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Tag: FinTech

  • China’s Fintech Crackdown Not Over Yet

    China’s Fintech Crackdown Not Over Yet

    The governor of the country’s central bank said it would be taking more steps to curb monopolistic behavior among internet platform companies and strengthen consumer privacy and data security.

    We will continue to cooperate with anti-monopoly authorities to curb monopolies and actively deal with algorithm discrimination and other new forms of anti-competition behavior, Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said on Thursday.

    Yi added that the country would be strengthening the regulation of the payments sector and require all financial services companies to be licensed, Yi said at a Bank for International Settlements conference.

    According to the governor, financial businesses must be licensed to operate, firewalls must be set up between different parts of the business to prevent cross-sector risks, and the direct link between non-banks and banking information services must be cut.

    China’s once-flourishing fintech industry has been hit by a wave of regulation. State authorities forced Jack Ma’s Ant Group to cancel its much-awaited initial public offering last fall, and peer-to-peer lending, once booming in in the country, is now virtually nonexistent.

    The crackdown has also extended to the wider tech industry, with tightened restrictions in numerous areas such as payment links to financial products, collection of customer data, credit scoring services and overseas listings.

    In recent months, authorities have also introduced new rules to regulate the online gaming, after-school classes, and entertainment sectors.

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  • Philippines’ Union Bank Opens Fintech HQ in Singapore

    Philippines’ Union Bank Opens Fintech HQ in Singapore

    Union Bank’s fintech subsidiary UBX is expanding its operations in Singapore as it eyes growth in Asia.

    UBX, the financial technology venture studio and fund of Union Bank, hopes its Singapore headquarters will be a bridge for startups to enter the Philippine market, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

    Operations will be led by Singapore country head Cryus Cruz, who joined UBX five months ago after over three years at Tokio Marine Insurance Group, where he was regional manager of digital strategy and its innovation lab. He also brings experience from stints at Chubb, Axa, AIG and J.P. Morgan.

    UBX cited the wealth of start-ups and deep fintech talent pool as among the reasons why it is launching in the city-state. It also noted the rapid rise of fintech in financial transactions, and the «significant growth» UBX ventures are experiencing, fueled by the coronavirus pandemic.

    UBX has strategically set up an office here to contribute to, and benefit from the established ecosystem. This will not only expand our network, it’ll also help us learn from different companies in the country, Cruz said.

    UBX previously partnered with the Monetary Authority of Singapore in its Business Sans Borders (BSB) project.

  • Fintech Startup Aspire Sets Sights on Southeast Asia’s Digital Economy

    Fintech Startup Aspire Sets Sights on Southeast Asia’s Digital Economy

    The Singapore-based neobank has raised a $158 million led by renown VCs and fintech founders.

    Aspire is looking to double down on existing markets, while building the foundations to serve growing business clients across the whole South East Asia region, the firm said in an announcement on Monday.

    The oversubscribed funding round consisted of $58 million in equity and $100 million in debt. It was led by an undisclosed global growth equity firm, together with DST Global Partners, CE Innovation Fund, B Capital Partners and global hedge fund Fasanara Capital. Existing investors including Hummingbird Ventures, Mass Mutual Ventures, Picus Capital, and AFG, as well as a number of individual investors also participated.

    The company also operates in in Indonesia and Vietnam and is laying the groundwork for expansion into other Southeast Asian markets.

    Founded in 2018, Aspire provides an all-in-one finance operating system, which incorporates accounting, payroll, invoice management, FX, credit solutions, and banking. It serves more than 10,000 business accounts, which transact a total of around $2 billion annually, doubling in five months from May.

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  • Singapore-Based Fintech Thunes Makes Strategic Appointments

    Singapore-Based Fintech Thunes Makes Strategic Appointments

    The fintech startup has made a pair of executive hires to support its global growth strategy. Thunes has appointed Irina Chuchkina as chief marketing officer and Babul Balakrishnan as head of customer care, who will both be based in Singapore, the global cross-border payments firm said on Tuesday.

    Fintech marketing leader Chuchkina, who is also an Executive Committee Member in the Singapore Fintech Association, brings over 15 years of experience in the payments and technology space in Europe and Asia, including at Rapyd, Grab and Visa. She will lead Thunes’ global marketing strategy.

    Balakrishnan has over two decades of experience across various industries with a focus on customer service and customer experience. He joins from telco StarHub, where he was AVP of customer experience operations. He will work with the various business units to elevate customer care into customer experience across Thunes’ partner network.

    The appointments follow the announcement of Thunes’ acquisition of Europe payments platform Limonetik, to complement its cross-border payments solutions. The company has also made several other strategic hires the last 12 months to support its expansion plans.

    Launched in 2016, Thunes is headquartered in Singapore and operates regional offices in London, Shanghai, New York, Dubai, and Nairobi. In September 2020, it raised $60 million in a Series B funding round led by Africa-focused Helios Investment Partners.

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  • Fintech Finder to Pursue Regional Growth Opportunities

    Fintech Finder to Pursue Regional Growth Opportunities

    The company, which purchased Singapore-based financial comparison platform GoBear earlier this year, has appointed a chief growth officer, who will play a critical role in its global expansion.

    Australia-headquartered Finder has appointed strategic business executive Jinnee Lim to the role of chief growth officer – Southeast Asia, effective immediately, the fintech announced on Tuesday.

