Author: Fintech News Singapore

London-based B2B cross-border payments platform Currencycloud announced that it has secured an additional US$ 80 million in funding. As part of its Series E funding round, Currencycloud received new backing from leading global institutions such as Visa, International Finance Corporation (a member of the World Bank Group), BNP Paribas, SBI Group and Siam Commercial Bank. Existing backers Sapphire Ventures, Notion Capital, GV, Accomplice, and Anthemis, also participated in the round. The latest round brings the company’s total funding to over $140 million. According to their media statement, Currencycloud will use the capital to strengthen its position as the market leader…

Digital banking software provider, Backbase, has today announced the launch of its new regional headquarters in Singapore. Their regional centre in Singapore is intended to strengthen its footprint within the region to ensure greater proximity to their clients in Asia Pacific. Headquartered in Netherlands, Backbase’s digital-first omni-channel banking platform is used by major banks like Citibank, HSBC, Barclays, and Goldman Sachs. Commenting on their launch , CEO, Backbase said, “We’re excited to join the fintech ecosystem in APAC, building momentum for the exciting work we’re doing. But most importantly, our new APAC office brings us so much closer with our…

Singapore-headquartered superapp Grab has begun offering loans and credit lines to businesses in the city state. Under the GrabFinance brand, the tech company is now providing local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with quick and accessible funding. Business owners can apply online and borrow up to S$100,000 with interest rates as low as 0.7% a month. There is no security deposits required and loan sizes are calculated based on their current financial standing. Ride-hailing giant Grab launched SME lending as well as micro-insurance for drivers in Singapore in March 2019, announcing at the same time its Grow with Grab roadmap.…

The underbanked in Singapore, which includes hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who remit funds as a basic necessity, are often excluded from fintech innovation, unable to access the full benefits of digital services due to a lack of digital means to pay. Thanks to the Pay2Home and 7-Eleven Singapore partnership, those without a bank account, debit card or the confidence to use either, may now initiate a remittance transaction using the Pay2Home mobile app and pay instantly with a generated QR-code bill using cash at any 7-Eleven store. The transaction is available for immediate delivery overseas. Through this partnership,…

Home to 39% of all fintechs in ASEAN, Singapore is the fintech leader in Asia Pacific (APAC) and the fourth top fintech city in the world, according to the inaugural Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020 report. Like previous years, Singapore will be hosting some of the region’s biggest fintech events in 2020. The following 19 conferences are some of the most anticipated fintech gatherings to take place this year in the city state. The Future of Banking – Is the Future of Banking Fully Digital? January 15, 2020 SPECTRUM, 3 Fraser Street #05-21 In partnership with the Singapore…

Following the success of last year’s DBS QR Ang Baos which saw over SGD 1.5 million loaded during Chinese New Year in 2019, DBS is reintroducing an enhanced version which includes new functions that they say will deliver greater convenience and ease of use to customers. With the revamped function, comes a new name as well, the loadable QR solution has since been renamed to DBS QR Gift. First piloted during Chinese New Year in 2019, DBS’ solution enables users to load desired amount of cash onto the QR code using its e-wallet DBS PayLah!. This year’s DBS QR Gift…

Grab and Chubb announced today the launch of Travel Cover — an on-demand travel insurance service that Grab users can purchase within the app. The product is distributed by GrabInsure Insurance Agency, Grab Financial Group’s insurance platform. Starting from today, a new insurance tile will be added on the Grab app, allowing Singapore-based customers to purchase Travel Cover from just S$2.50/day for travel to any destination globally. The first 20,000 customers can purchase Travel Cover at a discounted price of just S$1/day till 29 February for trips within the Asia Pacific region. Travel Cover will be rolled out to other Grab…

Thailand’s oldest bank has partnered with Ripple to create SCB Easy—a mobile application that runs on Ripple to deliver instant, low-cost cross-border payments. Eight of the top ten countries using mobile payments can be found in Asia. According to a recent survey conducted by PwC, a staggering 86% of the population in China use mobile payment apps and in Thailand, it’s as high as 67% of the population. As the overseas workforce and tourism continue to grow in the region, people continue to look for better ways to send and receive funds across borders. “It is so difficult to send and…

In 2019, Singapore continued to pursue its ambition to become the world’s first Smart Nation with a leading Smart Financial Centre, inking partnerships with international peers, launching nationwide initiatives to further development and adoption of cutting-edge technologies, and introducing new regulations to foster innovation. Singapore’s fintech companies attracted big money last year with fintech investment soaring 69% to US$735 million in the first nine months of 2019, according to a research by Accenture. The number of deals fell by almost one-third to 94 from 133 in the same prior-year period, showing that investors made larger bets into fewer deals as…

Leading fintech Tranglo Pte Ltd announced a collaboration with Alipay, the world’s leading payment and lifestyle platform, to provide cross-border remittance that brings more convenient and inclusive services to consumers globally. Tranglo said the deal marked a significant milestone in the company’s history, as it enters a collaboration for the first time with Alipay, which is operated by Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of Alibaba Group. Alipay currently serves more than 1.2 billion users around the world together with its local e-wallet partners. Licensed and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to perform remittance business, Tranglo maintains far-reaching remittance…

