Author: Fintech News Singapore

Fazz financial group’s StraitsX and Grab are testing the issuance of Purpose Bound Money (PBM) with 5,000 trial participants during Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) as one of four trials under MAS’ Project Orchid. Participants will be able to utilise PBM in the form of commercial digital vouchers at selected F&B outlets through their preferred blockchain e-wallet application during the festival. Grab’s payment service GrabPay is working with StraitsX and digital currency payment gateway TripleA to support the last-mile settlement of PBM during the pilot. This involves accepting StraitsX’s XSGD on the Polygon chain and reflecting the Singapore-dollar pegged stablecoin as…

Ant Group’s Alipay+ announced during the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022 that its merchant coverage has more than doubled to 2.5 million merchants. By sector, this includes over 1,000 online platforms, 10 major airports, 90,000 convenience stores, 360,000 restaurants, 200,000 taxis, as well as major hotels, shopping and tourist outlets in Asia and Europe. Three more Asia e-wallets were introduced to Singapore through Alipay+ in the last month alone, bringing the total number of overseas e-wallets accepted to six. South Korea’s Kakao Pay and Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go eWallet can also be used by those visiting the Chinese mainland, such as…

Brunei’s Baiduri Bank has partnered with banking software company Temenos to operate its core banking platform in the cloud under the SaaS model. The bank claims to be the first in Brunei to do so. Through this partnership, the bank will be replacing its legacy systems with Temenos’ modern SaaS on Microsoft Azure to offer personalised offerings at a fraction of the time and cost. Baiduri will adopt Temenos banking services for core banking, data analytics and financial crime mitigation (FCM) to support its retail and corporate banking, finance and wealth management operations. The move to Temenos Banking Cloud will…

Ant Group has officially launched Alipay+ D-store, a digitalisation solution for the service industry and brick-and-mortar businesses, at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022. Alipay+ D-store is described as a solution which businesses can use to build digital stores across multiple digital platforms, with tools to digitalise their payments, operations, services and marketing. Businesses can have digital stores on digital platforms in the form of mini programmes, or as H5 pages that can be embedded in social media and online to reach consumers. Having identified the F&B industry a priority sector, Alipay+ D-store has been adopted by more than 2,000 eateries…

Google Cloud has announced three key updates under the Point Carbon Zero Programme in today’s Singapore Fintech Festival 2022. Jointly launched with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in July, the programme aims to catalyse the incubation and adoption of climate fintech solutions in Asia over the next three years. The first update is the appointment of an Advisory Board to guide the Point Carbon Zero Programme’s ecosystem engagement strategy and initiatives, which comprises 12 senior executives from Chubb, DBS, Fidelity International, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, KPMG in Singapore, the National University of Singapore (NUS), OCBC, the Singapore Fintech Association (SFA),…

Blockchain payments company Pundi X has launched XPOS Web 3.0, a point-of-sale machine which supports crypto payments made using third-party blockchain wallets. XPOS Web 3.0 builds on XPOS, the company’s flagship point-of-sale machine enabling brick-and-mortar retailers to accept crypto payments using QR codes and NFC-enabled cards. Its key new functionality is its cross-chain capability which allows retailers to accept BTC, ETH, BNB, and USDT crypto payments from third-party wallets. The upgrade also allows merchants to sell crypto via multiple blockchain networks, including the Bitcoin Lightning Network, Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche. The announcement, which was made at the…

DBS announced that it is testing the trading of foreign exchange and government securities using permissioned DeFi liquidity pools on public blockchain as part of Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian. The trade involved the outright purchase and sale of tokenised Singapore Government Securities, Singapore Dollar (SGD), Japanese Government Bonds and Japanese Yen (JPY). DBS says that Project Guardian showed that trading in a permissioned DeFi protocol enables instant trading, settlement, clearing and custody – all at the same time. The test trade’s success also indicates the potential for deeper secondary liquidity across multiple assets and markets to attract more…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today launched Ubin+, an expanded collaboration with international partners on cross-border foreign exchange (FX) settlement using wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). Ubin+ will look into how atomic settlement based on digital currencies can improve efficiencies and reduce settlement risks compared to existing payment and settlement rails. Additionally, it will develop technical standards and infrastructure to support cross-border connectivity, interoperability and atomic settlement of currency transactions across platforms using distributed ledger technology (DLT), and non-DLT based financial market infrastructures. Ubin+ will also stablish policy guidelines for the connectivity of digital currency infrastructure across borders, for…

Standard Chartered announced today at the Singapore Fintech Festival that it has made an investment in Partior and is now a founding shareholder. The sum was not disclosed and is subject to regulatory approvals. Founded by DBS, J.P. Morgan and Temasek, Partior is a blockchain technology provider for payments clearing and settlement and begun its first pilot with participating banks to achieve end-to-end settlements in SGD and USD of less than 120 seconds. The investment will accelerate Standard Chartered’s deployment of blockchain technology across its global wholesale payments and settlements network, scaling the utility of Partior’s technology in global capital…

BigPay, a Southeast Asian challenger bank and Capital A venture company, has launched its crypto top-up feature without any hidden fees. The latest offering was rolled out in partnership with TripleA, a licensed crypto payment gateway licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Through this collaboration, users can seamlessly convert their crypto assets into cash to spend using their BigPay debit cards, without having to go through a tedious verification process. The cryptocurrencies currently accepted for top-up are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), and Tether (USDT), with plans to expand the accepted currencies in the near future.…

