeback protection, whilst also incorporating transactional insights such as payment risk scores and pre-emptive chargeback alerts. The service…
Citi Singapore has announced the appointment of Matt Read as its Retail Banking Head, effective 17 April, where he will be part of the senior management group. Matt will lead Citi’s local team to deliver on the bank’s aim to add US$150 billion in assets under management (AUM) by 2025 across Singapore and Hong Kong. Citi’s overall goal in Singapore is to triple its AUM and increase its wealth clients by 2.5 times by 2025. He will be reporting to Citibank Singapore’s CEO Brendan Carney, and Shyam Sambamurthy, International Head of Citigold and Citigold Private Client (CPC). Matt joined Citi…
Singapore Management University (SMU) is a melting pot of the region’s future leaders of innovation and business. It has been making a global impact through its expertise in Asian-centric knowledge — its programmes are geared towards nurturing future leaders with the competencies to thrive in the Asian Century. Part of its ability to achieve such deep expertise is a world-class faculty and diverse student body, hailing from all parts of Asia. SMU sat down for a chat with Mai Thi Hoai Thu, an alumnae of the Master of IT in Business (MITB) Artificial Intelligence programme about her MITB journey and…
Stripe, a payments and financial services providers for businesses, has expanded the Tap to Pay feature for NFC-enabled Android devices to ease contactless in-person payments. The feature is already available for iPhones. The feature is currently available in beta on any NFC-enabled Android phone or tablet in Singapore, US, Canada, and the UK. It supports transactions made with mobile payments like Google Pay, as well as Mastercard, Visa, and American Express debit and credit cards. This helps businesses build and customise in-person checkouts without the need for traditional point-of-sale hardware. The Tap to Pay is a feature of Stripe Terminal,…
Fintech companies and specialist providers are rapidly gaining ground in Asia’s cross-border payment market, putting increased competitive pressure on banking incumbents and forcing them to look for new opportunities, a new report by global consultancy McKinsey claims. In Asia, fintech companies are witnessing strong growth in the cross-border payment area, recording rates often three or four times those of incumbents, the report says. Despite a challenging year 2022 for the sector with plunging valuations and funding activity, this growth carried out last year where players like Payoneer and Wise reported a 30% year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth in the third quarter…
Globalization Partners (G-P), an automated global employment platform, has integrated with online money transfer service Wise to ensure salary transparency for international freelancers and contractors. There will be no hidden transaction fees and businesses will be able to see a full breakdown of transaction details and real-time payment status through the G-P Contractor offering. The G-P Contractor enables flexible payment options and a straightforward view into the entire payments process — including the mid-market exchange rate. Businesses will be able to choose their payment method which includes bank transfer, credit/debit, ACH, Wire, and International Wire. Contractors across 180+ countries can…
Insurtech firm CoverGo announced that it has appointed industry veteran Adrit Raha as the Managing Director for the Asia Pacific region. Adrit brings with him over 17 years of experience in insurance and tech startups. Most recently, he was the Co-founder and Co-CEO of another insurtech startup Symbo with a focus on embedded insurance. Prior to that, he was the CEO of health tech startup Vivant and held various leadership roles at RSA & AIG. In May 2022, CoverGo had raised US$15 million in a Series A funding round ed by California-based SemperVirens VC. CoverGo has developed a fully configurable,…
DBS Group, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and United Overseas Bank (UOB) were the three Singapore banks that managed to snag a place on the Brand Finance Sustainability Perceptions Index. The study, which was released in association with the International Advertising Association at the World Economic Forum in Davos, delved into the financial value of sustainability perceptions of the world’s biggest brands. As part of the analysis, Brand Finance determines the relative importance of sustainability as a driver of value for brands. It also evaluated how sustainable each brand is perceived to be, allocating a ‘Sustainability Perceptions Score’. This strips back…
Financial services software and cloud solutions provider Finastra has partnered with Aurionpro’s subsidiary Integro Technologies for frictionless trade finance. Banks will now be able to combine Integro’s SmartLender solution’s advanced exposure risk capabilities with Finastra’s Trade Innovation solution’s front-to-back capabilities for frictionless trade and supply chain finance. SmartLender Trade Limits is a comprehensive digital trade limits system that enables exposure risk management at every stage of the trade finance process. Meanwhile, the Trade Innovation solution provides open connectivity to networks, the creation and management of digital original documents, as well as the automation of compliance and document checking tasks using…