Author: Fintech News Singapore

Contour has named Rahul Bhargava Interim COO as it enters its next growth phase after being acquired by XDC Ventures. In his interim role, Bhargava will lead operational scale-up, deepen engagement with global network members and expand participation across the platform. He will also oversee integration of XDC’s trade, digital asset and settlement capabilities, including structured trials of regulated digital settlement models alongside fiat payment rails. The trade finance platform said the appointment supports its plans to extend its Letters of Credit digitisation services and strengthen links between trade workflows and settlement infrastructure. Integration with XDC Network will support reconciliation…

Across the global banking and financial services industry, artificial intelligence (AI) implementation has shifted from experimentation to aggressive adoption. In 2025, nearly all of the 1,500+ managers and executives in the banking and financial services sector polled for a study commissioned by Finastra indicated either using, exploring or research AI options, underscoring the near ubiquity of AI in the space. The study, conducted last year and covering 11 markets, revealed the widespread adoption of AI in finance, finding that only 2% of the organizations surveyed were not using AI at all. This result is a dramatic indicator of near-universal adoption…

Syfe has partnered with J.P. Morgan Asset Management to launch a new actively managed ETF portfolio for investors in Singapore. The portfolio, named Equity Alpha, will be available on Syfe’s platform from this week. Syfe said this marks the first time a digital wealth platform in Singapore is offering J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s institutional active ETF strategy in a managed format. Active ETFs accounted for about 25 percent of global ETF inflows in 2025, up from 16 percent in 2023. Equity Alpha targets annual excess returns of 0.5 percent to 1.0 percent over its benchmark. J.P. Morgan Asset Management has…

Triple-A is expanding its cross-border remittance network through a partnership with Mastercard. The company has integrated Mastercard Move into its remittance-as-a-service platform to support faster international payouts for banks, fintech firms and telecom operators. The move enables European financial institutions to launch global remittance services with near real-time settlement and improved liquidity management. Banks in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America can also use Triple-A’s infrastructure to facilitate remittance flows from Europe to key home markets. Triple-A, a licensed global payment institution, said the collaboration marks another step in its continued expansion in Europe. Mastercard Move provides cross-border money…

Stripe has shown early interest in acquiring PayPal or parts of its business, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter. The talks are at an exploratory stage and may not result in a deal. Both companies declined to comment. PayPal shares rose about 6.7 percent to US$47.01 in New York trading on Tuesday, giving it a market value of roughly US$43.3 billion. Stripe was valued at US$159 billion in a recent employee and shareholder tender offer. PayPal, an early online payments pioneer, has faced slower growth amid rising competition from digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.…

Checkout.com processed over US$300 billion in payments in 2025 and swung back to full-year EBITDA profitability. Total payment volume rose 64 percent year on year, while net revenue grew more than 30 percent for the second straight year. Adjusted EBITDA margin exceeded 10 percent. The company now serves more than 1,000 enterprise merchants, including Uber, eBay, Spotify, Temu, Pinterest, HelloFresh, ASOS and Vinted. Sixty-three merchants process more than US$1 billion annually on its platform, up from 39 a year earlier. Guillaume Pousaz, CEO and Founder of Checkout.com, said, “Our return to profitability and the record-breaking performance of our enterprise clients…

Mambu has expanded its Payments Hub platform into Southeast Asia, making it available in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore for the first time. The rollout follows adoption of the hub by banks and fintech firms operating across multiple payment schemes and jurisdictions, as the company strengthens its payments offering in the region. The cloud-native, API-first platform enables financial institutions to manage multiple payment rails through a single system. It supports processing, liquidity management and reconciliations across markets while maintaining compliance. Mambu said institutions can connect to new schemes and onboard banking partners more quickly, in some cases up to…

McKinsey estimates the stablecoin market will hit $2 trillion by 2028. But according to Sam Lin, COO of dtcpay, even that massive number might be an underestimate. In this video, we dive into why the “train cannot be stopped.” From Visa embracing stablecoins to transactions that are faster and cheaper than SWIFT, the infrastructure of money is changing fundamentally behind the scenes. Key Topics: Why the $2 Trillion forecast might be conservative Stablecoins vs. SWIFT: Speed and Cost Why Visa is entering the game The next 5-10 years of digital finance

Chinese New Year marks more than the start of a new lunar cycle. For many Singapore SMEs, it represents a reset and a chance to reflect on festive trading performance and set the tone for the months ahead. Now that the celebrations have concluded and we enter the Year of the Fire Horse, the focus shifts from managing peak demand to planning for sustainable growth. The horse symbolises energy, drive and forward momentum.  The Fire Horse will no doubt bring with it some disruption and ambiguity for customers, businesses and supply chains. For business owners, that means moving decisively, with…

DBS is set to overhaul the fee structure for its virtual account custodian services in April, according to Tech in Asia. The bank will move to a per-account pricing model that could significantly raise costs for larger fintech platforms. The shift reportedly replaces a flat annual fee, typically capped at around S$10,000, with charges tied to the number of individual customer accounts, industry sources said. Sources cited a monthly fee of S$1 (US$0.79) per customer account under the new structure. DBS did not publicly confirm a specific pricing figure in its statement, saying only that fees reflect the cost of…

