IBM and the Thailand Blockchain Community Initiative (BCI) jointly announced that its electronic letter of guarantee (eLG) platform and network is now extending the scope and reach of its services and network to businesses of all sizes. The extended capabilities on the BCI blockchain platform include equipping its network with true hybrid cloud and multi-vendor capabilities, disaster recovery and multi-region high availability. Commercial banks in Thailand manually issue guarantee letters worth billions of dollars to businesses annually as part of their guarantee process in case a buyer defaults. The negotiation between buyer, seller and bank can take up to nine…
Author: Fintech News Singapore
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Until now, consumer fintech has been all the rage, but recent funding rounds and exits including Plaid’s US$5.3 billion sale to Visa, Social Finance (SoFi)’s US$1.2 billion acquisition of Galileo, and nCino’s initial public offering (IPO), might very well indicate that 2020 will be the year of business-to-business (B2B) fintech, according to Patricia Kemp, co-founder and managing partner at venture growth equity fund Oak HC/FT. Modern B2B fintech has evolved and matured since it first started in the early 2000s with companies mainly focused on payments and banking-as-a-service such as PayPal and MarketAxess. In the 2020s, the market will see…
Shopee, e-commerce platform, and Visa announced a five-year regional strategic partnership intended to encourage greater participation in South East Asia’s digital economy. They added that this partnership is part of Shopee’s mission to better the lives of individuals and businesses through technology, which increasingly includes digital payments. As part of the regional agreement, the two entities will partner to incentivise MSMEs to digitalise their business on Shopee and adopt digital payments through Visa. They will provide MSMEs with marketing and campaign support to drive awareness, traffic and sales to online stores. Shopee said it will be able to provide shoppers and merchants…
CREALOGIX’s online event Open Innovation Day 2020 had over 700 people registering from 40 different countries as the topic of innovation in digital banking is a high priority across the globe. From the discussions, the sense of urgency came across loud and clear as consumers’ tastes and expectations are changing rapidly, they are setting the pace and financial institutions must race to keep up. Learning to listen One theme that was raised constantly was to listen to the customers. This is more than just systematically tracking consumer behaviour. The keynote speaker Ramesh Sankar, Group Head of Digital Channels at DBS…
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced today that it has directed Wirecard entities in Singapore (Wirecard SG) to cease their payment services in Singapore and to return all customers’ funds by 14 October 2020. MAS said that it has been monitoring the impact of Wirecard AG’s insolvency on the ability of Wirecard SG to continue providing payment services in Singapore. They added that they have closely engaged Wirecard SG in recent months to safeguard the interest of Wirecard SG’s customers. This includes requiring Wirecard SG to keep customers’ funds in banks in Singapore and to assist customers to switch…
United Overseas Bank (UOB) has teamed up with Visa to tap its new application programming interface (API), claiming to be the first bank in the world to do so. This partnership will enable customers to add their Visa credit and debit cards securely into popular apps using UOB Mighty, without the need for a physical card. The bank has built an ecosystem with partners such as Fave, Fitbit Pay, Grab, Shopee, Singapore Airlines, SP Group and Visa to simplify the way in which their customers make digital payments and redeem rewards points. Kunal Chatterjee, Visa Country Manager for Singapore and Brunei,…
The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) announced that all of the nine participating PayNow banks will allow ad-hoc transactions of at least S$5,000 or more. This will enable customers to use PayNow, an electronic fund transfer service, for a wider scope of payments to merchants and friends. The higher limit applies to PayNow on both internet banking and mobile application channels, and includes both scan-and-pay transactions and transfers initiated by entering the NRIC, mobile number, or Unique Entity Number (UEN) of the recipient, without first going through the process of adding the recipient as a payee. Customers will be…
Open banking, one of the hottest topics in financial services today, is bringing in new challenges and risks that both traditional financial institutions and fintech companies must address swiftly, said Frederik Mennes, director of product security at cybersecurity firm OneSpan. In a recent conversation with Finextra, Mennes identified three major security risks brought in by open banking that incumbents and digital banks alike must tackle. The first risk, Mennes said, relates to the fact that open banking requires financial institutions to open up their IT systems and share data with third-party providers (TPPs). “It’s very important that only licensed, authorized…
Following in the footsteps of the European Union, ASEAN is moving towards having its very own Single European Payments Area (SEPA)-style payments network, making Southeast Asia a global focal point for cross-border real-time payments growth, according to a new report by ACI Worldwide and fintech market research and consulting firm Kapronasia. The research, titled Envisioning a pan-regional real-time payment ecosystem in Southeast Asia, looks into the real-time payments landscape across Southeast Asia and the broader Asia Pacific (APAC) region, and delves into the different national payments networks currently in operation. The real-time payments landscape in Southeast Asia The past decade…
Razer Fintech, the financial arm of Razer Inc., has partnered with Singapore-based lifestyle marketing SaaS (Software as a Service) platform, Perx Technologies, to enhance its mobile-first customer engagement in the financial services industry. This partnership will purportedly enable Razer Fintech to redefine the banking experience for its users, especially its target demographic with its aim to build a virtual bank dubbed the “Youth Bank”. The partnership comes on the heels of the news earlier this year that Razer is gearing up for a digital banking license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. While leveraging on Razer’s following amongst the gaming…
