Author: Fintech News Singapore

The Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) 2020 took place between December 7 to 11 this year, featuring a unique hybrid format that combined a 24-hour online platform with satellites events around the world. The 2020 week-long fintech gathering included more than 600 sessions over five days, 1,400 speakers, more than 1,000 exhibitors, 27 international pavilions, and more than 60,000 participants representing over 7,000 global companies from more than 130 countries. Like previous years, Singapore Fintech Festival 2020 saw several major announcements being made, including product launches, fintech partnerships, and updates on key initiatives These exciting news come on the heels of…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced the results of the MAS Global FinTech Innovation Challenge 2020. The MAS Global FinTech Innovation Challenge comprises 2 distinct competitions; MAS Global FinTech Hackcelerator and MAS FinTech Awards with a total cash prize of S$1,750,000. Under the theme of “Building Resilience, Seizing Opportunities, Emerging Stronger”, three winners for the Global FinTech Hackcelerator and twelve winners for the MAS FinTech Awards have been selected for their solutions that address the challenges faced by the financial industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Both awards were handed out at the Singapore FinTech…

Snowdrop Solutions unveiled a partnership with Visa to provide location-enriched services to banks and financial services firms throughout the Asia Pacific region, enabling consumers to better see and understand where they spend their money. The two companies said they would work together to distribute Snowdrop’s technologies and services to Visa’s existing banking customers in order to meet the accelerating demand for new customer-centric banking services across the region. This announcement follows a similar partnership announced by Visa and Snowdrop in Europe several months ago. Today, many consumers are confused when reviewing their card transactions. Often, they do not recognise the…

DBS announced that it will set up a digital exchange with Singapore Exchange (SGX) holding a 10% stake, enabling investors to tap into a fully integrated tokenisation, trading and custody ecosystem for digital assets. Crypto trading activities is said to start as early as next week. They shared the platform will be operating during Asian trading hours from 9:00 am to 5:00pm. Loh Boon Chye, CEO of SGX, said, “We are excited to apply our strengths in market infrastructure and risk management to this venture. There are significant opportunities to bring trust and efficiency in price discovery to the global…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) has signed a Co-operation Agreement (CA) to strengthen cooperation in fintech innovation between Singapore and Hungary. The CA sets out a framework for fintech collaboration between both countries. It will put in place a referral mechanism to help fintech firms access each other’s markets. MAS and MNB have also committed to exchange views on emerging market trends and developments in fintech, as well as regulatory issues on financial services innovation. The CA will also facilitate joint innovation projects between MAS and MNB. Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer, MAS…

Bangkok Bank PLC announced the launch of its Thai language Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered chatbot that was built in-house in a joint collaboration with Singapore-based fintech startup Pand.ai. The chatbot called TT01 was a result of Bangkok Bank’s innovation programme, InnoHub. The development began earlier this year and the chatbot was fully completed in October. The solution will be available to clients of Pand.ai. Meanwhile, Bangkok Bank will use this as a digital sales assistant on LINE for their sales and relationship managers, scheduled to launch in Q1 2021. This adds to Pand.ai’s growing portfolio of languages available on its…

Despite disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, four in five fintech firms in ASEAN will push ahead with their expansion plans in the next two years, this is according to a report by UOB, PwC and the Singapore Fintech Association. The optimism comes on the back of the accelerated trend in digital adoption across ASEAN amid the pandemic, with more than 40 million new internet users this year. Seventy percent of the ASEAN population today use the internet and this is expected to continue to increase in the next decade as digital services such as online marketplaces become commonplace.…

Mastercard and Pine Labs will launch their integrated “pay later” solution in five more South East Asian markets early next year. This will offer consumers the flexibility of zero-interest instalments on purchases, expand business for merchants and connect banks, fintechs, payment gateways and device makers to a rapidly growing financing alternative. By combining the expertise and technology assets of Mastercard and Pine Labs, an India-based provider of retail point of sale (POS) solutions, the expansion adds to their existing “pay later” partnership in India and Malaysia that started in early 2020. The solution will be rolled out in Thailand and…

Insurance is a crucial aspect of every individual’s financial planning, while much of the world has been focusing on how to get more people insured, little discussions have been had surrounding the pain points and inefficiencies of the insurance claim process. There’s a lot of anxiety during this process, while dealing with his or her medical conditions the individual is also faced with uncertainty over their claimable amount. Hospitals have to access multiple systems to request or provide information to different insurers and what’s worse is that some of the processes are still paper-based. In recognition of these issues Ravi…

Mastercard, in partnership with MatchMove, a Singapore-based ‘Banking-as-a-Service’ provider and Tappy Technologies, a wearable payment integrator, have introduced tokenisation into a small, flexible chip which can be attached to a range of battery-less wearables and accessories such as watchstraps or keyrings, turning them into secure contactless payments devices. MatchMove cardholders can now add their Mastercard to this payment chip by placing the wearable or the accessory on a Bluetooth-connected device developed by Tappy Technologies. After downloading the Tappy app and following the in-app instructions, the MatchMove Mastercard will be tokenised via Mastercard’s Digital Enablement Service (MDES) into the secure payment…

