Forbes Asia has released its 2022 “100 to Watch” list recognising the top 100 fastest-growing startups and small companies in the Asia Pacific region. This year’s list include 17 startups in the fintech and insurtech sectors tackling a broad range of areas including business banking, wealth management, compliance and crypto crime. These companies, representing 15 countries and territories, were selected from over 650 public nominations and cover 11 categories. Alami (Indonesia) Founded in 2018, Alami is a licensed Sharia-compliant peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform for micro, small and medium-sized enterprise financing based in Indonesia. The company, which claims to have disbursed…
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Banking software company Temenos announced that Craig Bennett has been promoted to Managing Director – Asia-Pacific, responsible for driving strategy and execution in the region. Temenos continues to see strong momentum across the region, with recent milestones such as the Bank of Queensland going live on Temenos Banking Cloud, and Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank selecting the Temenos platform to replace its legacy core systems for retail and corporate banking. Based in Singapore, Craig has over 30 years of banking technology experience. He has lived in the Asia Pacific region since 1992 and has held senior leadership positions across retail…
J.P. Morgan has signed an agreement to acquire payments technology company Renovite to bolster the firm’s payments modernisation strategy and support its journey to the cloud. Upon closing of the transaction, Renovite will become part of J.P. Morgan Payments, which combines corporate treasury services, trade finance, card and merchant services capabilities at the firm. The acquisition complements the firm’s proposed strategic investment in Viva Wallet and its strategic partnership with Volkswagen Financial Services AG. Final transaction execution is subject to customary closing conditions. Founded in 2015, Renovite has built six products to help clients optimize infrastructure, including switch, reconciliation, security,…
Data enrichment, the process of enhancing internal data with relevant, contextual data obtained from external sources, is critical for financial services companies looking to get the most out of their investments in artificial intelligence (AI), allowing them to build more accurate predictive models and improve decision-making, says Mobilewalla, a Singapore-based consumer intelligence solutions provider. In a new paper titled Improving Predictive Modeling Accuracy for Fintechs with Data-Centric AI, the firm explores why data quality, breadth, and depth are crucial for businesses to build accurate predictive models, and how data enrichment and feature engineering benefit AI in fintech. According to the…
Financial services company Singlife with Aviva now provides cover for electric vehicles (EVs) as part of its car insurance policies, with a 10 per cent Go Green discount for EV owners. Singlife will also provide EV-specific peripheral services such as sourcing replacement EVs in the event of an accident and breakdown assistance due to insufficient battery power. Charging cables, batteries and private charging stations will also be insurable for accidental damage. Singlife becomes one of the few local providers of EV insurance just as Singapore’s new electric car registrations grew two-fold in 2022 from the year before. The announcement also…
A new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and digital exchange ADDX forecasts that asset tokenization will expand into a US$16.1 trillion business opportunity by 2030. Asset tokenization refers to the creation of tokens on a blockchain to represent an asset to facilitate more efficient transactions. Historically, many of the world’s assets have been held in illiquid formats, with past studies estimating the share of illiquid assets at more than 50% of overall assets. Tokenization creates liquidity by making it easier for the assets to be distributed and traded among investors. Assets being fractionalized and tokenized on platforms such…
Digital bank Trust announced that it has reached 100,000 customers just 10 days after its launch on 1 September 2022. Sign-ups were received from a diverse range of users aged 18 to over 90. Trust is among Singapore’s new wave of digital banks backed by a unique partnership between Standard Chartered Bank and FairPrice Group. The bank offers a range of products including a credit card, savings account and family personal accident insurance. This is combined with Link Rewards, FairPrice Group’s loyalty programme. Trust has made several updates to the app since its launch based on feedback from its early…
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Singapore Exchange (SGX Group) jointly launched ESGenome, a digital Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosure portal. ESGenome is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution operated by World Wide Generation (WWG) that will help SGX-listed companies simplify the disclosure process using a core set of metrics that is mapped across global standards and frameworks. Companies will be able to carry out their baseline sustainability reporting based on a set of 27 SGX core ESG metrics, make additional disclosures across more than 3,000 ESG metrics depending on business needs, and automatically generate a report from the inputs.…
DBS announced the launch of DBS BetterWorld, a metaverse experience created in partnership with Animoca Brands’s decentralised gaming virtual world The Sandbox. The partnership makes DBS the first bank in Singapore to make a foray into the metaverse. Under the partnership, DBS will acquire a 3×3 plot of LAND – a unit of virtual real estate in The Sandbox metaverse – which will be developed with immersive elements. The bank aims for DBS BetterWorld to be an additional engagement platform to advance its sustainability agenda by providing an avenue for visitors to learn more about prevailing ESG concerns. DBS will…
Compliance startup VerifyVASP has concluded its Series A investment at a US$100 million valuation. FTX Ventures together with Peak Capital and Bcharu invested US$5 million into the company to cement its position as a Travel Rule solution trusted by virtual asset service providers (VASPs). Travel Rule compliance is being mandated in an increasing number of jurisdictions as a way to mitigate ML/FT risks in the area of digital asset transfers. However, implementation of this regulatory requirement has unearthed significant teething problems. Multiple issues have cropped up from personal data protection and technical protocol data sharing to the variety of Travel…