ANEXT Bank, Singapore’s digital wholesale bank and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ant Group, will collaborate with industry specialists to expand the breadth of service offerings for SMEs on their platforms to include the bank’s digital financial services. The ANEXT Programme for Industry Specialists aims to improve and scale embedded finance for SMEs, making it easier for businesses to access financing, as well as to monitor and manage it on platforms where they run their business. It is open to the participation of all e-commerce marketplaces, fintech companies and digital solutions providers who support SMEs’ cross-border operations through digital-based services or…

BIS Innovation Hub is launching a project around central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocols as part of its 2022 work programme. Dubbed Project Mariana, it explores automated market makers (AMM) for cross-border exchanges of the hypothetical Swiss franc, Euro, and Singapore dollar wholesale CBDCs. It also evaluates the potential between financial institutions to settle foreign exchange trades in the financial market. Involved in the project are the Eurosystem, Singapore, and Switzerland BIS Innovation Hub Centres, Bank of France, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Swiss National Bank, with the aim of delivering a proof of concept by…

Terrascope, a smart carbon measurement and management platform, announced its strategic partnerships with DBS Bank, ERM, and Workiva in its ecosystem, offering end-to-end decarbonisation solutions for large enterprises yesterday. Real economy stakeholders, financial institutions, reporting platforms, and sustainability consultants will collaborate on Terrascope as their common software platform. This allows an enterprise’s internal teams to draw on external expertise to design specific decarbonisation action plans to achieve its targets. DBS Bank works with Terrascope to gain timely and accurate carbon emissions measurement and management to assess clients’ bankability better. It also seeks to accelerate sustainable financing flows in Singapore and…

Providing banker’s guarantees or insurance bonds to government agencies in Singapore can now be done online and within one day using eGuarantee@Gov, said Lawrence Wong, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, and Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in his opening speech at Singapore Fintech Festival yesterday. eGuarantee@Gov was launched by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and MAS, with 21 financial institutions (FI) and 17 government agencies participating in the digitalised guarantee processing platform.  These include BNP Paribas, CIMB Bank Berhad, Etiqa Insurance, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Jurong Town Corporation, and Public Utilities Board. More are to…

Crypto payment infrastructure company StraitsX is piloting a series of stablecoin applications at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022 to showcase stablecoins’ real-world use cases and business benefits. The three use cases, done in collaboration with IDEMIA, The HBAR Foundation, Mastercard and Carbonseed.Earth, leverage StraitsX’s Singapore dollar XSGD stablecoin as a means of payment. The first enables users with limited network access to transact stablecoins using IDEMIA’s payment card and phone-embedded offline payment capabilities on HBAR’s Hedera payment network. Meanwhile, the second use case facilitates settlements between businesses using XSGD for transactions conducted by Mastercard’s crypto card partners, bridging crypto and…

The Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) announced the release of its SHIME skills framework, aimed at assisting individuals, corporations, and governments to become more digitally literate by upskilling at the Singapore Fintech Festival. According to CFTE, the framework is the first industry mechanism to evaluate the skills required in fintech. In the “Fintech Job Report “released last year, CFTE evaluated 225 largest fintech companies and 40,000 jobs to create awareness about the jobs and skills required by the fintech industry. The report was also published in a book, available on Amazon, by the Co-founders of CFTE, Huy Nguyen…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is opening a fresh round of funding for the Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme (FTSI), amounting to S$150 million for the next three years. This was announced by Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister for Finance, and MAS Deputy Chairman, in his opening address at the Singapore Fintech Festival yesterday. The FTSI was introduced in 2015 where S$100 million of funding was granted to nearly 500 projects in the first round. The second tranche saw S$200 million awarded to more than 1,000 projects. “The scheme has generated many positive outcomes –…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued a public consultation paper to study the possibility of eliminating all corporate cheques and terminate central cheque clearing by 2025. The announcement was made by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong in his opening address at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022. The initiative, which is part of the government’s efforts to promote digital payments, also aims to help individuals such as senior citizens who still use cheques to switch to other payment methods. According to the consultation paper, the cheque transaction volume in Singapore has declined with the volume…

Individuals can now digitally access and aggregate information on their life, accident and health insurance policies by participating insurers, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) announced today. Policyholders can access the information via financial planning applications or websites of participating insurers, banks, and MyMoneySense, a free government financial planning digital service. Singapore Financial Data Exchange (SGFinDex) is the world’s first public digital infrastructure that provides individuals with a safe and secure way to access their financial information across government agencies, banks, insurers, and central securities depositories. They can now retrieve insurance data…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that Project Guardian, its project exploring decentralised finance (DeFi) applications in wholesale funding markets, has completed its first live trades. The trades were conducted under Project Guardian’s first industry pilot which saw DBS, JP Morgan and SBI Digital Asset Holdings conduct a live cross-currency transaction with tokenised JPY and SGD deposits. A simulated exercise involving the buying and selling of tokenised Singapore government securities bonds, Japanese government bonds was also performed. MAS also announced the launch of two new industry pilots in the areas of trade finance and wealth management. The first pilot,…