Author: Fintech News Singapore

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting businesses of all sizes and in all industries. Around the world, fintechs are showing solidarity by deploying resources to help their community navigate the storm. Today, we look at some of the initiatives launched by fintechs in Asia to support their peers. Razer commits US$50 million to support business partners Global gaming hardware manufacturing company Razer has pledged to deploy up to US$50 million within 2020 to support its current and future business partners through the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The fund will be deployed through three main support arms within the…

Cambodia’s fintech industry is still nascent and though lacks behind its ASEAN neighbors including Singapore and Vietnam, the sector is growing steadily on the back of rapid adoption of digital payments and a large population of unbanked. As of early 2019, fintech was the largest tech category in Cambodia, with some 50 companies, according to a report by Mekong Strategic Partners and Raintree Development. The most represented subsegment was digital payments. To better understand Cambodia’s emerging fintech landscape, we look today at five fintech startups from the country to watch in 2020. For this list, we focus on homegrown fintech…

During February and March, as many countries imposed or strengthened social distancing measures due to COVID-19, a significant majority of consumers turned to contactless card payments for necessary purchases. Citing safety and cleanliness, 79 percent of people worldwide and 91 percent in Asia Pacific say they are now using tap-and-go payments. Consumer polling by Mastercard, studying changing consumer behaviors in 19 countries around the world, paints a picture of accelerated and sustained contactless adoption. The act of going to the store for eggs, toilet paper, medicine and other necessities has changed dramatically this year. Shoppers have had to adjust to…

AppsFlyer released its first edition of the State of Finance App Marketing report, which tracked 4.6 billion app installs across more than 3,000 different apps globally since H2 2017 to H2 2019, including the Southeast Asian markets of Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. The data found that finance apps has one of the highest growth rates across all apps, forming 4.5% of all apps installed globally, and almost doubling (87% growth) in the past year (from 2.4% in H2 2018 to 4.5% in H2 2019). Finance apps are especially installed in developing markets – Asia Pacific (APAC) saw a 106%…

Rapyd, a global Fintech as a Service company, announced today a major expansion of Rapyd Disburse, an industry-leading mass-payout platform. The company has made significant investments in the Rapyd Global Payments Network in Europe and the Americas, and now offers more payout methods in Asia than any other payout platform. A simplified user interface for clients to onboard is now available, so clients can begin to more quickly disburse funds locally or cross-border. By expanding core disbursement functionality and deeply integrating them with Rapyd’s Fintech as a service technology stack – Collect, Issuing and Wallet – businesses can now leverage a…

Singapore Management University (SMU) and Tradeteq will be embarking on a project which aims to develop quantum computing-based credit scoring methods for companies. This project is supported by the Monetary Authority of Singapore under the Financial Sector Technology & Innovation (FSTI) – Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (AIDA) Grant Scheme. SMU and Tradeteq’s objective for the project is to build a predictive machine learning model which has the potential to improve credit scoring accuracy. The model will be implemented on both a quantum computer and a simulated quantum computer. Quantum computers enable the processing of multiple pieces of data at…

Singapore-headquartered insurtech startup – Igloo (previously known as “Axinan”), announced today that it has successfully closed its Series A+ funding round, bringing its total funding to US$16 million. The insurtech firm works with leading e-commerce and travel players in Southeast Asia including Bhinneka, Bukalapak, Lazada, RedDoorz, Shippit, and Shopee, as well as regional insurance partners Allianz, Baoviet, FWD Singapore, Mercantile, and Sompo. Since the company was founded in 2016, Igloo said that its insurance products have already benefitted over 15 million customers, effectively protecting over 50 million transactions in the past year (February 2019 to February 2020). The categories include…

TransferWise has announced a partnership with cloud banking platform Mambu. Customers of Mambu, challenger and traditional banks alike, can now seamlessly access TransferWise’s technology infrastructure directly through the Mambu platform to offer cheap, fast and transparent international money transfers at the real exchange-rate. Mambu, which operates globally, including an Asia Pacific arm operating from offices in Singapore and Sydney, enables financial institutions to build new banking and lending experiences with its cloud banking platform. Mambu’s Asia Pacific customers include the likes of Nimble and Hay from Australia, Vietnamese commercial bank MSB, India’s ZestMoney and Singapore’s Cheers Paytech. The cloud banking…

With half of the world’s population under lockdown and governments around the world urging people to limit contact, some of the world’s biggest fintech events and conferences are being postponed or moved online. At the same time, an increasing number of webinars and online meetups are being hosted to keep industry participants engaged and provide networking opportunities in these dire times. For those stuck at home but who nevertheless want to keep up with the rapidly changing fintech landscape, we’ve compiled a list of the top fintech webinars to attend if you are located in an Asian time zone. Cyber…

