Author: Kai Kiat

In my previous article, I provided a guide on how to change your spare foreign currency into merchant credits in Changi Airport. In this article, I am providing some unknown insights into Travelersbox that I discovered from their media event on 23 February 2017. I searched the Internet briefly and I am quite sure that they are not available. Top 3 Popular Merchants In Singapore – The Grab Surprise Travelersbox has partnerships with 11 merchants in Singapore and they are looking to add more in the coming months. Given the proliferation of merchants, we are naturally curious which merchants are…

If you are traveling overseas, it is a common experience to leave the country with extra cash. It can be in US dollars, Euros, Japanese Yen or Thai Baht. Therefore, it is about time where we have a service which allows us to get rid of these loose change in style. I was invited by Travelerbox to their media showcase on 23 February 2017 at Changi Airport Terminal 1. Travelerbox allows you to change these loose change into merchant credits. In my case, I chose Grab. In this article, I am showing you a step-by-step process of using this Travelerbox…

There is a Chinese saying that roughly translates to ‘A Tall Tree Catches The Wind’ (树大招风) and this is an adept saying for the Fintech industry. The fintech industry had grown from its nascent stage in 2005 and it is disrupting many existing industries. This tall tree had caught the attention of the regulators internationally known as The Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). IOSCO might be relatively unknown to the general public as opposed to the household names of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US or the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) but they…

The insurance industry had given us amenities that we take for granted today. For instance, the fire station is the invention of insurance companies. After the Great Fire of London, insurance companies built the modern fire stations to fight fires against buildings which they insured. Over time, they pooled their resources together to form the London Fire Brigade in 1865. In 1862, the insurance companies forced the English authorities to upgrade their fire legislation which bore fruit in 1867. These efforts reduced the frequencies of fire and saved countless lives and properties. Today, the tables are turned. Insurance companies are…

In a previous article, we introduced the fact that card fraud is a massive $35billion problem. It has the potential to de-rail the growing trend of online payments and undermine the trust of consumers worldwide. Lexis Nexis found that it cost merchants $2.40 to rectify every dollar lost to fraud. All these data points to the urgency for advanced solutions to combat the scrounge of fraud before the world of e-Commerce and online payment becomes commercially non-viable. After introducing Cash Shield, we are introducing another 3 innovative solutions to combat the issue of fraud. They have been nominated for the…

Regtech might not be a familiar name to most people but it is an important component in the fintech space. Regtech stands for regulatory technology which exists to help financial institutions and other organizations comply with increasingly stringent compliance rules. No Place To Hide – Banks Are Punished Around The Globe Ever since the global financial crisis in 2008, banks found themselves at the mercy of regulators. British regulator metered out a fine of $72 million pounds to Barclays for failure to do proper due diligence on their clients last year. Hong Kong regulator fined HSBC HK$605 million in May…

Hong Kong had granted Stored Value Facilities (SVF) Licenses to the first 5 batch of digital payment payment providers last month according to Startup Beat. This is in response to Payment Systems and Stored Value Facilities Ordinance which came into effect on 13 November 2015. They are Alibaba’s AliPay, Tencent’s WeChat Pay, Octopus’ O! ePay, Hong Kong Telecom’s Tap & Go and TNG’s TNG Wallet. In addition to these 5 players, Hong Kong might approve more licenses in November. The Mainland China Precedent In other words, after China opened the gates to mobile payment, Hong Kong is following its footstep.…

We take card payment for granted in our daily life from the paying of meals to purchasing of concert tickets online. According to Nilson, the world purchased $28.8 trillion worth of goods and services in 2014 by credit, debit and prepaid cards. As the chart shows, the world had seen steadily increasing number of fraud globally as we embrace cashless payments. The world experienced card losses of $16.31 billion in 2014 and this is expected to grow to $35.5 billion in 2020. According to MasterCard, there are 8 different forms of card fraud. The most important fraud is called telephone…

Android Pay was launched recently in Singapore, as the very first country to experience it in Asia, right after Apple Pay and Samsung Pay hit the market. Apple Pay or Samsung Pay is not an option for Adroid devices. Android powers 82.8% of global mobile operating systems, whereas iOS only contributes 13.9%. Apparently, Google has a greater potential in mobile payments compared to Apple. Android Pay, Samsung Pay and Apple Pay, who will be leading in mobile payments, that has yet to be unveiled. For now, this article will walk you through the 12-minutes-or-so installation of Adroid Pay on Zenphone, demonstrated by a step-by-step tutorial. First,…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) ordered BSI Bank Singapore to shut down recently on 24 May 2016. This serious action is due to their compliance oversight in money laundering which resulted in a criminal case. This is also a stark reminder of the compliance challenges that financial institutions are facing today. They had attracted millions of dollars of regulatory fines in the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. A distinguished law firm, Baker and McKenzie, commissioned a survey of 424 senior executives from financial institutions. The survey is titled Ghosts in the machine: Artificial intelligence, risks and regulation…

Technology evolves quickly, and it changes our way of life faster than appreciated. Hence, it is of value to us to study comprehensive materials by large organizations which surveyed the changing landscape. Citibank had recently released a worldwide study on ‘Digital Disruption’ in March 2016. We had released a previous version which covered five areas of FinTech investment, the tipping point of Europe and US banking, Chinese payment system, mobile payment for the underbanked and the increasing acceptance of mobile payment in India. In this article, we will provide a different perspective of this vast study which spanned 112 pages.…

Disrupting Individual Insurance Segments We have seen how technology had disrupted traditional business. The most classic example is when Grab entered the taxi industry caused many traditional taxi drivers to either use its service or content with less bookings. This disruption is also happening in the insurance industry and the technology behind it is called Insuretech. In this article, we have a look at how traditional insurance companies are reinventing themselves in Singapore and also the various Insuretec that had emerged in Asia. Within the insurance field, there are broadly 7 functions which the insurance industry goes through and each…

Myanmar is an untapped and growing market that has surprisingly quick uptake of mobile phones which opened the door for mobile payment.  We explain how Myanmar’s mobile payment system works from behind the scenes and for the ordinary citizen. There are 4 major players in the market now but Leo Tech is putting up a stiff challenge with an open ecosystem. Opening Doors Myanmar is one of the last major untapped market in the world when it opened up in November 2010 when it transit from a military to civilian government. Its population of 60 million had seen drastic improvement in their…