Author: Fintech News Singapore

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is fully committed to working with the asset management industry to combat greenwashing at both the fund and firm-level. Tan Keng Heng, MAS’ Executive Director said during the Investment Management Association of Singapore’s 8th Regulatory Forum that the regulator intends to introduce ESG-specific requirements on fund naming, prospectus disclosures and periodic reporting disclosures. This will set out MAS’ supervisory expectations for retail ESG funds and help mitigate the risk of greenwashing in fund offer documents. He added that MAS had shared its proposals earlier with Investment Management Association of Singapore (IMAS) for their comments…

The Bank of Thailand (BOT) is looking to issue guidelines for virtual banks in the country in a bid to play catch-up with neighboring countries Malaysia and Singapore who have already set their plans in motion. In line with this, BOT is seeking feedback from the public for its plans for “Repositioning Thailand’s Financial Sector for a Sustainable Digital Economy” by 28 February 2022. The regulator is seeking to promote healthy competition between new fintech players and incumbent banks to drive innovation and better financial services. BOT said that it will extend the “business scope and increase flexibility” of the…

Indonesia’s banking industry is on the verge of a revolution as a new breed of digital banks looks to capitalize on the country’s large population of unbanked and underbanked, and use the digital momentum created by the COVID-19 pandemic to propel their growth. During Finastra’s virtual panel discussion moderated by Fintech News Networks’ editor Vincent Fong, top executives and policymakers from Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK), Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority, Bank BTPN, Bank Neo Commerce, and global financial software provider Finastra, looked at the state of digital banking in Indonesia. The webinar delved into the opportunities and challenges brought about digital…

Cambodian mobile payments services provider U-Pay announced that it has integrated Hong Kong’s mobile identity solutions provider IPification’s verification solution. U-Pay said that its users will now be able to verify their identity with only one click for a streamlined onboarding experience aiming to eliminate the drop off rate during the initial sign-up process as well as significantly improve app security and user experience. According to a statement by U-Pay, it is the first e-wallet to implement IPification’s solutions in the country. Licensed by the National Bank of Cambodia as a local payment service institution in December 2020, U-Pay provides mobile…

Singapore-based insurtech 360F and AXA announced that they will be launching a full-scale production of their advisory tool “My FinScore”. 360F had enabled the launch of My FinScore with AXA Singapore earlier this month which was made available to the latter’s 700-strong agency force and their customers. The two entities had previously partnered to embark on a Proof-Of-Concept for My FinScore in 2021 which had yielded a positive outcome. Using 360F’s flagship solutioning optimiser and scoring system, AXA Singapore educates customers to discern their options and its distribution force to deliver a seamless advisory experience. Powering the “My FinScore” self-discovery…

Asia has become a hotspot of digital innovation in the global financial and banking sector, aided by the region’s young, digitally-savvy population, rapid digital adoption, and government support to advance financial inclusion. To help fintech professionals keep up with the region’s burgeoning digital finance landscape, experts and industry participants regularly participate in webinars and podcasts to share their experiences in deploying the latest technologies, the challenges they face, and the hottest trends in the space to watch out for. Here we’ve compiled a list of seven webinar sessions and podcasts focusing on Asia’s fintech industry. These episodes delve into emerging…

Southeast Asian SME growth financing platform Validus has announced two key additions to its senior leadership team. Vishal Shah has joined as President, Emerging Markets, and is responsible for driving growth in emerging and new markets. He is a financial services veteran who brings more than 20 years of leadership and business experience in SME, commercial and retail banking across Asia with Techcombank and Standard Chartered. Prior to joining Validus, Vishal was Chief Business Banking Officer for four years at Techcombank in Vietnam, where he drove strong bottom-line results – growing profit five-fold and income by three times. Vishal was…

Across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Singapore has become the central hub for cross-border e-commerce platforms, favored by industry players for the forward-looking planning and deployment by the government of an advanced digital economy ecology, as well as the nation’s highly developed Internet market. A new report by Deloitte, which looks at the state of e-commerce across Asia-Pacific (APAC), highlights Singapore’s emergence into a popular destination for the e-commerce industry, noting that a number of ASEAN unicorns, including e-commerce giants Shopee and Lazada, have chosen the city-state to host their headquarters. Active promotion of global digital trade by…

ForgeRock, an identity and access management software company, announced its continued expansion across Asia and has made ForgeRock Identity Cloud available locally from two new data centers in Indonesia and Hong Kong. This expands ForgeRock’s Identity cloud into 17 regions worldwide. By adding these two new data centers to the existing one in Singapore, ForgeRock enables large, multinational enterprises to deliver apps and services quickly to their customers locally and ensure crucial services like telehealth and mobile banking are secure. This expansion in Asia will also help enterprises meet important regulatory and compliance requirements around data sovereignty and data residency.…

Wise, an online money transfer service, announced a partnership with Tencent Financial Technology which will enable international money transfers to China through Weixin. Weixin is the mainland Chinese version of WeChat that is owned and operated by Tencent. With this latest launch, Wise’s customers will be able to send money from 11 currencies to Chinese Yuan (CNY) within minutes at the mid-market exchange rate to users of Weixin. The 11 currencies include Australian Dollar (AUD), Brazilian real (BRL), Canadian dollar (CAD), British Pound (GBP), Indonesian Rupiah (IDR), Indian Rupee (INR), Japanese Yen (JPY), Malaysian Ringgit (MYR), New Zealand Dollar (NZD),…