Regtech, the younger cousin of fintech has quickly risen out of fintech’s shadow and stand on its own two feet. In Asia, this is perhaps no more apparent than it is in Singapore. Not purely a compliance play Regtech involves a whole gamut of solutions which is chiefly aimed at solving regulatory challenges through technology. However one would be mistaken to think that its sole purpose is compliance, in some instances RegTech can actually enable superior customer experience. Take for example DBS’s new banking service which enables their wealth clients to interact with DBS relationship managers through Whatsapp and WeChat.…

TransferWise announced today that they have become the first international money transfer service to allow Singapore customers to receive money using just a mobile number. For Singaporeans with a PayNow profile, receiving international transfers can be done by providing just their name and mobile number to the sender, while businesses that want to receive money can simply share their name and PayNow Unique Entity Number (UEN). All Singaporean individuals and businesses looking to receive money from abroad can benefit from this move. They include: Singaporeans who need to receive money from a friend or family member abroad but find it…

Singapore’s cybersecurity industry is growing strong, with now some 105 unique startups, according to the Innovation Cybersecurity Ecosystem at Block71 (ICE71)’s latest Singapore Cybersecurity Community Map. Singapore Cybersecurity Startup Map These startups operate in cybersecurity and associated fields including information privacy, cyber threat intelligence, and email/ mobile/ cloud/ network/ Internet-of-Things (IoT) security. According to the map, risk and compliance is one of the most developed segments in Singapore’s cybersecurity startup ecosystem with companies such as Swarmnetics, a startup delivering security testing services, Threatspan, a business that manages cyber risk for the shipping and maritime industry, and Phishnow, a phishing…

Over the last five years, the Indian fintech industry has reached new heights both in terms of funding received and fintech adoption. This year, India is neck and neck with China on consumer fintech adoption with both their percentage of fintech users at 87%, according to EY’s Global Fintech Adoption Index 2019, and in Q2 2019, India surpassed China in terms of deal count with 23 fintech investments compared with 15 for China. India’s booming fintech industry is also visible through the number of fintech startups founded in recent years. Between January 2013 and October 2018, a total of 1,994…

Fintechs need fintechs. In order to embed a tech company within high functioning infrastructure, it’s going to be dependent on some other services. This is good news because it saves time, money and can increase the efficiency of operations and management; but what are some of the useful service providers available to fintechs in Singapore? This article will cover just a few that can be useful for almost any type of fintech startup. Papayaglobal.com (Payroll Service) If we look at Fintech start-ups with a global footprint it’s necessary to perform accounting and payroll tasks to stay on top of legislative…

Asia’s banking landscape is on the verge of a major transformation as regulators introduce new rules to open up the market and welcome new digital-only, challenger banks. The following list aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Asia’s challenger banks landscape. These companies are leveraging cutting-edge technologies to allow customers to open accounts in just minutes, manage their finances through a mobile app, and get loans easily and rapidly. The list excludes digital banks wholly-owned or operated by a traditional bank. These include UOB’s TMRW Bank from Thailand, digital banks by Malaysia’s Maybank and CIMB operating in countries such as…

In Asia Pacific (APAC), #blockchain was in the top five most used hashtags around banking this year, with respondents in Malaysia being more likely than those in other countries to vote it as the most transformative of 2020, according to a new research paper by Brandwatch, a digital consumer intelligence company. In a report titled Consumer Trends for 2020: APAC Edition, the company looks at social data and results of a survey of 8,000 people across the world to determine the major consumer trends to watch out for in 2020. According to the report, blockchain was amongst this year’s top…

50% of financial authorities in Southeast Asia have developed regtech initiatives, showcasing a wider trend among regulators across the region as these increasingly turn to technology to help them adapt to the changing financial services landscape, according to a new report by the University of Cambridge. Around the world, regulatory innovation has become increasingly common. In Southeast Asia, financial regulators have begun turning to technology to address the challenge of rapidly changing financial services markets, according to a new report titled The ASEAN Fintech Ecosystem Benchmarking Study jointly produced by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at Cambridge Judge Business…

Technology is transforming all aspects of the financial services industry including asset and wealth management industry. Over the past couple of years, new companies have entered the industry offering advice based on artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, micro-investment platforms, or trading solutions based on social networks. In Asia, the wealthtech industry remains underdeveloped when compared to markets such as the US and the UK, but the region is set to leapfrog its developed counterparts, fueled by its young, tech-savvy population, a rising middle class, as well as the ubiquity of mobile. 2019 is coming to an end and we…

The Southeast Asia Internet Economy Report 2019 by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company predicts that Indonesia’s digital economy will more than triple to US$133 billion in 2025, driven largely by increasing acceptance by its more than 260 million population. In the four years between 2015 and 2019, the number of internet users in the archipelago rose from 92 million to a whopping 150 million. By Kaspar Situmorang* Rather than becoming a victim of disruption, traditional banks in Indonesia must evolve digitally if they hope to continue to be a driver of the Indonesian economy. The opportunity here for banks…