Mastercard announced today at the Singapore Fintech Festival that it would expand its Farm Pass digital platform across the Asia Pacific region. The expansion will build on the success of the Farm Pass platform in India, where it has helped smallholder farmers connect to vital services and markets. The firm is on track to connect 30 million people globally, including 15 million in Asia Pacific, with its Community Pass services, of which Farm Pass is a part over the next five years. The expansion of the Farm Pass platform is part of Mastercard’s commitment to supporting smallholder farmers in the…
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Global Fintech-as-a-Service platform Rapyd has launched a new multi-currency Treasury Solution for cross-border payments. The payments platform today revealed its latest payment collection, funds management, and pay-outs disbursement solution at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022. Rather than set up and keep track of numerous overseas bank accounts to deal with various countries and currencies, Rapyd’s Treasury solution streamlines the process of settling with the business’ lead bank regardless of where the funds are coming from and going out to. The Treasury Solution allows businesses to collect funds locally from over 100 countries. It can receive funds through instant bank transfers…
Standard Chartered presented its Payouts-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution on the first day of the Singapore Fintech Festival today. Clients can integrate the bank’s PaaS APIs into their digital commerce platforms to embed and automate the transaction journey of their complex payout constructs, such as split, scheduled, conditional, or clubbed payments. It made managing one-to-many payments seamless for all the parties involved. Using PaaS, clients can provide transaction details in real-time and set up the parameters – such as the who, when, when, how, and how much to pay, pre-set or provided as and when necessary – which guide the bank to…
Blockchain infrastructure platform Paxos has received a license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to offer digital payment token services as a Major Payments Institution. The license enables Paxos to offer digital asset and blockchain products and services, as well as support its current partners in expanding their services into Asia. The company previously received in-principle approval from the MAS in March 2022 and secured the first limited purpose Trust charter for digital assets in New York in 2015. Paxos’ announcement follows a slew of similar announcements at the ongoing Singapore Fintech Festival, including Circle’s in-principle approval and Wise’s…
Circle, the issuer of USDC and Euro Coin, has received in-principle approval as a Major Payments Institution license holder from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The license allows Circle to offer digital payment token products, as well as cross-border and domestic transfer services in Singapore. Circle announced plans to establish a regional hub in Singapore and initiate the necessary application processes to obtain local operating licenses in November 2021. The company also entered a partnership with Singapore payments company FOMO Pay in March 2022 to allow FOMO Pay’s merchant, corporate and clients to convert between USDC and fiat currency.…
The national fintech associations of Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to form the ASEAN Fintech Movement. The MOU, which was signed during the Singapore Fintech Festival, formalises each association’s involvement in the formation of the ASEAN Fintech Movement. The ASEAN Fintech Movement aims to raise the region’s profile as a fintech powerhouse, as well as provide a common networking platform for the region’s fintech players. The movement will collaborate in four key areas with the first being education through the sharing of training materials and resources to promote stakeholders’ understanding…
Consumer intelligence company Mobilewalla has launched LendBetter, its newest offering for digital lenders, at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022. LendBetter provides digital lenders access to a repository of global consumer information to help them improve their credit assessment and customer acquisition process. The platform also offers financial institutions risk scores to predict the creditworthiness for new-to-credit borrowers, enabling them to extend loans to thin-file consumers. LendBetter says that it has helped financial technology companies such as FinAccel improve their acquisition quality with the use of their AI-driven features as part of the credit assessment process. “LendBetter’s deep insights into consumer…
Proxtera has launched the beta version of a multi-currency exchange platform, the Emerging Markets Currency Exchange or EMCX, in partnership with WorldFirst, Liquid Group, Thunes and Wise. The EMCX digital hub is being trialed by Singapore SMEs trading across Africa and Asia with the Ghanian Cedi and Philippines Peso against the Singapore and US dollar. SMEs will be able to avail of accurate exchange rates to conduct their cross-border payment settlements in their local currencies, and use the WorldFirst Digital Wallet to track and record transactions. Businesses signing up to the EMCX will also have access to the Proxtera network…
German climate tech company Offsetted has launched Offsetted Finance, an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) compliance solution for the financial industry and real sector. Offsetted Finance enables public and private businesses to understand their carbon footprint, model emission reduction plans, and perform ESG-related disclosures. The product will also provide organisations with data-driven, actionable insights on their ESG performance improvement in line with industry-specific benchmarking and scoring. Offsetted is a decarbonisation platform founded in Hamburg, Germany in 2022. The product launch was officiated by the startup’s founders Alex Lazarenko and Daria Lipatova at the Singapore Fintech Festival. “We believe that by…
Payments company Airwallex partnered with buy now pay later (BNPL) provider Atome to enable its merchants in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia to offer BNPL as a payment option. The partnership, which was announced at the Singapore Fintech Festival, follows Airwallex’s official launch in Singapore earlier in January and is the company’s first tie-up with a BNPL provider. Airwallex says that it plans to expand its collaboration with Atome to enable its merchants in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines to offer BNPL as a payment option to shoppers. In addition to BNPL, Airwallex also offers its merchants multi-currency card-based…
