The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced a series of moves to boost fintech development in the city-state and strengthen ties with other Asian countries. This came shortly after MAS wrapped up its inaugural Singapore Fintech Festival, during which the authority made a number of announcements such as the government’s financial support to startups and firms for proof-of-concept trials, as well as its collaboration with fintech startup R3 to join its blockchain consortium. Streamlining regulations In a speech during the Fintech Festival, which ran between November 14 and 18, 2016, Ravi Menon, managing director of MAS, said that the…
Author: Fintech News Singapore
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A combination of fresh salary budget data for the coming year and industry sector feedback points to a shortage of tech talent in the financial sector, which is helping salary budgets for talent in digital roles hold steady amid broader weakness across other industries, particularly the banking sector, according to leading global advisory, broking and solutions company Willis Towers Watson. Business in all its forms is becoming more data- and technology-driven, and banking is no exception – increasingly it’s a fusion of finance and technology. In the competition for talent, it is technology rather than finance that increasingly holds sway.…
Read here all the important fintech news around Vietnam for November. Gobi leads $800K funding in Captii-backed Vietnamese fintech OnOnPay Hanoi-based top-up service firm OnOnPay has landed an $800,000 pre-Series A funding led by Shanghai-headquartered VC firm Gobi Partners in just over a year since it raised seed funding from Malaysia’s Captii Ventures. The pre-Series A proceeds will be used for customer acquisition strategies and developing OnOnPay platform, the company said in a statement. Amazon Comes To Vietnam Soon, the e-commerce giant retailers like Amazon International, Alibaba, eBay… will attack Vietnam market aggressively. If domestic enterprises aren’t connected strongly and…
Credit China FinTech Holdings Limited , an integrated fintech service provider in China, announced that the Group intends to acquire approximately 51% of the enlarged issued share capital in Amigo Technologies Joint Stock Company (“Amigo Technologies”) at a consideration of approximately USD12.73 million, equivalent to a valuation of approximately USD25 million. Established in January 2005, Amigo Technologies is principally engaged in the provision of IT services and solutions for personalised financial services in Vietnam. It is currently a strategic partner of many of the world’s leading providers of IT solutions and devices including IBM, HP, Dell, Oracle and Microsoft. It…
Based in Singapore, FundedHere is an equity and lending-based crowdfunding platform that connects investors with promising startups in Asia looking to raise between S$100,000 and S$1 million. Founded in 2015, FundedHere aims at helping good entrepreneurial ideas getting funded whilst offering attractive return for investors. FundedHere is the first Singapore home-grown crowdfunding platform of its kind, offering both equity and lending-based crowdfunding. Equity financing essentially refers to the sale of an ownership interest to raise fund for business purposes. Such share holdings will entitle them to future capital gains as well as dividends declared by the startups. Lending-based crowdfunding allows…
The Asian Private Banker Technology Awards are awarded to the tech industry’s most innovative and practical companies. The Technology Awards Luncheon and Champagne Reception will be held in February 2017 and celebrates the end of another challenging and rewarding year of private banking innovation and technological change by those leading the effort to transform private banking and wealth management in Asia. Winners of the Asian Private Banker Technology Awards 2016 Best Provide of Front-to-back Wealth Suit Solutions Temenos Group AG is a company specialising in software for financial services, with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The group was initially…
The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that they will collaborate to establish an Asia Pacific (APAC) Regional Intelligence and Analysis Centre to encourage regional sharing and analysis of cybersecurity information within the financial services sector. This Singapore-based Intelligence Centre is expected to begin operations in the first half of 2017. The establishment of the Centre will strengthen the APAC cybersecurity ecosystem by providing deeper capabilities in cyber intelligence gathering and analysis for enhanced in-region intelligence support. The Centre will employ local analysts who will monitor cyber threats to member…
TransferTo, a B2B cross-border mobile payments network, has appointed Sandra Hua Yao to lead TransferTo’s business operations in East Africa. The appointment is part of the company’s continued geographic expansion to support its global strategy and grow TransferTo’s presence in the emerging markets. Sandra Hua Yao, Vice President, Business Development joins from the National Bank of Kenya where she led the bank’s digital transformation and new business acquisition of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment. Prior to joining the National Bank of Kenya, Sandra led the mobile payment team for Orange Money where she oversaw business transformation and a strategy shift for…
Jungle Ventures announced the final close of its second fund on target at US$100million. The new fund is ten times larger than Jungle’s first fund, raised in 2012 – and has established it as one of the largest early stage venture capital (VC) firms in the region. Support from existing investors was strong and new investor interest was largely driven by demand from institutions and strategic family offices from Asia and the U.S. The investor base is well diversified and includes names such as Temasek Holdings, International Finance Corporation, National Research Foundation of Singapore, Hubert Burda Media as well as leading…
Four months after it offered its crowdfunding platform to companies listed on the Singapore Exchange (“SGX”) to raise funds through short-term bonds (“ListCo Bonds”), FundedHere announced that Metech International Ltd (“Metech”) has become the first company to do so. Metech is issuing S$2 million worth of ListCo Bonds at an annual coupon rate of 8%, with a 24-month tenure. The company will use the proceeds for general working capital. FundedHere, the first licensed crowdfunding platform in Singapore, also announced that SGX’s Central Depository (“CDP”) will be the depository for the ListCo Bonds. Under this arrangement, lenders will receive interest payments in…