The banking industry is in the midst of a period of intense transformation in Southeast Asia, and indeed the world, driven in part by the pandemic, but also influenced heavily by changing consumer demand and fast-moving technological innovation. Predicting the future of banking, while never an easy task, is now more uncertain than ever, with new trends emerging regularly and regulatory changes occurring at pace. To get a clearer understanding of how Southeast Asian banks view the future of core banking within their organisations, IDC Financial Insights interviewed a number of Southeast Asian banking executives, discussing their thoughts on legacy…

In Asia, market liberalization pushes, coupled with changing customer behaviors and advances in technology, are forcing banks to move away from a product-centric approach to a customer-centric one where data become critical in guaranteeing the value and relevance of products offered to customers. Across Asia, banks have recognized the need to embrace big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to remain competitive, utilizing data analytics and machine learning (ML) across a broad range of areas from personalized services and risk assessment, to fraud prevention and improving customer onboarding experiences. During Fintech Fireside Asia’s latest virtual panel discussion, top executives from Vietnamese…

Digital wealth app Endowus has officially launched the Endowus Income Portfolios, which were designed to match the different needs, risk appetites and goals according to the varying life stages of Singapore-based investors. The three life-stage based portfolios – Stable Income (for the older generation), Higher Income (for the “sandwich” generation) and Future Income (for the younger generation) – have varied monthly payouts pegged to different risk tolerance levels and immediate income needs. They all have a common ground to facilitate a viable and stable long-term passive income stream with capital preservation in mind. The current target payouts are projected to…

Across Asia Pacific (APAC), China, India and Indonesia are leading the region in digital wallet adoption. A new report by business payment company PPRO found that in these three markets, online shoppers prefer using e-wallets such as Alipay, Paytm and GoPay for their online purchases over bank transfers, cash and payment cards. Unsurprising, China leads APAC in digital wallet usage. A nation of smartphone lovers, the country has been quick to adopt digital wallets, which are now used to pay for the majority of e-commerce payments. Services like Alipay and WeChat Pay take a 72% market share, far ahead of…

DBS Bank has announced the appointment of Helge Muenkel as its new Chief Sustainability Officer with effect from today. He will be succeeding Mikkel Larsen who transitioned into his role as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Climate Impact X (CIX), a joint venture of DBS, SGX, Standard Chartered Bank and Temasek, in November 2021. Muenkel joins DBS from ING, where he worked for 10 years and was most recently Head of Asia Pacific, Sustainable Finance and Global Capital Markets. In this role, he successfully grew the bank’s regional business of sustainability-related advisory services and sustainable finance transactions across products. He…

Bank Indonesia (BI) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen bilateral cooperation and deepen ties. The MOU reflects Indonesia and Singapore’s joint interest to promote collaboration on projects in relation to payments innovation, and formalise cooperation across an expanded range of central bank and regulatory functions. These include monetary policy, macroprudential policy, financial stability, oversight of the payment and settlement systems, regulatory and supervisory frameworks, and anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism. The cooperation envisaged under this MOU will be implemented through policy dialogues, exchange of information, technical cooperation,…

From a major rebranding exercise to upheavals in the Asian markets throughout the year, it was a busy 2021 for global multi-asset liquidity provider and prime brokerage Finalto. Today, we are in conversation with Alex Yap, Head of Institutional Sales for Asia at Finalto on what his expectations are for 2022. How has 2021 treated you and Finalto? In general, we’ve done pretty well this year, despite the spread of the Delta variant during the first half of 2021. Without the luxury of travelling and meeting clients face-to-face, we’ve had to adapt quickly to new ways to connect with our…

With more than 2,100 fintech companies and one of the highest fintech adoption rates in the world, India is a global fintech powerhouse, a position it earned thanks to pioneering digital infrastructure initiatives, a dynamic venture capital (VC) landscape, and favorable demographics, including a young, digital savvy population, and rising middle class. Globally, investors are bullish on the prospect of fintech in India, having poured billions into the space. Data from Invest India, the national investment promotion and facilitation agency, show that fintech funding surpassed US$8 billion in 2021, pushing startup valuation to new heights. Today, the country is home…

In both advanced and emerging economies, new digital platforms are helping to advance financial inclusion by improving access to payment services, credit, insurance and wealth management. In a new working paper titled Platform-based business models and financial inclusion, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) looks at the role of digital platforms in increasing financial inclusion, noting that over the past years, access to financial services has considerably improving, a trend that correlates with the rise of fintech adoption. Bigtechs drive financial inclusion in China In China, tech giants including Tencent and Ant Group have played a key role in improving…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) are introducing a set of additional measures to bolster the security of digital banking. The regulator has taken a proactive stance in response to the recent spate of SMS-phishing scams targeting bank customers. OCBC bank were one of those who were affected by the scams and had begun making goodwill payouts to affected customers. MAS is conducting a thorough investigation of the matter and will consider taking supervisory action against the bank. MAS said in a statement that it expects all financial institutions to have in…