CurrencyFair, a global cross-border payments platform and Assembly Payments, whose platform automates complex payment workflows, today announced their merger as a result of a strategic investment by Standard Chartered, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. SC Ventures, the innovation, ventures and fintech investments unit of Standard Chartered is doubling down on its commitment to the rapidly growing payments industry, following its earlier investment in Assembly Payments in 2020. Paul Byrne, CEO of CurrencyFair, will lead the merged business. Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered, said: “Digital payments is a core strategic area for Standard Chartered and our 2020…
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Visa announced today that they have selected five startups to be part of their first Visa Accelerator Program in Asia Pacific. Over the next four to six months, they said that the startups will focus on creating defined commercial opportunities to collaborate on new payment solutions with Visa and its extensive network of bank and merchant partners. A key goal for the accelerator program is to support startups that have launched successful solutions in their home markets as they plan their next stage of growth. “Hundreds of startups came forward with outstanding ideas for new and enhanced commerce experiences, but…
StashFin, a Singapore-based neo-banking startup, announced the successful completion of the extension of its Series B equity financing of US$ 40 million. New investors participating in the round include Altara Ventures and Uncorrelated Ventures with previous investments from Integrated Capital, Kravis Investment Partners, Saison Capital and Tencent Cloud Europe BV. Existing investors also participated in the round including Alto Partners, Snow Leopard Ventures and Positive Moves. StashFin said that it plans to use the funds to pursue neobanking across South Asia, double down on its plan to grow in existing markets and strengthen the customer platform for local languages. Tushar…
The National University of Singapore (NUS) will offer two new graduate programmes in fintech in the new academic year, to help build a robust ecosystem of high-quality research talent and capabilities to support the fast-growing financial industry in Singapore. The new Masters and PhD programmes are under the Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF) at NUS, a university-level institute jointly founded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF) and NUS. The PhD programme, in particular, is Singapore’s first and only doctoral programme in fintech. “In this golden age of technology, banks are becoming more…
Atome Financial, the parent company of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Atome, has completed its acquisition of local financing company PT Mega Finadana Finance in Indonesia. Details of the acquisition was not disclosed. The acquisition will allow Atome Financial to expand its business in Indonesia through especially consumer financing. Following the acquisition, PT Mega Finadana Finance changed its name to PT Atome Finance Indonesia. Atome Financial consists of two main business units, Atome and Kredit Pintar. The latter is an Indonesian digital lending ap licensed by OJK, with over 10 million mobile app downloads and a 4.8-star rating on…
Across Asia-Pacific (APAC), firms are ramping up their digital transformation efforts, focusing primarily on adopting cloud computing, improving cybersecurity and enhancing remote working, a new survey by Australian telco firm Telstra. The study, conducted in late-2020, polled 420 business decision-makers from various industry verticals spread across seven APAC markets to understand their digital transformation needs and challenges. The study found that despite COVID-19, APAC businesses still intend to expand across the region, with China, Japan and Singapore named as the top three markets for expansion. With six in ten organizations having their sights set on entering new markets, investing in…
Singapore-based digital wealth advisor Endowus announced that it has completed a S$23 million first close of its Series A funding round. It was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm, with participation from SoftBank Ventures Asia. Endowus said that it will use the additional resources and support from its VC partners for its expansion plans in Asia. This is the first external fundraise for Endowus, which to date has been fully owned and funded by its employees. Endowus is a MAS-licensed investment platform and the digital advisor for Central Provident Fund (CPF), Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) and…
Two out of three banking customers in Asia Pacific (APAC) are either relatively open or inclined to consider fintechs and challenger banks which they perceive as being successful in addressing customer pain-points and facilitating customer journeys, a new survey found. The study, conducted by The Asian Banker and commissioned by data analytics company FICO, polled 5,000 digital banking customers in ten key APAC markets to gain better insights on consumer preferences, interactions and engagements. The research found that in APAC, Southeast Asian customers are the most receptive to fintechs, challenger banks and new entrants. Thailand scored the highest with 78%…
Bluecell and Hashstacs (STACS) announced a new collaboration to offer green and sustainability-linked loans though GreenSTACS, which runs on top of latter’s patent-pending blockchain technology. Bluecell will connect its live end-to-end loans matching engine integrated with MyInfo, to STACS’ sustainability-enabling technology infrastructure GreenSTACS. STACS’ live DLT platforms support the trade lifecycle management of securities, and ESG financing dimensions encompassing green and sustainability-linked bonds and loans. Recently STACS had announced collaborations with leading institutions like Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Eastspring Investments, and Bursa Malaysia. A key focus in this collaboration is the effective management of green and sustainability-linked loans, which…
Digital banking solution provider Meniga has announced a new partnership with Visa to accelerate its expansion within the Asia Pacific region. Meninga had recently secured €10 million (S$ 15.78 million) during a strategic investment round led by Velocity Capital Fintech Ventures and Frumtak Ventures. As part of the agreement, Meniga will join the Visa Ready Programme as a certified fintech enablement partner. The new Visa Ready certification now means that Meniga’s solutions meet Visa’s global standards around security and functionality, providing further credibility to Meniga’s state-of-the-art digital banking capabilities within the Asia Pacific markets. Meniga will also be listed on the…
