Author: Fintech News Singapore

The Bank of Thailand (BOT) has laid out its plans following a recent study to begin testing a Retail Central Bank Digital Currency (Retail CBDC) in the second quarter of 2022. BOT had conducted a study on the implications of a retail CBDC on the country’s financial sector as well as survey results from the public on its development based on the paper “The Way Forward for Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in Thailand” that was published in 2 April 2021. The results of the study and feedback collected from the survey have been taken into consideration towards determining guidelines…

Investment management firm Investcorp and Singaporean private capital exchange ADDX partnered to expand the use of digital securities in the private market space. The first product that was offered under the partnership was a diversified portfolio of US residential properties from the Sunbelt Multifamily Portfolio that was launched by Investcorp in 2012. Following the close of primary subscription, the fund was listed on the ADDX Exchange for secondary trading in July. Investors on ADDX could take part in the fund with a minimum amount of US$20,000 which is lower than the US$500,000 typically required for private real estate funds. The …

Data center giant Equinix announced that the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN) would leverage its platform to accelerate financial services innovation in Singapore and the global fintech ecosystem. The collaboration will provide a dedicated on-premise API Exchange (APIX) sandbox on Equinix’s platform for financial institutions (FIs). This offers fintechs a fast-provisioning and affordable, enterprise-grade, cloud-like, single tenanted hardware for production services. APIX on Equinix Metal, which streamlines and facilitates infrastructure connectivity and integration, will enable FIs and fintechs to deploy their sandboxes as well as production services on cloud-like single tenanted hardware. FIs and fintechs will also be able to…

South Korean Internet giant Kakao has set up a non-profit entity headquartered in Singapore named the Klaytn Foundation to accelerate the sustainable growth of Klaytn blockchain and its ecosystem. Klaytn is a service-centric blockchain platform that was previously led by Kakao’s blockchain affiliate Ground X, and will now be led by the foundation, with a focus on the expedition of global growth. The Korea Herald reported that Kakao had established two new blockchain entities in Singapore as part of its expansion plans. It added that Kakao has gotten 32 foreign and domestic companies for the Klaytn Governance Council. The council,…

In Southeast Asia, banking-as-a-service (BaaS) can help financial institutions reach a greater number of customers and improve financial inclusion. But for BaaS to reach its full potential, the sharing of data is critical, Arvind Swami, director of business development for Red Hat’s Asia Pacific (APAC) financial services division, told Fintech News Singapore in an interview. BaaS refers to a business-to-business (B2B) service where a bank leases its infrastructure. Clients like fintechs, challenger banks and other third parties can then connect with the bank’s systems directly via APIs and build banking offerings on top of the provider’s regulated infrastructure. Finance becomes…

While news headlines broadcasting Buy Now, Pay Later’s (BNPL) incredible adoption trajectory are a daily occurrence, innovative lenders know that BNPL offers more than a growth story. It’s an opportunity to make headlines about how their business is empowering consumers and driving significant growth in financial inclusion across the Asia Pacific region. BNPL: Good for Consumers For many BNPL’s role is to provide consumers with a better checkout experience and interest free alternative to credit cards, it also offers the promise of being able to provide easily accessible and sustainable credit to non-banked and underbanked consumers. “With the average funding…

HSBC said that it has entered into an agreement to acquire 100% of AXA Insurance issued share capital in Singapore for US$575 million. The intention of this deal is to merge the operations of HSBC Life Singapore and AXA Singapore, which is subject to further approval by the Singapore regulator and courts. The bank said that this is a key step in its “ambition of becoming a leading wealth manager in Asia, by expanding its insurance and wealth franchise in Singapore, a strategically important scale market for HSBC, and a major hub for its ASEAN wealth business”. HSBC added that…

The onset of the pandemic has highlighted the importance for companies to embrace a digital transformation process for their businesses to stay resilient. Digital transformation can be advantageous when it comes to optimising operations, transforming products, and empowering employees. The UOB SME Outlook 2021 Study revealed that 40 per cent of SMEs that implemented digitalisation initiatives in 2020 reported stronger revenue growth. The survey, which was conducted with 782 local SMEs that have revenue of less than S$100 million, also showed that businesses that have digitalised their entire business, or more than one area of their business outperformed businesses that…

DBS Vickers (DBSV), the brokerage arm of DBS Bank, has received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) under the Payment Services Act (PSA) to provide digital payment token services. DBSV is one of the first few financial institutions to obtain such an approval following that of Independent Reserve, an Australian cryptocurrency exchange. The brokerage is working through the necessary follow-ups with a view towards meeting MAS’ requirements for a license. Once licensed, DBSV, as a member of the DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx), will be able to directly support asset managers and companies to trade in digital payment…

Global Money Express (GME Remittance), a non-bank remittance service provider in South Korea, has joined Ripple’s blockchain-based payments network, RippleNet to accelerate and scale payments from South Korea to Thailand. This partnership was established through SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture between SBI Holdings and Ripple, to connect GME Remittance to Siam Commercial Bank (SCB). With 184,000 Thai nationals residing in South Korea, the Thai population is the third largest in the country after Chinese and Vietnamese nationals. GME Remittance joins an existing roster of Korean financial institutions and money transfer companies already on RippleNet including CROSS ENF and Sentbe…