MineSec announced today a partnership with Zoloz to streamline the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Know-Your-Business (KYB) process for merchant onboarding. MineSec is a Singapore-based white-label SoftPOS solution provider and Zoloz is a global leading technology service provider of AI-powered Digital Identity Verification Solution, With Zoloz’s robust KYC and KYB identity verification features integrated into MineSec, acquirers and payment service providers (PSPs) do not have to develop their own solutions or manage external providers. To minimize fraud and protect consumers, KYC/KYB is a regulatory requirement for acquirers, PSPs, and other financial service providers. It is necessary for PSPs and acquirers to establish…
Fintech funding in Singapore hit a three-year high in the first half of 2022 (H1’22) with US$2.14 billion, though still less than the US$2.51 billion recorded in the second half of 2021 (H2’21), according to KPMG’s Pulse of Fintech H1’22 report. However, funding rose by 64 percent from US$1.31 billion when compared to the first half of 2021 (H1’21). H1’22 also saw a modest increase in the number of fintech deals funded across payments, cryptocurrencies, insurtech, wealthtech and cybersecurity as compared to H2’21. The half-yearly drop in Singapore was mirrored globally with investments in fintech lowered from US$111.2 billion across 3,372…
KPMG announced plans to launch Singapore’s first embedded finance hub to provide incubation support to enterprises and financial institutions by matching participants across the industry and providing knowledge in specific areas of embedded finance. The hub is set to run for at least two years and is expected to provide incubation support to over 120 non-financial enterprises and financial institutions looking to make inroads into financial areas. This could involve working with companies to co-create digital assets to drive developments for payments, gamification of finance, decentralised finance and platforms. Startups can also trial their embedded finance innovations at the hub,…
India has emerged into one of the largest fintech ecosystems in the world, owing to surging funding activity, rapid adoption of digital financial services and supportive government initiatives. Over the next decade, the sector will continue to rise substantially, with total assets under management (AUM) projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.3% to reach US$1 trillion by 2030, and fintech revenue set to climb to a total of US$200 billion, according to a new report by consultancy EY and venture capital (VC) firm Chiratae Ventures. Digital lending, insurtech and wealthtech are amongst the subsectors set…
Fintech Connect Asia is back for its 2nd edition, happening from 11 to 13 October 2022 and taking place at Raffles City Convention Centre, Singapore. This event will present an opportunity for fintech leaders to interact and network in person since the pandemic. With the presence of over 300 attendees and 90 speakers from leading regional and international brands, Fintech Connect Asia 2022 is bringing the true fintech experience back into the spotlight. The summit encompasses multiple verticals, spanning from embedded finance, paytech, crypto and more – ensuring an unbiased and comprehensive view on the future of the ecosystem. As…
Fintech startup accelerator F10 announced that it has selected eleven startups for the fourth edition of its incubation programme which began on the 29th of August. The cohort includes 11 pre-seed and seed startups from across 8 countries with 5 of them being based in Singapore. They are focused on innovative solutions in areas such as insurtech, fintech, investment tech, climate fintech and Web3.0. Over the next five months, the eleven selected startups will receive help to reach the next level in their journey, through dedicated coaching in idea validation and developing product-market fit. At the same time, they will…
Singapore-based insurtech firm bolttech has built a new customer support platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to enhance its offerings for more than eight million customers in 30 markets globally. As part of its digital transformation, bolttech is migrating the information technology (IT) infrastructure for 26 support centers to AWS by the end of 2022, and expects to further expand to other countries in the near future. bolttech will enhance and reduce average customer servicing times using the breadth and depth of AWS capabilities, including machine learning and analytics to gather insights from real-time caller data such as customer sentiment.…
Southeast Asian digital wealth manager StashAway has partnered with asset manager BlackRock to offer a suite of globally diversified multi-asset model portfolios. Built from BlackRock’s analytics and ETFs, the portfolios will be managed by StashAway. On the StashAway app, General Investing portfolios make it easy for all investors to get access to globally diversified, multi-asset portfolios of ETFs that are optimised for long-term risk-adjusted returns. Investors can now choose from three different General Investing strategies. The StashAway-powered General Investing portfolio optimises for long-term risk adjusted returns while keeping the risks constant. The Responsible Investing portfolio does the same while also…
Global cross-border payments company Thunes has partnered with Alipay+, a suite of cross-border payments and marketing solutions operated by Ant Group, to connect European merchants with hundreds of millions of Asian consumers. Through this collaboration, Thunes’ customers and merchants in Europe will now be able to accept Asia’s popular mobile wallets such as China’s Alipay, Malaysia’s Touch ’n Go and Boost, Philippines’ GCash, South Korea’s KakaoPay, as well as Thailand’s Rabbit LINE Pay and TrueMoney. Merchants that work with Thunes will be able to serve online consumers from Asian markets and accept mobile wallet payments during checkout. On top of that,…
Singapore’s newest digital bank Trust announced its official launch today and launches with a range of products for its customers, comprising a credit card, savings account and family personal accident insurance. Trust’s shareholders Standard Chartered Bank, FairPrice Group and NTUC Enterprise have invested S$400 million in the digital bank. Customers with Singpass accounts are able to sign up for a Trust account in a matter of minutes, and use their digital card immediately to generate significant savings. The Trust app also offers enhanced accessibility, with customers able to switch between English and Mandarin language based on their preference. The bank’s…