Author: Fintech News Singapore

Fresh out of their recent funding round of $US 20 Million, Singapore based remittance player announced the introduction of a new feature on its platform. This new service enables small business to make payments in multiple currencies in one go. This seems to be in line with their goals to launch more enterprises based products towards 2019. According to InstaReM, business users in Southeast Asia making regular overseas payments to vendors, suppliers and service providers, can now do so more quickly, transparently and at Zero-Margin FX Rates with InstaReM. Until recently, the business customers making multiple payments had to set…

Consumer banking is rapidly changing in Asia-Pacific (APAC) and banks must reinvent themselves amid changing regulations, emerging technology, elevated client expectations and the entry of disruptive competitors, according to a new article series by EY. Changing regulations The banking and financial landscape is quickly evolving in the region. Notably, policymakers in many markets are re-engineering the sector to promote competition and innovation to better serve the digital economy. One such regulatory impulse is Open Banking, which requires banks to share select customer data with third-party providers and permits them to initiate payments from customers’ to merchants’ bank accounts. For…

India’s fintech ecosystem has evolved significantly with considerable efforts from financial institutions, startups, the government, venture capitalists and regulators to create a favorable environment for fintech innovation that’s conducive of collaboration. According to a Yes Bank report, the transaction value for the Indian fintech sector was estimated to be approximately US$33 billion in 2016 and is forecast to reach US$73 billion in 2020 growing at a five-year CAGR of 22%. The following 10 companies are some of India’s hottest fintech startups that are fueling the country’s fintech revolution: PolicyBazaar PolicyBazaar, initially founded in 2008 as an information portal for…

The size of the Southeast Asian alternative financing market grew from US$46.65 million in 2015 to a whopping US$215.9 million the following year. That’s almost a fivefold leap in market value in just the span of a year, according to a study jointly conducted by the University of Cambridge and Monash University. The United Nations estimates that Southeast Asians make up approximately 659 million of the world’s population at the time of writing—and among these numbers, a plethora of them come from regions that have traditionally been underbanked or underserved during the days before the word ‘fintech’ made any sense. Without access to…

Artificial intelligence (AI), an umbrella term for a host of different technologies including machine learning and natural language, holds many promises in the banking industry. Analysts estimates that AI could save the industry more than US$1 trillion by 2030. While today’s AI is not yet ready to entirely replace humans, it will instead augment them, letting them move into more value-adding activities, freeing them from rote actions, making them more efficient, and performing calculations that would be physically impossible for a single person, according to a Celent report titled Artificial Intelligence in Banking: Where to Start? The current evolving AI…

Singapore’s fintech hub together with the emerging financial centers in China are a powerplay to become the world’s digital frontier in the financial services. With the support of their governments, many fintechs are threatening traditional banks in the Western world. This will create a new competitive environment with winners and losers. Why is that? After the financial crisis, Western banks where paralysed with lawsuits, fines and regulatory requirements. The lack of innovation paved the way for a new industry (fintech), focusing on data and clients that lost trust in large banks and their intransparent and complex financial products. Since everything…

As one of the most highly banked populations in Southeast Asia (Standing at 96.4% of banked adults at 2014), Singapore presents a unique ecosystem in the same region. This is part of why Singapore is popularly deemed as one of the fintech hubs of Asia. But it also means that Singaporean mobile payments platforms extend beyond just e-wallets that is gaining popularity among its neighbouring regions. For one thing, it’s been said that Singaporeans are slow to adopt similar advancements that have taken other regions by storm, simply because of force of habit. On the other hand, there is a wider…

Remittances to low and middle income countries grew rapidly and are projected to reach a new record in 2018, says the latest edition of the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief, released today. The Bank estimates that officially recorded remittances to developing countries will increase by 10.8 percent to reach $528 billion in 2018. Global Remittance Statistics Overview This new record level follows robust growth of 7.8 percent in 2017. Global remittances, which include flows to high-income countries, are projected to grow by 10.3 percent to $689 billion. Remittance flows rose in all regions, most notably in Europe and Central…

Following its entry into Cambodia in 2017, Grab seems likely to bring its e-payment app, GrabPay into Cambodia sometime in 2019 as part of the wallet’s Southeast Asian focus. Cambodia and Myanmar are said to be key considerations for GrabPay’s expansion according to Nikkei Asian Review. Grab would also expand into a range of other services that could hit Cambodia following its expansion into the country, like the recently announced cross-border wallet-to-wallet remittance service. Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam There is no definite timeline for Grab’s potential foray into both countries for now. Cambodia’s GDP has been rapidly increasing since the early 2000’s, and holds…

After Grab’s launch into Myanmar in 2017, the ride-hailing giant intends to follow-up with the expansion of their e-wallet GrabPay, in the ride-hailing giant’s ongoing Southeast Asia takeover strategy. GrabPay is considering Myanmar alongside Cambodia for expansion of its mobile payments service, along with a potential expansion of its range of business throughout ASEAN countries, as reported by Nikkei Asian Review. The move into Myanmar will likely also put the country on the map for the upcoming international wallet-to-wallet remittance service slated for launch in 2019. There is no definite timeline for Grab’s potential foray into both countries for now. However,…