Vietnamese digital bank Timo announced that it is partnering with SaaS cloud banking platform Mambu to leverage the benefits of a cloud native core banking platform to significantly scale its business. Timo said that its “collaboration with both Mambu and AWS enables it to reap the benefits of a range of best-for-purpose technologies and will position it at the forefront of Vietnam’s digital banking revolution”. The Vietnamese banking and financial services industry is ripe for disruption and innovation, with low rates of formal financial inclusion but very high rates of smartphone ownership and internet penetration, and a young, digitally-savvy population.…

Napier, provider of advanced anti-financial crime compliance solutions, has announced that cross-border payment specialist ONEPIP will be using its technology as part of the latter’s upgraded anti-money laundering (AML) controls. The regtech firm’s AI-led transaction monitoring, client activity review and risk-based scorecard review will give ONEPIP a systematic, intelligent review of all its transactions and customer profile data to help identify suspicious activity quickly and easily, creating a robust compliance solution. ONEPIP reports that it has processed over 25,000 transactions worth over US$4.5 billion in value since 2016. It has licensed operations in Hong Kong and Singapore, and planned expansion…

The effects of COVID-19 global pandemic can be seen in the change of finances for many. Prolonged loss of income, heightened awareness of the need for health insurance and begrudged acceptance of the changed landscape of life milestones such as child’s tertiary education, relocation and retirement – the pandemic has indirectly created strong interest in financial markets and financial advice, especially among the layman. But interest alone is far from enough. The financial advisory industry is unfortunately a very noisy one. Despite the same customer profile and product portfolio, a disconcerting range of variance is easily observed among the financial…

Global Fintech-as-a-Service platform Rapyd enables PromptPay, Thailand’s national payment service with 55.1 million registered users with 20 million transactions a day, as a payment option on Google Play. Rapyd supports local payments for Google in the country through its collaboration with Thai payment solution provider GB Prime Pay. Launched in 2017, PromptPay is one of the most commonly used payment methods in Thailand. It allows its users to make real-time interbank mobile payments or transfer funds by linking the user’s bank account to the mobile number or national ID. According to Rapyd’s Asia Pacific eCommerce and Payments Report 2020, it was…

Singapore’s fintech industry has proven resilient with deal numbers for the first half of 2021 skyrocketing to its year-on-year highest in three years. A total of 72 deals amounting to US$614.2 million were transacted for Singapore fintechs from January to June this year – this is a 22 percent increase from 59 deals in 1H 2020 and 50 percent higher than the 48 deals in 1H 2019, according to data from the KPMG Pulse of Fintech Report H1’21. After falling to US$4.7 billion across 357 deals in 2H 2020, investment amount in the Asia-Pacific soared to US$7.5 billion across 467…

ACI Worldwide, a global provider of real-time payments and digital payment software solutions, announced an expanded multi-year strategic alliance with Microsoft to deliver payments solutions in the cloud. The alliance will accelerate and expand ACI’s cloud payments offerings in Microsoft Azure as more financial institutions (FIs) embrace digital transformation. With global demand for SaaS-based payment offerings increasing, ACI and Microsoft will closely collaborate on innovations that empower FIs to launch new solutions, add new services to their existing platforms and deliver those new capabilities more quickly and with greater agility. They will also provide FIs greater efficiency of operations, scalability,…

Singapore, which has set out to become one of the leading fintech hubs in the world, has witnessed the establishment of dozens of innovations labs in recent years as banks and foreign tech firms are looking to capitalize on the city state’s large pool of IT specialists, established financial center, and a supportive government to build the next generation of financial services. An innovation lab is a facility launched with the ultimate goal to create new revenue streams or bolster existing ones by improving productivity or speed, with much more to consider. Innovation labs engage diverse participants, on a long-term…

Airome Technologies, a Singapore-based developer of cybersecurity solutions for digital banking and e-document management systems, was announced as a representative vendor by Gartner. The Vendor Identification for User Authentication 2021 report contains a comprehensive list of user authentication vendors who meant to provide security and risk management leaders responsible for IAM. According to the Gartner’s market guide for user authentication, “As remote work increases access management tool adoption, and security controls shift to identity, the ability to secure access with AM strategies aligned with continuous adaptive risk and trust assessment is paramount. Cost optimization for IT spending (e.g., AM) will…

Advances in technologies, including distributed ledger technology (DLT), artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), big data analytics and cloud computing are transforming the lifecycle of securities, increasing efficiency and automation as well as bringing better transparency. Over the past year, incumbent banks and fintech providers have ramped up efforts to modernize capital markets, delivering new and modern solutions that leverage digital platforms, blockchain technology, tokenization and more to make capital markets access more time and cost efficient. Just this past June, Singapore’s leading bank DBS Bank launched Asia’s first fully digital and automated fixed income execution platform, allowing issuers to directly connect…

Wealthtech, has been exhibiting robust growth in Singapore over the past few years. According to a recent KPMG report, Singapore has been leading the Asia Pacific (APAC) market in terms of wealth management owing to its advanced infrastructure and sophisticated digital capabilities among the players. Growing investor interest, consolidation of smaller players, favourable regulations and burgeoning demand for automated wealth advisory services have also been fuelling the growth. Moreover, Singapore has become home to a growing population of ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) with a net wealth of US$30 million or more. Despite its smaller population, Singapore had the eighth…