Google has launched its all-in-one peer-to-peer funds transfer service in Singapore in order to streamline transactions from different banks on one platform with via its PayNow feature. Customers of DBS PayLah!, OCBC Bank and Standard Chartered can link their bank accounts to Google Pay to transfer funds to anyone in Singapore through PayNow. They can also pay their favourite merchants through UEN or PayNow QR codes. App users on Android and iOS devices can send and receive money even if the recipient is not on Google Pay. This integration helps Singaporeans who have more than one bank account to streamline…
Fintech unicorn TransferWise announced that its annual revenue had grown by 70%, hitting a profit of £302.6 million (S$531.65m) for the past financial year. TrnasferWise recorded a net profit of £21.3 million (S$37.42m) for fiscal year ending March 2020. The business has consistently reported a profit since 2017. Customers sending money from Europe contributed 52% of TransferWise’s overall revenue. The US business, launched in 2015, now contributes 26% of revenue. The remaining 22% is attributed to the rest of the world including APAC, which is TransferWise’s fastest growing region. Its worth noting that in July this year, the fintech firm…
Singapore-based digital wealth manager Syfe announced that it has successfully closed a SG$25.2 million (US$18.6 million) Series A funding round led by fintech venture capital fund Valar Ventures. Other participants in the round include Presight Capital, and existing investor Unbound, the UK-based investment firm that led Syfe’s seed funding round in July 2019. This latest capital injection will allow Syfe to enter new markets, develop new products and services, hire top talent, and enhance Syfe’s technology platform to continue delivering better user experience. Dhruv Arora, Founder and CEO, Syfe, said: “This fundraising is a pivotal moment in Syfe’s journey and…
At the 2020 Huawei Developer Conference held earlier this week, fintech influencer, best-selling author, and entrepreneur Brett King joined the finance tech.session to talk about the role of technology to improve financial inclusion and shared his views on how banking will look like in the years to come. In light of this, AppGallery has been growing rapidly as it pushes to onboard more financial partners and attract banking apps from different regions. In particular, the app marketplace is seeing strong demand coming from users looking for apps that allow users to manage their finances with their local banks and financial…
Standard Chartered Bank has launched Standard Chartered Places (SC Locate), a new banking enhancement that maps out where users spend their money. Built in partnership with market leaders Google Maps Platform and Snowdrop Solutions, SC Locate will enable the bank’s retail clients to visualise their expenses in an interactive and intuitive way on its digital banking platforms. What is said to be a first in Singapore, this new enhancement will turn confusing transaction information into clean, easily identifiable places shown on a Google map with real-time notifications. It will also include related logos and categories for major brands, including both…
As a catalyst for digitalization, COVID-19 will further help improve financial inclusion in emerging economies, according to Wissam Khoury, head of international at Finastra. Home to an unbanked population of about 1 billions, Asia has experienced a boom in fintech adoption on the back of a rising Internet penetration rate and the ubiquity of mobile phones. In Thailand, 74% of Internet users access banking through mobile devices, well ahead of the global rate of 41%. In Indonesia, e-money transactions skyrocketed 173% from January 2019 to January 2020. And in Vietnam, though cash remains king, digital payments have surged, jumping 144%…
From September 10 to 12, 2020, Huawei Consumer Business Group (BG) held the annual Huawei Developer Conference. Themed HDC.Together, the event saw multiple announcements being made, including the launch of new products, as well as updates on the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem. Huawei’s developer community and app ecosystem The HMS ecosystem has grown to now counting some 1.8 million developers worldwide, doubling that of last year’s Huawei Developer Conference. This figure makes the HMS ecosystem the third largest mobile ecosystem in the world, Zhang Ping’an, president of consumer cloud service at the Huawei Consumer Business Group, said during his…
When it comes to saving habits, Singaporean Gen Zs (aged 18 – 23) are savvier than their millennial counterparts (aged 24 – 39), a survey by personal finance website SingSaver found. Conducted across August and September, the survey analysed 1,000 responses from these two demographics across Singapore to better understand their saving habits, investing habits and financial knowledge. The survey found a whopping 85% of Gen Zs started saving before the age of 22, while just 41% of millennials did the same. It also appears that younger Singaporeans have more determination when it comes to budgeting, as 65% of Gen…
Collectius, a credit management servicing company, will launch a US$60 million regional investment platform with IFC, a member of the World Bank Group who has also become a minority equity shareholder in the company. The platform is solely dedicated to acquiring and resolving unsecured debt in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and soon Vietnam. The new initiative is IFC’s first in Asia and aims to sustain the financial stability of the economy by supporting regional banks to strengthen their balance sheets by outsourcing the management of their NPLs, assisting debtors with their credit requirements and rehabilitating the debtor’s financial position.…
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has partnered with vertical payments company Flywire to offer a fully integrated, digital payment platform for their international students. The payee can simply choose their preferred payment method either through bank transfer, credit card or e-wallet, in their local currency, which is translated at competitive exchange rates – minimising unnecessary bank charges and delays. Users will also have access to multilingual customer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with multiple channels of communication. NTU Singapore has been embarking on a digital transformation of its administration since 2018 to meet the university’s…