CIMB Bank Philippines has partnered with Southeast Asia’s digital payments provider SeaMoney to onboard 2.5 million customers for its Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform SPayLater in 2023, doubling the 1.3 million users SPayLater currently has in the country. SPayLater enables eligible Shopee users to purchase items today and pay for the same in tranches at later date. Users can easily do so by selecting SPayLater as their mode of payment on the Shopee platform and can use the same for multiple items in one basket. The BNPL transaction volume in the Philippine e-commerce ecosystem is projected to reach US$2.5…
Author: Fintech News Singapore
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Thought Machine, a cloud-native banking technology company, announced that it is powering Singapore’s cloud-native digital bank Trust. Leveraging Thought Machine’s technology, Trust has designed a world-class solution with an intuitive customer experience combining best-in-market rewards with a suite of products. At launch, this includes a credit card, savings account and family personal accident insurance. Using Vault Core, Thought Machine’s core banking platform, Trust scaled rapidly following its launch on 1 September 2022. The bank acquired 100,000 customers in its first 10 days and its community grew to more than 300,000 customers within its first two months. The flexibility of Vault…
Funding Societies a Southeast Asian Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) digital financing platform, announced that its Thai business has reached THB 1 billion (US$ 27.8 million) in loan disbursements for year-to-date (YTD) 2022. The company said that it is looking to expand into new business segments to reach over THB 2 billion (US$ 55.6 million) in loan disbursements in the next year. This announcement comes on the heels of Funding Societies’ acquisition of regional digital payments platform CardUp which is subject to regulatory approvals and the signing a credit facility of US$50 million with HSBC. Funding Societies has disbursed loans…
Insurtech firm Igloo announced that it has raised an additional US$27 million in its Series B extension, bringing its total funds raised for this tranche to US$46 million. The initial Series B capital raise of US$19 million in March this year was led by Cathay Innovation, with further investments from ACA and other existing investors including OpenSpace. The round was led by the InsuResilience Investment Fund II which was launched by German development bank KfW on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and development (BMZ) and managed by impact investor BlueOrchard Finance. Other investors include Women’s World…
Singapore’s Senior Minister and Minister in charge of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that banks in the country are required to hold S$125 of capital against an exposure of S$100 to a cryptoasset like Bitcoin. In a written response to a parliamentary question, Tharman added that Singapore-incorporated banks’ exposures to cryptoassets are insignificant, contributing less than 0.05% of their total risk weighted assets. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) is working to finalise a framework for the prudential treatment of banks’ exposures to cryptoassets. Tharman revealed that MAS is contributing actively to this work, which…
Singapore-based investment company Temasek announced that it will open its third European office in Paris, which will be operational in H1 2023. Temasek said that the new office will strengthen its global network, help enhance access to deal flow, partnership opportunities and the talent pool across both the European Union (EU) and the broader Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. The new Paris office will work closely with Temasek’s existing offices in London and Brussels to further expand its presence and access to opportunities in the EMEA region. Headquartered in Singapore, Temasek has 13 offices in 9 countries around…
Institutional decentralized finance (DeFi), a trend that refers to the combination of DeFi software protocols with appropriate safeguards to ensure financial integrity, regulatory compliance and customer protection, is a fast-growing sector that’s emerging on the back of accelerated product innovation, booming adoption of digital assets, and the growth of the overall DeFi industry. In a new report, Oliver Wyman Forum, Singaporean bank DBS, Onyx by JP Morgan, and Japan’s SBI Digital Asset Holding, looks at the nascent institutional DeFi space, providing an in-depth presentation of what the sector is all about while presenting the opportunities it brings. The report defines…
The United Kingdom (UK) and Singapore have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the UK-Singapore Fintech Bridge on Friday. At the 7th UK-Singapore Financial Dialogue, both countries discussed their joint interests in sustainable finance as well as fintech and innovation. Sustainable finance There are four areas in sustainable finance that the UK and Singapore have agreed to work together on – the first being transition finance. The UK and Singapore recognised the importance of transition plans and pathways to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5°C from pre-industrial levels. As a first step, the…
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Singapore, an Amazon.com company, has been powering Singapore’s built-in-the cloud digitally-native bank Trust to onboard more than 300,000 customers in two months. Through the partnership with AWS, Trust has the agility to rapidly improve its offerings based on customer feedback, and the scalability to support its fast-growing customer base. The bank said that AWS also enabled it to offer a simple user interface and onboarding times of less than three minutes for a savings account and less than four minutes for a credit card. Trust has launched its numberless credit card that allows customers to switch…
Consumer financial data service provider Experian has been appointed as the bureau operator for Singapore’s Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Working Group by the Singapore Fintech Association (SFA). Experian will facilitate creditworthiness checks for consumers with users’ credit information submitted by all accredited BNPL players in Singapore. This includes outstanding BNPL balances, missed payments and delinquencies. This information will be leveraged by accredited BNPL players in providing BNPL services in accordance with the recently announced BNPL Code of Conduct. It sets out guidance for BNPL service providers in Singapore to protect consumers and ensure that BNPL offerings will continue to…