Bluzelle Networks, a Singaporean company specializing in blockchain applications for the financial services industry, has been named as an Emerging Star in KPMG and H2 Ventures’ notorious Fintech 100 list. The company plans to tap into new markets with its partnership with KPMG Digital Village. Each year, the Fintech 100 list recognizes the top 100 fintech innovators in the world. The list names the 50 leading established players and the 50 emerging fintech stars of tomorrow. This year, Fintech 100 named Ant Financial, Qudian, Oscar, Lufax, ZhongAn, Atom Bank, Kreditech, Avant, Sofi and JD Finance as the top 10 fintech leaders. Alongside Bluzelle, Lenddo, solarisBank, ZooZ, Hitbtc,…
SmartFunding, a platform that provides small and medium businesses (SMEs) alternative financing solutions, secures SG$700,000 in seed funding. The Peer-to-Business invoice financing platform bridges the SME funding gap by allowing SMEs to sell their yet-to-be-paid invoices to investors who want to purchase future cash flows. SmartFunding aims to deliver strong returns to investors looking to invest in online invoice financing, while finding more funding options for SMEs in Southeast Asia to help support their growth potential. Driven by this two-pronged objective, SmartFunding acts as a neutral and reliable platform that match-makes SMEs with investors, who stand to make high…
In Asia, crowdfunding is still relatively new and in early stages of development when compared with the likes of Europe or North America. In Singapore, however, crowdfunding appears to have taken off, becoming a popular way for entrepreneurs to raise capital to either start or expand their businesses. Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or a venture by raising amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. There are four crowdfunding models: Donation-based crowdfunding where contributors don’t require anything in return for supporting a campaign; Reward-based crowdfunding where contributors get a promised commodity,…
The Mobile Wallet (TMW), India’s first payment solution officially announced their partnership with MatchMove, Singapore’s Fintech company and will be integrating MatchMove’s award-winning Wallet OS into the TMW app. This will allow TMW to further boost its functionality and usability for its users to pay on the go and allow businesses to accept payments digitally. “We are delighted to have TMW choose us as its preferred Wallet OS provider. This partnership will further reinforce our commitment in providing companies the best solutions. Our ease of integration, scalability and security which our APIs have is a key ad-vantage for companies such…
Soon, the e-commerce giant retailers like Amazon International, Alibaba, eBay… will attack Vietnam market aggressively. If domestic enterprises aren’t connected strongly and thoroughly, they will be defeated very quickly. Amazon Has No Opportunity with Vietnam market? Mr. Nguyen Tuan Ha, CEO Vinalink once said that Amazon does not stand a chance in Vietnam, because of 1 million Facebook users who do sales business on the social platform. Did we underestimate U.S.’s biggest B2C online retailer? Everyone is crazy about Amazon’s professional business model. This giant also constantly expands its business with product diversification and different warehouses. Amazon offers a professional procurement method, many…
Singapore’s Mobile Point of Sale company, with its main operations in Vietnam, celebrates its win at the 2016 Vietnamese Talents Awards 2016 which honors leading innovations and inventions in IT. SoftPay Mobile’s MPOS service allows businesses to accept card payments anywhere and anytime. Its low cost MPOS card terminals (usually at one third the price of a traditional credit card machine) allow many small business owners to accept card payments affordably in a country like Vietnam. It is no wonder that MPOS is growing by leaps and bounds in Vietnam where SoftPay Mobile operates. “We are incredibly excited to…
AirPlus International and Airbnb are developing a new integrated solution for the booking, payment and billing of business-related travel. The expert in payment solutions in business travel management and the world’s leading community-driven hospitality company will be introducing a fully automated solution during the coming year providing business travelers with a combination of best in class payment and travel management solutions with over 2.5 million accommodation choices across the world. Virtual Credit Card Today AirPlus customers are able to book and pay for stays on Airbnb with the virtual credit card A.I.D.A.. A virtual MasterCard credit card number is first…
Protecting intellectual property has just become easier with the release of Copyrobo, a web- and app-based service that enables creators to create timestamped evidence of their work in just a few seconds. Copyrobo offers a complete timestamping solution for images, documents, video and music produced by individuals and companies. Among its innovations, Copyrobo: * Produces qualified timestamps providing evidence with the highest probative value. Compliant with the EU’s eIDAS standards, which became effective on 1 July 2016. * Works on both Android and iOS platforms, as well as the web, as the first mobile timestamp application. * Integrates with social…
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has released a global research project commissioned by Telstra, showing which countries in Asia have the necessary building blocks in place to ensure business success in a connected world. Paul Tyler, Telstra’s Group Managing Director, International, said the research was in recognition of the fact high quality digital infrastructure, an educated and technically literate workforce and a well-functioning technology ecosystem were the building blocks of success for companies and countries alike in the connected world. “As part of their research, the EIU has surveyed more than 850 businesses and 94 per cent said a country’s…
The inaugural Singapore Fintech Festival, a week-long event organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in partnership with The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), was one of the biggest fintech events ever organized, drawing over 10,000 participants from more than 50 countries. Singapore’s “Smart Financial Centre” The event was the opportunity for Singapore to further demonstrate its commitment to fintech and underline MAS’s ambition to create a “Smart Financial Centre” where the pervasive use of technology would allow to increase efficiency, manage risks better, create new opportunity and “improve people’s lives.” “Last year, MAS laid out a…