Online money transfer service Wise has received a Capital Markets Services license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), allowing it to bring its new investment product to the country. The announcement, which was made at the Singapore Fintech Festival, comes after Wise was granted a similar license from the Estonian Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority last week. Wise says that it holds £6.8 billion in account balances globally, but its new investment product, Assets, is currently only available in the United Kingdom where the company is headquartered and listed. Assets gives Wise business and personal customers more choice about…
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has published a report detailing potential uses of a purpose-bound digital Singapore dollar (SGD) and the supporting infrastructure required. The report also marked the successful completion of Phase 1 of Project Orchid which explored the concept of purpose-bound digital SGD, which the MAS refers to as purpose-bound money or PBM. PBM enables senders to specify conditions, such as validity period and types of shops, when making transfers in digital SGD. MAS says that a digital SGD could come in the form of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) — the digital equivalent of…
The SFF Global Fintech Awards 2022, presented by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Singapore Fintech Association (SFA) and supported by PwC Singapore, is themed “Embracing Digital, Charting the New Normal”. 223 submissions were received across nine award categories, with the winners to be announced at the Singapore Fintech Festival’s (SFF) Fintech Awards Dinner on 3 November. The finalists shortlisted for MAS’ four award categories — Singapore fintech (Singapore founder), ASEAN fintech, Singapore financial institution, and global — will be subjected to a qualifying round. The finalists in SFA’s five award categories — Top 10 fintech leaders, ASEAN fintech…
Alternative assets marketplace Alta, previously known as Fundnel, has acquired private digital securities exchange Hg Exchange (HGX) to enable it to provide tokenisation and digital custody services. Alta has generated over US$600 million in transactions, created access to over US$22 billion worth of mandated deals, and facilitated more than 600 transactions for opportunities like SpaceX, Grab, Gojek, and other alternative assets to date. The deal will see HGX becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alta. HGX received its license to operate from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in December 2021 and is partly owned by Binance Asia Services. Hg Exchange…
The Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) kicked off today under the theme “Building Resilient Business Models Amid Volatility and Change” and will run from 31 October to 4 November. SFF 2022 is organised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Elevandi, in partnership with Constellar and in collaboration with The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS). This year’s festival will see more than 850 expert speakers and over 250 hours of content across its week-long programme, drawing participants from more than 110 countries and 2,000 organisations. The programme includes the SFF Fintech Awards, as well as a corporate innovation showcase…
This year’s Global Fintech Hackcelerator, organised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and supported by Oliver Wyman, is themed “Accelerating A Greener Digital Future” and focuses on web 3.0 and green finance. The 17 finalists will receive a S$20,000 cash stipend and be eligible for a fast-tracked application process to receive a cash grant of up to S$200,000 under the MAS Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) Proof-of-Concept Scheme. The 10 local finalists and seven international finalists will also pitch their solutions at a demo day during the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF), where the top three winners will each receive…
In the face of increasing life expectancy, Singaporeans are confident that personal health and financial technologies will play a critical role in helping them manage their lives, a new study commissioned by Prudential Singapore and conducted by Economist Impact found. The survey, which polled 800 of Singapore’s residents between 25 and 65 to understand how they are using modern technologies to manage different aspects of their life as they age, found that more than half of respondents (54%) viewed mobile devices and apps as essential tools in preparing for rising longevity. Of those using technology to manage their well-being, 36%…
Malaysia has become the latest nation in Southeast Asia to roll out a digital nomad visa scheme, a move that’s intended to turn the country into a major remote work hub in the region and boost digital adoption domestically. Supported by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), a government agency aimed at promoting the country’s digital economy, the DE Rantau program will provide digital marketers and developers, content creators, and IT professionals from all over the world with the permission to live, travel and work in Malaysia for up to 12 months. The visa will be available to those earning…
The Australia Pavilion returns for the first in-person SFF since 2019 and Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) is gearing up an extensive programme for visitors to look forward to at the upcoming Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF). Joining Austrade as co-exhibitors are Fintech Australia, The RegTech Association, Global Victoria, Invest New South Wales, and the largest fintech hub in the Asia Pacific, Stone & Chalk. There will be over 60 Australian delegates from more than [35] companies from a variety of sectors, including blockchain, cybersecurity, environmental, social, and governance (ESG), insurtech, payment, regtech, wealthtech, and more. “We’re proud to showcase the…
The end of October and beginning of November 2022 will be busy weeks for the fintech community with multiple events scheduled during the two-week period. Several of these events will be taking place at the same time and at different locations around the world, putting some of the world’s most highly anticipated fintech events and conferences competing against one another for attention and attendance. This overlapping involves at least eight fintech gatherings, among which large-scale events, like the annual Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) and the Hong Kong Fintech Week, and gives the sense that organizers are overcompensating for the year-long…