The Singapore Blockchain Innovation Programme (SBIP) has announced the launch of the Singapore Blockchain Innovation Challenge 2022 hackathon. SBIP is an initiative funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and supported by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Enterprise Singapore (ESG), the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and GovTech to further strengthen Singapore’s blockchain ecosystem. Themed “Web3.0: The Next Vision of the Internet”, the hackathon is open to students, professionals, and enterprises across the country. Three finalists will be selected respectively from the Corporate Track (for enterprises and SMEs) and the Enthusiasts Track (for students and professionals). They will be chosen…
DBS announced that it had become the first bank in Asia to complete an intraday repurchase transaction on J.P. Morgan’s blockchain based network, Onyx Digital Assets. The network supports instant settlements and maturity of the transactions within hours instead of the current industry norm of one to two working days. This is also the first time that J.P. Morgan is acting as both Triparty Agent and Collateral Token Agent. DBS joins the likes of BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs to tap J.P Morgan’s blockchain network for repo trades. Andrew Ng, Head of Treasury and Markets at DBS said, “Repurchase agreements or…
UOB EVOL cardholders will now be able to offset 100 percent or more of their household electricity carbon footprint for free when they charge SP Group’s (SP) utilities bills to their credit card. The bank will fund and contribute 2 percent of the billed amount to purchase My Green Credits on the SP app on behalf of the customer. My Green Credits is an affordable and convenient way for customers to get on the sustainability movement by greening their energy consumption through the purchase of “green credits” in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). The credits will be automatically…
Results from the UOB study were shared in the latest Fintech in ASEAN report, an annual report by UOB, PwC Singapore and the Singapore Fintech Association, which looks at the state of fintech in Southeast Asia and venture capital (VC) activity. The report also delves into emerging trends observed across the region over the prior year. According to the report, fintech investments remained strong in Southeast Asia during the first nine months of 2022, totaling US$4.3 billion through 163 deals. So far, funding activity has been driven by late-stage financing, which made up 54% of all year-to-date (YTD) total. The…
Singapore’s digital bank Trust announced that it has formed a partnership with Perx Technologies, a SaaS lifestyle marketing platform provider to boost its customer engagement. Perx’s customer engagement platform uses gamification and behavioral science to create hyper-personalised interactions for meaningful customer-brand relationships with today’s digital consumers. As part of its launch, Trust kicked-off its operations with a rewards campaign for first-time customers offering users digital vouchers from merchants such as FairPrice and Caltex that are redeemable upon sign-up. These vouchers and coupons are redeemed instantly through the Trust App where over 120,000 digital coupons were redeemed in September alone. On…
Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS) has announced the launch of the NETS Prepaid Card, its first ‘smart’ stored-value card for retail and transit. There is no minimum age, income requirement, annual subscription fees or credit checks required for the purchase of the NETS Prepaid Card. Up to 10 cards can be linked to one NETS account through the NETS App with daily spending limits of up to S$1000 for each card. Users will have access to features such as topping up on-the-go, locking and requesting refund for remaining stored value for misplaced cards, setting daily spending limits, and monitoring transactions…
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) did not place the now-collapsed crypto exchange FTX on its Investor Alert List as it had no evidence that the latter was soliciting Singapore users specifically. In a statement addressing some questions and misconceptions that have arisen, the regulator drew comparisons with another crypto exchange – Binance. MAS said that while both Binance and FTX are not licensed here, Binance was actively soliciting users in Singapore while FTX was not. Binance even went on to offer listings in Singapore dollars and accepted Singapore-specific payment modes such as PayNow and PayLah, prompting a flurry of…
Fintech firm WIAM Group has set out to realise its international expansion plans to bring its proprietary “neo-financing technology” to empower consumers around the globe. Having raised its own seed funding, WIAM’s founders plan to establish partnerships in other regions such as the Middle East and Latin America following successful ventures in Russia and expansion around the South-East Asia region. Alexei Eroshenko, Founder of WIAM said, ”Such strategic development is not possible without developing our own proprietary technology.” Underpinning WIAM’s expansion plan is the demand for lending amongst the unbanked populations in emerging markets. Nonetheless, lending must be responsible and…
Investment firm VC Plus announced that its subsidiary Custody Plus has received in-principle approval for a Capital Markets Services (CMS) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). This allows Custody Plus to provide custodial services for capital market products, including tokenised securities. VC Plus had secured shareholders’ approval in April 2021 to diversify into the new business of custodian for digital assets and consultancy in the financial and blockchain technology sector. Clarence Chong Heng Loong, Chief Executive Officer of VC Plus said, “We firmly believe that the transparent regulatory framework in Singapore is critical to the progressive and sustainable…
Financial services company Singlife with Aviva announced that it has appointed Dr. Allen Kuo as its Group Deputy Chief Investment Officer. He will strengthen specialist skills within the Investment Office as well as provide leadership and guidance as Singlife bolsters its asset management capabilities. Based in Singapore, Allen will also oversee the implementation of Singlife’s sustainable investment strategy. Allen brings with him over two decades of investment and risk management experience across multiple asset classes — specialising in quantitative finance and investment risk – accumulated from senior stints during his time in the US, China and Hong Kong. Prior to…