Author: Fintech News Singapore

As the climate emergency heightens, the need for financial service providers to embrace ESG becomes more and more urgent. Beyond being the ethical thing to do ESG is also becoming a key driver for financial performance driven by both investor and consumer demand. From cultural shift to an overhaul of operational and business practices transitioning into ESG is not as easy as a flick of a switch. Join us in the webinar to learn the ESG journeys of some of Asia’s leading organisations. Challenges and opportunities in ESG Tackling ESG data quality issues How to successfully transition into ESG at…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that Gillian Tan will be appointed as Chief Sustainability Officer, effective 17 October onwards. This new role will be in addition to her current role as Assistant Managing Director (Development & International). In her current role, Tan oversees strategies to develop Singapore as an international financial center, including sustainable finance capabilities and solutions. She also chairs the ASEAN Taxonomy Board work group developing the ASEAN Taxonomy Plus Standards and serves on the Advisory Board of the Singapore Green Finance Centre. MAS’ current Chief Sustainability Officer, Dr Darian McBain will assume an advisory role until…

Regtank Technology, a provider of software-as-a-service compliance solution, was announced as the winner of the fintech category and overall 2nd runner-up at the Huawei Spark Ignite 2022 – Global Startup Competition. By utilising Huawei’s global platform and accelerator programme, the fintech category seeks to accelerate startup companies with disruptive business models and innovative use of technology in the financial and insurance sector. The criteria used to judge the Huawei Spark Ignite Global Startup Competition include relevance, service model, technology USP scalability and limitations among others. Regtank’s compliance solution covers the entire AML process for fiat currency transactions and cryptocurrency transactions.…

Fintech startups dominated this year’s annual LinkedIn Top Startups list in Singapore as eight of them made it to the top 15 rankings. The startups that made it onto the list are Aspire (#1), Endowus (#4), Pace Enterprise (#5), ADDX (#7), Cake DeFi (#8), Spenmo (#9), Advance Intelligence Group (#11) and Syfe (#12) To compile the list, LinkedIn analysed data across four pillars: employee growth, jobseeker interest, engagement with the company’s LinkedIn page and of its employees, and how well these startups pulled talent from its flagship LinkedIn Top Companies list. Satoshi Ebitani, Senior Managing Editor, LinkedIn News said:…

In Asia, the ongoing digitalization of economic activity has helped keep economies afloat during COVID-19 by enabling business continuity, reducing the cost of starting a business and opening up a world of entrepreneurial opportunities. Moving forward, digital entrepreneurship has the potential to become a major engine of growth in these markets. In this context, policy makers will have a critical role to play in creating a conducive environment for them to flourish, a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) says. During COVID-19, the Internet and digital tools significantly cushioned the adverse impact of the pandemic on entrepreneurial activity,…

Blockchain.com has secured an in-principle approval for the Major Payment Institution License from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to begin offering Digital Payment Token (DPT) services. With this preliminary approval, Blockchain.com said that it will continue to service institutional and high net worth investors, project teams and operators in the crypto ecosystem. The company added that it remains committed to obtaining registrations and licenses in all jurisdictions where it does business. Alongside this approval, Blockchain.com will also continue to grow its Singapore office and expand its institutional client roster. Just days ago, crypto exchange platform Coinbase was also granted…

Coinbase and Google Cloud have entered a partnership that will see the companies leveraging each other’s core strengths to serve the growing Web3 ecosystem. Coinbase will build their exchange and data platforms on Google Cloud, while Google Cloud will utilise Coinbase’s institutional crypto services to enable crypto payments for its solutions. Developers will also be able to operate Web3-based systems without the need for complex infrastructure using Google’s BigQuery crypto public datasets which will be powered by Coinbase Cloud Nodes. The announcement, which was made at Google Cloud’s flagship Next event, follows Coinbase’s announcement yesterday that it has received in-principle…

Cybersecurity company Kaspersky said that its anti-phishing system blocked a total of 12,127,692 malicious links in Southeast Asia in the first half of 2022 — exceeding last year’s total by over a million in just six months. More than half of these were targeting Kaspersky users in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. It therefore comes as no surprise that regulators such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have been bolstering digital banking security measures. The end goal of a phishing attack is to steal credentials – particularly financial and login information – to steal money or compromise an entire…

The two challenges in financial services where fintech can potentially play a positive transformative role are cross-border payment and settlement as well as high quality and trusted ESG data, said Ravi Menon, Managing Director at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) during a keynote speech at Sibos 2022 yesterday. He called these foundational issues that need to be addressed before broader progress can be made. First Challenge – Cross-Border Payment and Settlement Ravi had put forth three possible ways to solve the cross-border payments challenge: 1. Link up faster payment systems Singapore begun linking its payment system PayNow starting…

Prudential announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to enhance its health and wealth platform Pulse. This partnership will see Prudential tap Google Cloud’s data analytics capabilities, secure and sustainable infrastructure, and the broader Google ecosystem for this. Available in 17 markets and 11 languages, the Pulse app provides users with access to services such as health risk assessment and online doctor consultation, as well as digital wealth tools. The insurer is already using Google Maps in the Pulse application, and further projects with Google Health, Document AI and Fitbit are being explored. Prudential expects to benefit…

Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase announced that it has received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to to provide Digital Payment Token (DPT) services in the island state. Singapore has served as Coinbase’s Asia Pacific hub as the firm has been building its presence there and has employed close to 100 employees comprised mostly of product engineers. Prior to the approval, Coinbase was already operating in Singapore under an exemption from the regulator. Now that it has secured the in-principle approval, Coinbase will be reaching out to local partners as well as expand its fiat capabilities. According to…

Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is pursuing its expansion plans across Southeast Asia, ramping up its business in a region that’s characterized by a fragmented payment market and no clear leader. In Southeast Asia, the group has been working on expanding the foothold of Alipay+, a suite of cross-border digital payment and marketing solutions for businesses it launched in 2020. The goal here is for Alipay+ to become the dominant digital payments ecosystem, connecting the region’s digital payment market with a single QR code-based system that’s supported by different payment apps to allow for both online…

Home to more than 1,000 fintech companies, Singapore has emerged over the past couple of years as a fintech powerhouse, a position it rose to thanks to its conducive regulatory landscape, supportive initiatives from the government, and the abundance of capital and investors eager to back the region’s next fintech superstars. To get a sense of Singapore’s up-and-coming fintech leaders, we’ve compiled a list of the top ten most well-funded fintech companies headquartered in the city-state. For this list, we’ve used data from CB Insights, Dealroom, and official releases, and have excluded debts and loans, focusing solely on equity financing.…

OCBC Bank announced the appointment of Goh Chin Yee as the Group Chief Financial Officer, effective 1 November onwards, to succeed Darren Tan who has opted for early retirement. Goh who is already a member of the Management Committee will also be appointed a member of the Management Executive Committee. Currently the Head of Group Audit since 2013, Goh joined OCBC Bank as a management trainee and rose through the ranks across many divisions, including corporate planning, investment research, asset management, finance, risk management and global treasury. Under her leadership, the audit function has transformed by leveraging data analytics, machine…

Ancileo, a Singapore-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for the insurance ecosystem, has appointed Soraya Essalhi as its Chief Operating Officer. Her new role will be to optimise service and technology delivery and the overall customer experience at Ancileo. A 20-year travel insurance veteran, Soraya was former Head of Transformation and Digital at Allianz Partners, where she led the global onboardings of travel partners within the insurer’s e-commerce digital solutions across all markets and sub-segments. Prior to assuming the role, Soraya assumed leadership roles for business support and account management to help accelerate the growth of Allianz Partners business on B2B2C and…

In Asia-Pacific (APAC), edge computing is rapidly developing into an important frontier for enterprise innovation and competitive differentiation. Across the region, adoption is rising and usage will only grow moving forward, as consumers, businesses and governments continue to embrace Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. Edge computing refers to a distributed computing framework that brings enterprise applications closer to data sources. Unlike traditional models where computing power is centralized at an on-premise data center, edge brings computing closer to where data are being generated, enabling processing at greater speeds and volumes, and allowing for greater action-led results in real time. For users, this…

The rapid pace of change and need for code in virtually every industry, including banking, has prompted major growth in alternative software development methods. “Low-code” and “no-code” are development approaches that are seeing strong traction amid tech talent shortage and booming demand from organizations pursuing digital transformation strategies. Low-code refers to a software development approach where developers build applications in a graphical interface. Practically speaking, this means that instead of writing thousands of lines of code and syntax, developers simply need to drag and drop visual models to create applications. The implications of this is that repetitive and tedious tasks,…

Financial services software and cloud solutions provider Finastra will integrate its Fusion Trade Innovation software with Contour, a global digital trade finance network, to provide banks and corporates with a streamlined end-to-end back-office workflow. The collaboration links together the two key components of digital trade finance – a deeply integrated core banking platform for internal processes, and an external decentralised network for bank and corporate customer communication. It enables digital adoption while decreasing client costs, reducing reliance on paper transactions, and reducing risk. The solution offers full transparency and visibility as users may access their data through either platform, reducing…

Business analytics platform and global database CB Insights has released its annual selection of the world’s 250 most promising private fintech companies. Among this year’s top 250 fintech companies, ten ventures are from Southeast Asia and address areas such as consumer lending, insurance and payments. With six companies, Singapore is the most represented nation in Southeast Asia this year, followed by the Philippines and Indonesia, neck to neck with two companies each. Most of these ten Southeast Asian companies are very well-funded fintech ventures. In many cases, they are among the most funded ones in their respective jurisdiction, having attracted…

DBS announced that it is launching a structured three-year apprenticeship programme to prepare polytechnic students for technology roles in the bank. This is a part of the initiatives under the Techskills Accelerator (TeSA) for ITE and Polytechnics Alliance (TIP Alliance) set up by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) together with industry partners. Developed in collaboration with Temasek Polytechnic and Nanyang Polytechnic, the DBS Fintech Apprenticeship Programme will take in 20 students this year for a start. As part of the three year programme, student will attend masterclasses and receive mentorship from the bank’s senior engineers for the first two…