Rapyd, a global Fintech as a Service company, today announced a new Solidarity Programme to help Singapore businesses quickly accept payments online with no fees until the end of June, enabling them to serve customers staying at home while reducing their costs, as Singapore battles the COVID-19 pandemic. Rapyd’s Solidarity initiative includes a full fee waiver (i.e. 0% Merchant Discount Rate and zero transaction fees) on the first S$100,000 in processing volumes for all newly onboarded merchants from now until the end of June 2020. While the programme is meant to provide meaningful support to startups, small businesses, non-profit organisations…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has launched the MAS SGD Facility for ESG Loans (the Facility) in partnership with Enterprise Singapore (ESG), to lend Singapore Dollars (SGD) at an interest rate of 0.1% per annum to eligible financial institutions, to support their lending to SMEs under the ESG Loan Schemes. The ESG Loan Schemes comprise the Enhanced Enterprise Financing Scheme – SME Working Capital Loan (EFS-WCL) and the Temporary Bridging Loan Programme (TBLP). The Facility will help financial institutions to make loans to SME borrowers more affordable. In pricing SME loans, financial institutions typically take into account their cost…

With Singapore set to deliver its first digital banking licenses later this year, the city-state is preparing for a new era in banking. In June 2019, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that it would issue up to five digital banking licenses in an effort to open up the banking sector and add market diversity. A total of 21 applications were submitted, MAS said in January, with bidders that include Ant Financial, ByteDance, Sea, as well as a Grab/Singtel consortium. Some analysts argue that the impact on established lenders will likely to be limited given that Singapore is already…

Ti&m, a leading Swiss IT provider and digital solution developer, has released a special magazine on artificial intelligence (AI), exploring the technology’s impact on the business world and addressing how companies should react to it. In the magazine, ti&m executives and experts share insight on what to expect and advise companies on how to prepare for the substantial changes AI is set bring in. In particular, the magazine addresses the need to reinvent banking, the impact of AI in the workplace, and why transparency will be critical for companies leveraging AI to gain customers’ trust. The following are eight takeaways from the…

DBS Bank announced today that it will be donating SGD 10.5 million to help communities hard hit by Covid-19 across the region. Through the “DBS Stronger Together Fund”, the bank will provide about 4.5 million meals and care packs to affected individuals across its six key markets, namely Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia and Taiwan. In India and Indonesia, where medical supplies are severely lacking, DBS will also fund the procurement of diagnostic test kits, ventilators and protective gear to help in the fight against Covid-19. In addition to its donations, across the region, DBS is also rallying employees…

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) granted authority to Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) to accept government funds to assist the social amelioration program under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act. RCBC is the first private universal bank permitted to aid in the efforts of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The Yuchengco-led bank is now allowed to accept deposits from the agency and help distribute emergency cash aid to beneficiaries though its digital platforms. Earlier, the BSP has also permitted the use of RCBC’s two digital platforms to help in the quick disbursement of the social…

Many financial institutions are already using cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for business processes, but 2020 is set to be the year that adoption accelerates, experts and industry participants say. Cloud computing: one of the biggest trends of 2020 Cloud computing has been named among 2020’s biggest fintech trends with public cloud poised to becoming the dominant infrastructure model, PwC says. Today, financial institutions are leveraging cloud for processes that might be considered non-core, but as application offerings improve, the technology is expected to become the way that core activity is processed, with deployment in areas such as consumer payments, credit…

Crealogix, announced the appointment of Karsten Kenma as the new Managing Director of Asia Pacific.  In his new role Karsten Kemna is responsible for the strategic development of CREALOGIX in this growth market. In this key position, he will continue to drive CREALOGIX’s group-wide expansion and transformation to become the leading global provider of Digital Banking SaaS software in the region. CREALOGIX considers Asia-Pacific to be one of its strategic key markets and is making far-reaching investments in order to strengthen the local organisation on a sustainable basis. Together with its vast partner network, the Swiss software company will address…

Fintech investment and M&A deals saw a sharp downswing in March due to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to a new report by investment bank Houlihan Lokey. In March, North America and Europe recorded 28 M&A deals in the fintech sector, representing a 45% decrease in deal activity against recent monthly averages and a 40% decrease year-over-year, the research says. The decline in M&A deals can be explained in part by the drop in share prices of strategic buyers, which are now shifting their focus to internal initiatives. Much like M&A activity, private capital activity towards fintechs in March was far…

OCBC Bank has become the first financial institution to bring Google Pay’s peer-to-peer (P2P) funds transfer service to Singapore. Singapore thereby is the third country aside from the United States and India where this service is available. With the integration of the Google Pay transaction services with OCBC Bank customer accounts, customers have since February 2020 had one more option for P2P transfers and payment for purchases. A flexible and multi-faceted digital payment capability is strategically important for any consumer bank today. Mr Ching Wei Hong, Head of Global Wealth Management & Consumer Banking at OCBC Bank, said: “OCBC has…

2C2P announced today that it has established an investment arm, 2C2P.VC, the formation of the investment arm is to make strategic investments in payments and related sectors, to further accelerate the growth of its omni-channel payments platform in Southeast Asia and beyond. 2C2P.VC will primarily focus on strategic partnerships and investments in complementary businesses that offer opportunities for further vertical integration and geographic expansion outside of 2C2P’s core markets. Aung Kyaw Moe, Founder & Group CEO of 2C2P, said, “We are excited to announce the launch of our own investment arm, which we see as a critical component of our…