During the Singapore Fintech Festival 2020, Ravi Menon, Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that the regulator has made significant headway in the linkage between Singapore’s and Thailand’s national payment systems; PayNow and PromptPay respectively. Monetary Authority of Singapore and Bank of Thailand embarked on this journey three years ago, and it is anticipated that by mid-2021 anyone registered with PayNow or PromptPay will be able to send money from Singapore to Thailand or vice versa, using just their mobile numbers. Ravi added that this will be secure, instant and at competitive rates at any time of the…

In financial services, the growing number of fintech startups and incumbents’ late-to-the-game focus on technology has led to some of the fiercest competition of any industry. Banks are throwing multi-billion-dollar technology budgets into digital transformation initiatives, while fintech brands are racing to build out more products. Fintechs still have key advantages over financial services incumbents. They can spin up new experiences at a much faster speed, thanks to modern technology stacks and more nimble team structures. But, many fintechs lack the brand reputation and customer base needed to compete effectively with the giants, which continue to dominate market share. When…

SIX Digital Exchange, a Swiss-based end-to-end platform for digital assets, and SBI Digital Asset Holdings (SBI) announced plans for a digital asset exchange based in Singapore set to go live by 2022. The contemplated venture is set to formalise Singapore operations in 2021, with ambitions to launch into market with active offerings by 2022 or earlier, with international connectivity to respective Swiss, Japanese businesses and other partnerships to follow. This is subject to regulatory approvals from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The venture will market directly to regulated institutional clients, utilising technologies from both companies to provide institutional grade services…

The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have signed a partnership to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) leverage technology to better access global value chains. The partnership will provide SMEs with innovative financial and digital tools to help them better leverage data and more effectively access financing solutions. It will also create new opportunities for SMEs, including fintechs, to expand to developing countries within the UNDP’s global network of 170 offices. This partnership will start by bringing together three successful programmes from UNDP and MAS,…

Singapore Exchange (SGX) and HSBC have jointly emerged as the winner for the Financial Services category at the inaugural Digital Transformation Award (DX Award) at this year’s SwissCham Business Excellence Awards. SGX and HSBC received the award for creating a distributed ledger technology-enabled financial market infrastructure. There were a total of 43 applications across five subcategories; Financial Services, B2B, Advanced Manufacturing, Product Digitalisation, and Process Digitalisation. Shine Precision received the overall award and won the Advanced Manufacturing subcategory. Meanwhile Firmenich, SWAT Mobility, and Taiger were announced as the winners for the B2B, Product Digitalisation and Process Digitalisation subcategories respectively. The winner…

Singapore-based fintech startup Rely announced it has secured a facility from Polaris, the strategic partnerships arm of Goldbell Financial Services, to process transactions of up to S$100 million. This will enable them to expand their Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) service to new merchants in Singapore. After raising an undisclosed seven figure sum in a pre-series A round with Goldbell Financial Services and the Octava Foundation last year, Rely’s new S$100 million capacity is an extension of its goal to scale operations and forge partnerships with major retailers in Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea. “By coupling Rely’s data acquisition capabilities…

Despite the challenges and disruptions of COVID-19, the regional Financial Services Industry (FSI) has continued to forge ahead and accelerate the pace of digitisation in response to the pandemic, according to the joint study by Microsoft and IDC. Unveiling the FSI findings of the culture of innovation study in conjunction with Singapore Fintech Festival 2020, the Microsoft and IDC’s study found that more than 6 in 10 (66%) FSI organisations are accelerating digitisation of their businesses. This figure rises to 86% amongst FSI leaders, organisations who have the most mature culture of innovation, defining their ability to drive sustained innovation.…

Google Cloud announced the appointment of Ruma Balasubramanian as Managing Director for South East Asia. She will be responsible for driving go-to-market strategy, key customer and partner relationships, and operational execution in this fast growing market. Working with a team across Google, she will also be focused on helping accelerate customers’ ability to digitally transform through data-powered innovation with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Google Workspace. Ruma joins Google Cloud from Cisco Systems. At Cisco, she led numerous transformation initiatives and drove sales outcomes for strategic customers and partners in the banking, manufacturing, retail, higher education, and healthcare sectors across…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) launched the Singapore Financial Data Exchange (SGFinDex), which will enable Singaporeans to consolidate their financial information for more effective financial planning. The launch was announced by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies and Minister for Finance, Singapore during his opening address at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2020. SGFinDex claims to be the world’s first public digital infrastructure to use a national digital identity and centrally managed online consent system to enable individuals to access, through applications, their financial information…

The Singapore Blockchain Ecosystem Report 2020 was launched at this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival x Singapore Week of Innovation and TeCHnology (SFF x SWITCH). The report highlights the impactful developments and trends in Singapore’s blockchain ecosystem over the past year. The report was co-presented by OpenNodes, Temasek, IBM, PwC Singapore, EY, and SGTech, and supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It highlights Singapore’s blockchain research landscape with active contributions from both academic institutions and private sector. The report also showcases how COVID-19 has accelerated the application of blockchain technology, which is being used to…