CGS-CIMB Securities International, an integrated financial service provider in Asia, has launched a digital investment service in Singapore called ProsperUs. ProsperUs will leverage CGS-CIMB’s deep research intelligence and network, to offer an investment experience for millennials that is convenient and secure to grow their investment portfolios. ProsperUs currently offers eight different asset classes across 30 exchanges, 25 markets, comprising 30,000 instruments where investors will be able to invest actively in equities, bonds and FX or passively with exchanges traded funds. Additionally, they will be able to diversify their investments with mutual funds that meet their investment objectives, and hedge risks…
Bangkok Bank has unveiled cross-border QR payments between Thailand and Vietnam with the cooperation of the Bank of Thailand (BOT) and State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), claiming to be the first to do so. The service provided by Bangkok Bank allows customers in Thailand and Vietnam to make QR payments via mobile banking application between the two countries. They said this is more convenient and has lower exchange rate fees due to the higher number of merchants that support the QR payment system. Consequently, the volume of e-payment transactions in 2020, including QR code payments, reached 13.39 million, up by…
Fintech companies in Asia-Pacific (APAC) raised US$3.14 billion across 113 deals in Q4’20 (excluding capital raised by Grab and GoJek), the highest quarterly funding activity for the year. This signals a bright outlook for fintech funding and deal activity in 2021, including a slew of initial public offerings (IPOs) expected later this year, according to a new research by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Several top-funded companies in APAC are set to go public in the coming year or so. Firms including PhonePe, KakaoBank, Judo Bank, Airwallex and Viva Republica have achieved unicorn status with valuations above US$1 billion and most…
Key Discussion Points Lesson learnt from Open Banking API Phase 1 and 2 Looking ahead the opportunities and challenges of Open Banking API Phase 3 and 4 as well as CDI How Open Banking and Open Finance will evolve in Hong Kong Confirmed Speakers Johnny Chung, General Manager – Division Head, Fintech Division / Product Innovation Management Division of China Construction Bank Clive Chan, Manager, Solutions Engineering, Hong Kong & Macau at F5 Marc Entwistle, Principal, Oliver Wyman Digital Brit Blakeney Anghelakis, Executive Director, Innovation and Ecosystems, Consumer Banking Group, DBS Bank Moderated by: Vincent Fong, Chief Editor, Fintech News…
#dltledgers, a Singaporean blockchain platform for cross-border trade, trade finance, and supply chain digitisation, has raised US$ 7 million during a Series A funding round. The fundraising round was led by Regis and Savoy Capital, Vittal, Walden International and various veteran industry leaders. With the funding, #dltledgers has commenced expanding its 70-strong team by 120% across Asia Pacific, ANZ, Japan India and Middle East. To support #dltledgers’ rapid growth, the company will migrate its blockchain-based solutions from Hyperledger Fabric to Corda, R3’s flagship enterprise blockchain platform, enabling businesses in trade finance to streamline business operations, while reducing transaction and record-keeping…
COVID-19 has spurred a spike in e-commerce globally, propelling with it digital payment adoption. In Singapore, digital wallets are set to overtake credit cards as the preferred online payment method over the next four years, and buy now pay later (BNPL) options will grow the fastest, according to the 2021 Global Payments Report by FIS. Released earlier this month, the report looks at how consumers around the world are paying and which methods are set to take the world by storm. In Asia-Pacific (APAC), digital wallets dominated e-commerce payments, accounting for more than 60% of APAC e-commerce payment methods in…
Qoala, an insurtech startup backed by the likes of Sequoia and MDI Ventures announced today the acquisition of FairDee, a Thai insurtech to expand their reach into the Thailand market. Since its 2018 launch, Qoala said that it now processes over 2 million policies per month, with a diversified partnership portfolio serving core industries such as motor vehicle, health, life, travel, fintech, consumables, logistics, and employee benefits. Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Qoala, Harshet Lunani, says: “FairDee and Qoala share the same vision in how insurance can be reimagined. Hence, we are doubling down on developing technology to…
Jumio, a provider of AI-powered end-to-end identity verification and eKYC solutions, today announced it secured a $150 million investment from Great Hill Partners, a private equity firm that invests in high-growth, disruptive companies. This infusion represents the single largest funding round in the digital identity space and speaks to the global importance of establishing a user’s identity remotely to defend against fraud and financial crime, comply with KYC and AML regulations and boost online conversions. They said that the investment will accelerate Jumio’s significant global lead in the digital identity space by devoting additional resources to automate its identity verification…
Against the backdrop of the cacophony of noise and emerging trends in Asia, it’s difficult even for the keenest of observers to determine what trends will shape the future of fintech in Asia. On the 6th episode of Fintech Fireside Asia, we were joined by Brett King, an inductee of CB Insights’ Fintech Hall of Fame and ardent futurist to shed some light on the matter. The following is a summary of the conversation between Brett and Vincent Fong, Chief Editor of Fintech News Malaysia. Is it True That Challenger Banks are Struggling? Xinja, a digital bank in Australia had…
Ripple announced the appointment of Brooks Entwistle as Managing Director of Southeast Asia to lead and scale the company’s operations in the region. Based out of Ripple’s Southeast Asia headquarters in Singapore, Brooks Entwistle brings three decades of senior management experience in both the financial services and technology industries, with the mission to drive digital asset and blockchain adoption in the region. His appointment comes at a time when the company is deepening and expanding its presence across this dynamic region for RippleNet, which includes 14 countries. Brooks was most recently the Chief Business Officer International at Uber, where he…