Author: Company Announcement

TransferTo, a global Cross-Border Mobile Payments Network, has been chosen by Grab, the mobile ride-hailing and payments platform in South-East Asia, to enable real-time earnings payouts for Grab drivers using their GrabPay account, across Grab’s operating markets. For the first time, and as a result of this strategic partnership, Grab drivers can instantly collect their daily earnings with their GrabPay mobile wallet as they end their shift. TransferTo’s real-time payments Network is integrated with major banks in Singapore and across Southeast Asia, allowing drivers to link their GrabPay mobile account directly to their personal bank account, or opt for a cash pick-up option. The…

As the world received the launch of the coveted Apple iPhone X with much fanfare, OCBC Bank has rolled out an innovative enhancement to its consumer and business banking apps for Apple iPhone X users. By leveraging Apple’s Face ID facial recognition technology, OCBC Bank customers who have the new phone can now dispense with passwords or even fingerprints when doing their everyday banking on mobile apps like OCBC Mobile Banking, OCBC OneWealth and OCBC Business Mobile Banking, or making payments on OCBC Pay Anyone. These customers just need to look at their iPhone X. OCBC OneLook makes day-to-day banking…

DBS Bank set yet another global milestone with the launch of a banking API developer platform that is the largest by a bank anywhere in the world. The scale of the endeavour at launch underlines DBS’ commitment to reimagining banking for the benefit of customers. For its innovation efforts, last year, DBS was named “World’s Best Digital Bank” by financial publication Euromoney. The API platform will boost the bank’s lead in creating innovative and customer-centric experiences by making available a wide array of APIs for other brands, corporates, fintechs and software developers to plug into. This has the potential to…

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) released the Industry Transformation Map (ITM) for the Infocomm Media sector, which outlines the strategies to prepare Singapore for the digital economy. Speaking at the launch of the ITM, Minister for Communications and Information Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, said the ITM aims to grow the ICM industry’s value-add by around 6% annually (almost twice as fast as the overall economy). It is also expected to employ more than 210,000 workers (from approximately 194,000 workers in 2016), and create more than 13,000 new PMET jobs by 2020. The ICM ITM will prepare Singapore for the digital…

Orchard Platform’s online lending industry data and insights will be made available to Bloomberg terminal subscribers, providing a wealth of information on an asset class that offers a number of potential investment opportunities. “Orchard seeks to provide investors with access to quality data and technology solutions to conduct analysis and make well-informed investment decisions,” said Matt Burton, CEO and Co-Founder of Orchard Platform. “As the online lending industry matures and more and more investors begin exploring opportunities to allocate to the space, working with Bloomberg to bring Orchard’s industry data onto their Terminal just made sense.” Orchard Platform is a leading…

AsiaKredit, a digital consumer lender focused on Southeast Asia, today announced the launch of pera247 in the Philippines, an innovative, data-driven consumer lending platform delivered through a mobile application. pera247 is a digital lending solution that aims to provide unsecured small-ticket, short-term consumer loans for up to 90 days to the country’s underbanked population with no existing credit or collateral history. Designed to provide the shortest real-time credit decision by any platform on the market, the pera247 platform uses big data to optimize the credit assessment process to make fast and reliable credit decisions. As part of its credit assessment process, pera247 will extract a selection of data…

SGX Catalist-listed Artivision Technologies Ltd. announced that it has entered into a conditional and non-binding HOA with MC Payment, an established Asia Pacific electronic payment solutions provider, to acquire its entire issued and paid-up share capital and convertible bonds from itsshareholders and bondholders for a Total Consideration of not less than S$80.0 million. The convertible bonds of MC Payment consist of Series B Bonds and Series C Bonds with an aggregate principal value of S$5.5 million with interest accrued and outstanding thereon. On the Proposed RTO, Mr Kenneth Goh, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Artivision Technologies Ltd. commented, “The…

Singapore based blockchain financial product ecosystem LALA World has raised US$ 2 million in series A funding to help empower migrant workers and their families. Founded in April 2016, LALA World’s vision is to empower the underbanked and under-served to perform various financial services without intermediaries and with minimum transaction costs. Currently, migrant workers are charged around 10% in commissions and fees when sending money to their families through intermediaries. Using the blockchain, LALA World can reduce transaction costs to under 1%, bypassing middlemen and ensuring significant savings for migrants and their unbanked families. Services offered under the LALA…

In an all-out effort to help its employees obtain the necessary knowledge and competencies to sharpen their competitiveness and deepen their skillset, DBS Bank today announced that it will proactively re-skill 1,500 employees in the next 18 months. These employees will be re-skilled under the bank’s proactive Professional Conversion Programme (DBS PCP). In a first for a Singapore bank, DBS has proactively mapped out 8 job roles to help employees in these roles obtain the necessary knowledge and competencies to take on new or enhanced roles within the bank after being re-skilled. The roles identified are from departments across the…

AsiaCollect, a professional Credit Management Services (“CMS”), launched CMS Advisory Services. CMS Advisory Services target consumer loan originators, and support them in bringing the performance of their CMS operations to a new level of operational quality, in terms of collection efficiency, cost effectiveness, and internal controls. In conjunction with the Advisory Services product launch, AsiaCollect secured first clients for this product in Indonesia and Philippines, marking the Company’s first expansion to these considerable markets. Operating in Vietnam since Q4 2016, AsiaCollect is continuing to grow rapidly, having more than doubled its Vietnam revenue run-rate in Q3 2017 on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The expansion into Advisory Services, as well…