Standard Chartered has teamed up with Seviora Capital to launch a multi-manager hedge fund vehicle under its VCC platform. The Signature Select Seviora Titans Absolute Return fund is a sub-fund within the bank’s variable capital company structure. It will invest in hedge fund managers selected by Seviora Capital, part of the Temasek-owned Seviora Group in Singapore. The strategy allocates across multiple managers and sub-strategies to avoid concentration risk. It also gives clients access to capacity-constrained hedge funds at lower minimum investment levels than direct allocations. The launch comes as investors face volatile markets and reduced diversification between equities and bonds.…

Anaplan has launched a Singapore-based AWS data center to support local compliance needs and regional growth. The new facility expands the company’s global infrastructure and is aimed at customers in Southeast Asia that require in-country data hosting. Anaplan said the move will improve processing speeds and strengthen security controls, particularly for organisations in the public sector and financial services. The company will host its AI-driven planning and analysis platform on Amazon Web Services infrastructure in Singapore, allowing customers to meet local regulatory requirements while using its planning platform. Amit Bagga, Managing Director for APAC at Anaplan, said, “We are delighted…

Peak XV Partners has raised US$1.3 billion across three new funds targeting India and the broader Asia Pacific region. The capital spans its India Seed Fund, India Venture Fund and an APAC-focused fund, according to a LinkedIn post by the firm. Peak XV added that it still holds substantial uninvested capital in its existing Growth Fund, allowing it to back companies from early to later stages. The funds are the firm’s first under the Peak XV brand following its 2023 split from Sequoia Capital. It said many of its limited partners are global endowments and foundations. Peak XV pointed to…

DBS and Granite Asia have kicked off a three-year partnership with the closing of a US$110 million AI-focused IPO fund targeting Asia’s next wave of tech listings. The fund, distributed exclusively to DBS wealth clients, invests in the initial public offerings of AI-driven companies in Asia. Granite Asia said the vehicle drew investors from Southeast Asia, South Asia and Europe. It provides exposure at the point of listing and supports the region’s expanding AI sector. The fund is the first in a planned series of investment products under the partnership. Granite Asia will structure additional funds for DBS clients and…

Luxembourg has launched NextFin Asia, a new fund that will invest directly in Southeast Asian fintechs focused on financial inclusion. The fund will support the third edition of the Catapult: Inclusion SE Asia programme run by the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology. It is being launched in partnership with the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade and ADB Ventures, the venture arm of the Asian Development Bank. The move shifts the programme from a pure acceleration model to one that combines capital and institutional support. For the first time, participating startups will receive…

DBS will introduce a 12-hour cooling period for selected high-risk banking activities from 7 March, as part of its latest measures to curb scams. The Straits Times reported that customers were notified via e-mail that digital banking users will no longer be able to instantly add a new transfer recipient, raise daily transfer limits for local or overseas transactions, or update contact details. Instead, these changes will only take effect after a 12-hour delay. The bank said the safeguard is intended to give customers time to detect and stop unauthorised activity. If a new payee is added or transfer limits…

Sumsub has launched Summy, a large language model-based AI Copilot embedded across its platform to support compliance officers, risk managers and fraud investigators. The tool allows users to query case data in plain language and generate audit-ready outputs grounded in Sumsub data within existing workflows. It builds on Summy’s earlier role as an AI assistant introduced last year in the company’s Case Management solution and now extends across broader compliance and fraud processes. The release comes as fraud grows more sophisticated. Sumsub’s Identity Fraud Report 2025–2026 found that multi-step, resource-intensive AI-driven schemes rose 180 percent year on year globally in…

Pine Labs will embed OpenAI’s API capabilities into its AI-native infrastructure and global merchant ecosystem to enhance how merchants manage payments and operational workflows. The collaboration comes as India’s digital payments market continues to scale, with annual volumes exceeding 180 billion transactions. The country operates the world’s largest real-time payment system, and its fintech sector is projected to reach US$1.5 trillion by 2026. Pine Labs said the integration marks a shift from deterministic, rule-based systems toward technology that can interpret context and support more complex financial decision-making. The company described this as adding a reasoning layer to its commerce stack,…

Two in three retail customers who started investing with OCBC in 2025 chose gold or silver as their first asset class, replacing equities and unit trusts as the usual entry point. The number of precious metals investors rose 2.5 times year-on-year in 2025, reflecting stronger demand for paper gold and silver. As at end-January 2026, new investor numbers were three times higher on a month-on-month basis despite higher precious metal prices. Younger investors accounted for a significant share of the increase. In 2025, the number of investors under 40 doubled from the previous year and made up about half of…

Sea and Google will work together to develop and scale AI applications across digital financial services, e-commerce and gaming. The expanded partnership builds on existing collaborations between the two companies, including the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program with Shopee and Garena’s Free Fire League on Google Play. In digital financial services, Sea’s Monee unit will collaborate with Google on the development of the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open framework designed to support agent-based payment experiences. Monee will provide input on the protocol’s design to ensure it is robust and secure for Southeast Asia’s digital financial services landscape. The companies may…