Author: Fintech News Singapore

Mastercard announced that it has launched a “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) commercial card solution called “Mastercard Pay & Split” for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Asia Pacific region. Accepted at 80 million merchants worldwide, the card-led installments product offers monthly or periodic installments. Mastercard Pay & Split is a first-of-its-kind, network-based, open-loop installments solution that will be made available anywhere in the world. The payment giant said that with Pay & Split, businesses can easily make installment finance purchases from suppliers around the globe and better manage cashflow, while eliminating the hassle of managing fragmented payment plans.…

Thunes, a Singaporean cross-border payments network, announced that it will integrate into Finastra’s Software as a service (SaaS) payments connectivity platform – Fusion Total Messaging. The partnership will allow Finastra’s customers, mainly financial institutions, to access new payment rails across 115+ markets, helping them to instantly send money to countries or use payment methods which they were not able to access before. “The pace at which the cross-border payment industry is transforming and the rate at which customers’ demands are changing, coupled with the ever increasing regulatory scrutiny, are driving us to constantly challenge ourselves, look beyond the horizon, and…

Prudential announced partnerships with online healthcare platform Smarter Health and Software-as-a-Service provider Privé Technologies to expand its health and wealth offerings on its Pulse app at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2021. Users will be able to use Privé’s digital tools to assess their financial needs and receive suggestions for wealth planning and portfolio management. The Personal Finance Management (PFM) services will be made available in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand in 2022. So far, Prudential has rolled out digital wealth solutions on Pulse in three markets – Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, with plans to include more countries next year.…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced three enhancements to its Fintech Regulatory Sandbox framework dubbed as Sandbox Plus and will take effect on 1 January 2022. MAS launched the sandbox in 2016 to encourage and enable experimentation of technology innovation to deliver financial products and services. The Regulatory Sandbox, which is fully bespoke, was enhanced with Sandbox Express in 2019 to provide firms with a faster option for market testing in pre-defined environments. With Sandbox Plus, MAS will make three enhancements to provide more effective one-stop assistance for firms looking to introduce innovative products and services that are…

Elevandi, a new Company Limited by Guarantee (GLC) created by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to manage the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF), announced that it has partnered with Bridge+, a flexible workspace and community platform. Located at the Central Business District, Bridge+ 79 Robinson Road will play host to panel discussions, lab crawls and industry networking as part of the SFF’s sixth edition taking place from 8 to 12 November 2021. Concurrent with hosting SFF, Bridge+ 79 Robinson Road will also run the Fintech Odyssey, a series of hybrid events it has co-curated with its members and tenants. Serving…

Hashstacs (STACS) will be developing an industry-wide blockchain-based Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) data and certification registry in partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Greenprint. MAS had announced the launch of Project Greenprint, a technology platform aimed at promoting a green financial ecosystem, at the Singapore Fintech Festival last year. Built using STACS’s  production-ready blockchain technology, the registry aims to provide accessibility to quality ESG data of various industry sectors through an aggregated platform. The ESG data will include sector-specific industry recognised certifications and real-time processed dynamic data from other integrated technologies and sectorial platforms. Through APIs,…

The ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN) announced the launch of ChekFIN, a global fintech registry aiming to assist Financial Institutions (FIs) in identifying and evaluating fintech companies for collaboration and development opportunities. Created in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group Fintech Control Tower (BCG FCT) and Temasek-founded Affinidi, the registry is set to go live on the 1st December 2021. ChekFIN is built using the latest generation of internet Web 3.0 services, and will provide a decentralised, open standard, and trust-based solution enabling and empowering financial institutions to reduce the amount of time spent searching for and assessing a suitable partner…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) today signed a deal to to facilitate interoperable payments between the two countries. The enhanced Fintech Cooperation Agreement (CA) builds on the earlier 2017 agreement to broaden the scope of fintech collaboration and partnership between MAS and BSP. The CA will facilitate the linkage of both countries’ real-time and QR payment systems, to provide instant, seamless and low-cost cross-border payments. Both central banks will also explore multilateral interoperability of these projects, in keeping with regional efforts to establish further linkages within ASEAN and with countries outside the…

Evolving consumer demands, increasing competition, technology advancements and changing regulation are driving transformative changes in the banking sector, forcing incumbent banks and financial institutions to embrace cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) to remain relevant, a new paper by Mambu and Google Cloud says. The paper, titled The Bank of the Future: How AI Will Power Ubiquitous Services and Personalised Customer Experiences, explores the key drivers fueling change in the banking space and delves into how financial institutions can leverage AI and cloud computing to address the evolving landscape. New regulations including the introduction of open banking and PSD2 in…

Chinese internet giant Tencent announced at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2021 that it will be partnering with the Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF), an institute within the National University of Singapore (NUS) that is jointly founded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the National Research Foundation (NRF). Under the partnership, Tencent Financial Technology (FiT) and AIDF will collaborate in the areas of research, education, and entrepreneurship to better support Asia’s fast-growing digital finance industry. In addition to organising industry events and bespoke training programmes, the areas of collaboration will also include research into deep-tech solutions that will…

The Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies, Heng Swee Keat announced the launch of e-GIRO, reducing processing time to minutes during his opening speech at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2021 today. GIRO is a direct debit mechanism that allows an individual to set up a standing instruction for a billing organisation to make deductions from one’s bank account. The current application process is manual and takes on average three weeks to process. It may take up to six weeks if further clarifications are needed. The applications for GIRO are needed to set up payments for bank loans,…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) today launched the second phase of the Singapore Financial Data Exchange (SGFinDex). Individuals can now view information on their investment holdings at The Central Depository (CDP), a wholly owned subsidiary of SGX, as part of their consolidated financial position via participating banks’ financial planning applications and MyMoneySense, a free government financial planning digital service. CDP’s participation in SGFinDex expands the range of financial information that individuals can retrieve from participating banks and government agencies. The inclusion of CDP information in SGFinDex was achieved through close…

Cross border payments company Airwallex, announced that its Singapore entity has been granted a Major Payment Institution License by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) under the Payment Services Act at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2021 today. With this license, Airwallex is permitted to provide a suite of payment services including account issuance, domestic money transfer, cross-border money transfer, merchant acquisition and e-money issuance. Airwallex said that it will progressively introduce a suite of product and service offerings that will enable businesses in Singapore to operate and grow across the ASEAN region and globally. This includes a modern global business…

UOB announced that its retail banking customers across ASEAN will be able to access personalised carbon insights based on their spending and saving behaviours through its app. “Carbon Insights” will be a new feature on the UOB TMRW digital banking platform to calculate, track and benchmark a customer’s carbon footprint automatically. It will also help customers build awareness of their carbon impact and encourage them to take positive actions towards adopting more sustainable lifestyles. The new feature is expected to be made available to a select group of UOB customers next year before a broader launch, first in Singapore. Carbon…

Three cryptocurrency service providers Amber Group, newly minted crypto unicorn Bitkub in Thailand, and CoinJar in Australia will be launching crypto-linked Mastercard payment cards. All three of these digital asset service providers offer cryptocurrency purchase and exchange services in their respective domestic markets. With this move, consumers and businesses in the Asia Pacific region will be able to apply for crypto-linked Mastercard credit, debit or prepaid cards that will enable them to instantly convert their cryptocurrencies into traditional fiat currency. This can be spent everywhere Mastercard is accepted around the world. These companies are the first APAC-based cryptocurrency platforms to…

Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS), Singapore’s payment services group announced plans to integrate with Ant Group’s Alipay+ to further enhance the digital payments capabilities of its local merchants at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2021. Introduced by Ant Group since 2020, the Alipay+ solutions are designed to make it easy for businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to accept different payment methods and conduct cost-effective digital marketing campaigns. Through the deployment of Alipay+ solutions, NETS can facilitate seamless transactions between local businesses and global consumers visiting Singapore, potentially connecting its Singapore merchants with e-wallet users worldwide. Merchants will be able…

Singapore will be setting aside an additional S$180 million to accelerate fundamental and translational AI research on top of the S$500 million that has been committed so far, according to the Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies, Heng Swee Keat at the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) today. One of the areas where Singapore will invest more funds is resource-efficient AI as its datasets are small for the island nation. Additionally, Heng had also announced the roll out of two national AI programmes targeting the finance and government sectors. The National AI Programme in Finance includes NovA! –…

The world’s largest fintech festival is coming back from November 08 to 12, 2021 to explore some of the hottest trends in the fintech space ranging from embedded finance and decentralized finance (DeFi), to sustainable finance and greener artificial intelligence (AI). This year’s Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF), organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in partnership with the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) and in collaboration with Constellar (formerly known as SingEx-Sphere Holdings), will run under the theme “Web 3.0” and will take place as hybrid digital and physical event. The first three days of SFF 2021 will…

TRON, one of the top three public chains in the world, announced its plan to establish a dedicated fund worth over $1.1 billion to turbocharge the growth of the TRON ecosystem. In parallel, it launched the cross-chain scaling solution BTTC to deliver compatibility among TRON, Ethereum, and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), gaining an edge over its counterparts for the future public chain race. As blockchain technology continues to evolve over the past few years, it has been adopted in a growing number of sectors and is seen as the next generation of the Internet. Throughout the development of the Internet,…

As financial services evolve rapidly, so too does the nature of financial crime. It is difficult enough as it is to tackle traditional threats of financial crime without new business models bringing new vectors of attack for threat actors. In Asia Pacific alone, US$ 171 billion is lost to cybercrimes each year and penalties for compliance failures are skyrocketing. Against this backdrop, how should the financial services industry prioritise their tech investments and strategise against this rising threat? Join our panel of experts to learn more about: The evolving landscape digital financial services and its impact on financial crime New…