A statement from Bitcoin Vietnam reacting to the recent State Bank of Vietnam press release and various media interpreting this statement potentially wrong. The State Bank of Vietnam has issued a press release reaffirming that Bitcoin is (1) not a legal currency, and (2) not a legal means of payment in Vietnam. With regards to Bitcoin not being a legal currency: This is not a new policy from the government. The payment of exchanges of goods and services within the territory of Vietnam is required to be listed in the domestic currency Vietnamese dong (VND). For example, listing an item in US dollars or…

Markel International, the specialist insurer, has unveiled a fintech policy offering comprehensive protection for businesses in the financial technology sector in Asia, having successfully launched it in the UK early last year. Simon Moi, Senior underwriter and head of professional and financial risks at Markel International Singapore, will lead his team in Asia and be the focal point for the product that will offer protection for policy limits of up to a maximum of USD10 million. Launching in Singapore, fast becoming the fintech hub in Asia, the policy comes with three additional options for cover, building on the core professional…

Bandboo, a Singapore-based insurance technology platform startup, announced a new product to protect drivers from costly car excess insurance payments. Insurance excess, the payment drivers are liable to pay towards a claim made on a car insurance policy, can be significant. Bandboo’s membership-based Car Excess Insurance provides drivers with added protection by reducing or eliminating the excess by providing a pay-out equivalent to the excess charged, up to S$4,000. “While Singapore roads are among the safest in the region, accidents can still happen from time to time. For those who make a living by driving, the risk of an accident…

ATB Financial officially launches a virtual banking assistant to the company’s nearly 700,000 personal banking customers, working with FinTech Finn.ai to make access to secure, day-to-day personal banking as easy as initiating a conversation in Facebook Messenger. “At ATB we’re innovating at the forefront of robotics, AI, biometrics and blockchain, and we’re so excited to bring conversational commerce to all our personal banking customers. It’s one more way we’re delivering on our commitment to really make banking work for people,” says ATB Chief Transformation Officer Wellington Holbrook about the new Messenger-based virtual assistant. “It lets you do your banking whenever,…

Moneythor, a digital banking toolkit and data-driven personalisation engine, is one of 8 companies selected globally by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for its inaugural FinTech Business Camp program. 4 of them are foreign companies. Aiming to reclaim the title of Asia’s number one global financial centre, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has embarked in a series of projects with the national government of Japan and the private sector to revitalize Tokyo’s financial sector. FinTech Business Camp Tokyo is a key initiative of this effort designed to bring innovative technologies and international know-how to Japanese institutions during a program from October to November…

Risk management functions within financial services organizations are primarily concerned with cybersecurity and data-related risks at their firms, according to the EY and Institute of International Finance (IIF) eighth annual global bank risk management survey of Chief Risk Officers (CROs): Restore, rationalize and reinvent: a fundamental shift in the way banks manage risk. Cybersecurity has surged as a concern with respondents, with 77% claiming it is one of the most important risks over the next year, a 22% increase since the 2015 survey. In addition, a majority of the banks surveyed (86%) cited data-related risks (availability, integrity, etc.) as a top emerging…

Prudential Singapore (Prudential) today announced the launch of the PRU Fintegrate Partnership (PRU Fintegrate) which seeks to collaborate with fintech startups in Singapore and globally, and to co-develop digital solutions for customers. This is the first programme of its kind by Prudential globally, and marks a milestone in its continued effort to foster greater innovation in the industry. PRU Fintegrate focuses on building innovative financial solutions, simple interfaces and seamless experiences for customers. These enhancements will be applied across the entire value-chain – from helping customers understand how to bridge their protection gap and to plan better for their financial future,…

BankBazaar.com, India’s leading financial marketplace with 50 Million visits per quarter, raised US$30 Million in a funding round led by Experian, the world’s largest credit rating agency and information management company. BankBazaar’s mission is to help consumers access the right financial product paperless, and its vision is to be the dominant digital marketplace globally enabling paperless access to financial products. Speaking about the investment, Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar, said: “Experian is a global leader in credit reporting and information management, and we are very excited to have them on board as a part of our investor group which includes Amazon,…

Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd.  announced its very first Fintech Codeathon, CodeSG, that will take place from 3 – 5 November, 2017, at The Hangar at NUS Enterprise. The 2.5-day codeathon is open to developers, designers, tertiary students and enterprises in the Fintech community in Singapore, who have a passion for creative problem-solving. Hitachi Vantara’s CodeSG aims to build a bridge to the Fintech developer community and establish two-way conversations between Hitachi Vantara and the developers. Participants in teams of five, will be tasked to solve real-time issues and co-create solutions to specific challenges from the financial industry. Projects are…

Many of the world’s poor in developing countries — nearly 2 billion, according to the World Bank — struggle to lift themselves out of poverty simply because they don’t have a bank account or financial services. This is a missed opportunity for the financial services industry that has traditionally focused on the rich and middle class. In fact, developing markets represent the next frontier for economic growth. Mobile wallets can be an effective, alternative solution for unbanked people, but it’s costly and complicated for banks to develop digital financial services for new markets, as well as make them interoperable so that digital money…