Those not in the know often underestimate the number of hats that a startup founder has to wear when they embark on their journey. Not only will they have to be knowledgeable about the field they’ve ventured into, they also have to play the role of the accountant, marketing manager, developer, tester and sometimes, guinea pig for their product. Therefore, sometimes founders may find themselves spending more time on these various other tasks instead of working on their big idea. The rise of tech startups across the globe was the environment that allowed for the rise of accounting and invoicing…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the city state’s central bank and financial regulator, has released an update to its guide for businesses looking to raise money through initial coin offerings (ICOs). The paper, titled A Guide to Digital Token Offerings, provides guidance on the application of the securities laws in relation to offers or issues of digital tokens in Singapore and features case studies that put these regulatory requirements in perspective. In August 2017, MAS clarified that digital tokens that constitute capital markets products such shares, debentures, units in a business trust, securities-based derivatives contracts, or units in a…

2019 is right around the corner, which means we are near the end of an eventful year of fintech in Singapore. The Singapore Fintech Festival was probably the biggest one here yet, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has made some definitive pushes into big data, artificial intelligence, and the launch of an ASEAN-wide API to answer the global demand for open banking principles. More recently though, MAS has given an idea of their plans for the future, with a US$5 billion (SG$6.91 billion) worth private market programme allocated as its investment portfolio into the private markets asset class—a…

Go-Jek just announced the launch of its beta app in Singapore, which means that Singaporeans will be able to download Go-Jek on Android and iOS stores starting today. Since Uber’s exit of Southeast Asia, this will be a significant competition for Grab not just on the ride-hailing front, but the fintech front as well. There are more similarities to both companies than just (ride) hailing from Southeast Asia. Both have launched their own wallets, with GrabPay launching its GrabPay, while Go-Jek has its Go-Pay. Grab’s strategy to grow its wallet seems to focus on expanding its use case between food…

Revolut, a London-based fintech unicorn was just granted a license for operations in Singapore and Japan. The company has therefore confirmed that they are in the final stages of testing for launch in Asia Pacific in Q1 2019. Their Asia Pacific launch has been anticipated, with nearly 100,000 customers on the waiting list hailing from these regions. Revolut has been granted a Remittance License by the Monetary Authority of Singapore,  and will also be operating as a Stored Value Facility holder*, which will allow them to operate in the city-state. Revolut is also proactively working with the Singapore regulator to…

Fintech has become one of the key drivers of innovation in the financial services industry. In Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) was quick to realize the potential of fintech, acting swiftly to build up a vibrant ecosystem in the span of just a few years. Today, Singapore is witnessing diverse players including technology providers, banks, infrastructure providers, investors, startups, and learning institutions coming together to develop innovative solutions that solve real business issues. In exclusive interviews with Worldfolio, executives from five leading banks share their firms’ strategy in the digital age and how they’ve been collaborating with fintech…

SGInnovate just announced that they have invested into three deep tech startups: Horizon Quantum Computing, Involt and Portcast.  The announcement was made on the second anniversary of SGInnovate’s founding and one year after the announcement of its Deep Tech Nexus Strategy—a milestone that has seen SGInnovate invest in 45 deep tech startups, while building up a network of more than 50 local and international partners to grow Singapore’s deep tech ecosystem. The amount of investments put into each startup is undisclosed. The Startups That Received SGInnovate’s Investment Founded in January 2018, Horizon Quantum Computing is a quantum computing startup in Singapore.…

InstaReM, a digital cross-border payments company headquartered in Singapore, secured a first close of more than US$ 20 million led by new investors MDI Ventures (the VC arm of Indonesia’s Telkom), and Beacon Venture Capital (the VC arm of Thailand’s KASIKORNBANK). It supported by existing investors, Vertex Ventures, GSR Ventures, Rocket Internet and SBI-FMO Fund. The Series C round of US$ 45 million, which takes the digital remittance fintech’s overall funding to over US$ 63 million, is expected to close by January 2019, in advance of its expected IPO in 2021. With fresh funding InstaReM aims to accelerate growth existing…

Switzerland, which enjoys an international reputation as a reliable and innovative financial center, has emerged as a hotbed for fintech innovation in recent years. Today, innovative solutions from Swiss companies are in high demand in Singapore as Switzerland continues to sharpen its expertise in the rapidly growing area of fintech, according to Angela Di Rosa, senior consultant for Southeast Asia at Switzerland Global Enterprise (SGE). “Switzerland is a very innovative country. We have led the Global Innovation Index for several years. This is of course also reflected in Swiss Fintech companies,” Di Rosa told in a recent interview. “However, it is…

With the existence of such a huge region with huge swaths of unbanked and uninsured populations, investors are waking up to the potential that Asia has in fintech. According to Bain & Company, 2017 saw a sharp spike of recorded venture capital deals which quadrupled from its 2012 amount. Between now and 2019, over 60% of investors from Southeast Asia state technology will be their main focus, with fintech, in particular, being the largest sub-sector. And many regions have begun producing their own giants. This list of top-funded fintech companies were compiled based on disclosed values on Crunchbase (unless otherwise stated)…