    Lim brings over 15 years of experience in corporate strategy, business development, and strategic transformation. She was previously chief strategy officer at GoBear, and was involved in the sale of its marketplace assets to Finder. She has also held several regional positions at UBS, most recently as Asia Pacific head of client programs and segments, and at Boston Consulting Group.

    In her new role, Lim will work closely with Finder’s global executive team to identify and pursue new growth opportunities in the region. Her immediate focus will be ramping up Finder’s key capabilities in content creation, marketing, and partnerships, the announcement said.

    Finder finalized its purchase of the GoBear brand across seven markets: Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, in April this year. The deal comprised trademark and digital assets including domains, website content, and social channels but did not include operations and staff.

    Finder currently has offices in Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, and the Philippines, and plans to open an office in Singapore in the near future.

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  • Fintechs Challenge Traditional FIs in Malaysia Digital Bank Race

    Fintechs Challenge Traditional FIs in Malaysia Digital Bank Race

    A crowded field of contenders are vying for the five licenses on offer by Bank Negara Malaysia. The race for digital banking licenses digital banking license is heating up, with more than a dozen applications involving over 50 companies submitted before the closing date on Wednesday.

    With the exception of a few players, most of the digital banking aspirants have not publicized their aspirations. However, a Grab-Singtel joint venture and Singapore-based investment solutions firm iFAST Corporation confirmed their applications on Thursday.

    The notification on the grant of the license will be made by the first quarter of 2020, Bank Negara Malaysia said.

    Among the contenders are also Malaysian conglomerate Sunway, which teamed up with Tencent-backed Chinese firm Linklogis and Bangkok Bank. Likely applications also include e-commerce giant Sea Group, gaming company Razer Fintech and telco Axiata, which previously expressed an interest in the license.

    At least five banks — CIMB Group Holdings, Affin Bank, Hong Leong Bank, AMMB Holdings and Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia — had signaled their interest in pursuing a digital banking licence in Malaysia.

    AirAsia’s fintech unit BigPay also announced its bid for a license on Thursday. The company is partnering with Malaysian Industrial Development Finance – a unit of the country’s largest asset manager Permodalan Nasional – and Singapore-based private equity firm Ikhlas Capital.

    BigPay was launched in 2018 by AirAsia as an e-wallet, hoping to leverage the low-cost carrier’s dominance in regional air travel in Southeast Asia.

    BigPay Bank will allow us to execute deeper on our mission to build a connected financial future for Malaysian consumers and entrepreneurs, Salim Dhanani, CEO and founder of BigPay, said in the announcement.

  • Malaysia’s AirAsia applies for digital banking license

    Malaysia’s AirAsia applies for digital banking license

    Malaysian budget airline AirAsia Group Bhd said on Thursday its fintech unit has bid for a digital banking license in the country as part of a consortium.

    BigPay, the unit, has partnered with Malaysian Industrial Development Finance Berhad – a unit of the country’s largest asset manager Permodalan Nasional Bhd – and private equity firm Ikhlas Capital.

    Singapore-based Ikhlas was founded by Nazir Razak, the former chairman of CIMB Group Holdings.

    The consortium also includes a foreign conglomerate with fintech expertise, AirAsia said in a statement.

    Citing sources, Reuters reported earlier on Thursday that AirAsia and its partners were among the bidders for up to five digital banking licences that the Malaysian central bank has said it will issue by early 2022.

    Other bidders include a joint venture between ride-hailing-to-fintech group Grab and Singtel, telecoms operator Axiata and a consortium backed by Chinese tech firm Tencent.

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  • Fintech startup gets $2 mln seed funding from global investors

    Fintech startup gets $2 mln seed funding from global investors

    Vietnamese fintech startup Infina has raised $2 million in seed funding from five global venture capitalists.

    The investors are Japan’s Saison Capital, Indonesia’s Venturra Discovery, Singapore’s 1982 Ventures, the U.S.’s 500 Startups, and Korea’s Nextrans.

    Some Google and Netflix executives are also taking part in this round.

    The startup has developed an investment app called Infina that enables users to make term deposits, invest in certificates of deposit and exchange traded funds. Most users are between the ages of 25 to 40 and looking for alternatives to investing in long-term asset classes like real estate.

    The seed funding will be used to increase the number of users and diversify the investment portfolio, and hire experts to analyze customers’ risk preferences.

    It plans to expand into other countries in future, but for the time being is focused on the Vietnamese market.

    The company said that around 500,000 securities trading accounts were opened in the first five months of 2021, a 20 percent year-on-year increase, according to the Vietnam Securities Depository.

    This along with Vietnam’s high Internet penetration rate, which was at around 70 percent as of January, and the fact that more than three-fourths of Internet users have used online financial services before, enable apps like Infina to gain traction.

    Infina was launched in January 2021 by James Vuong, who used to be an engineer in the U.S.’s Silicon Valley before returning to Vietnam to serve as vice president of investment at Vietnam’s first venture capital fund IDG Ventures.

    Vuong said many Internet users began using digital services, including for investments, with the interest rate cuts by the central bank to help businesses cope with Covid-19 prompting many investors to look for alternatives with higher returns than bank deposits.

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  • Singapore Fintech Association Launches Networking Club

    Singapore Fintech Association Launches Networking Club

    The initiative aims to foster deeper social engagements among local fintech professionals and corporates and enhance the vibrancy of the industry ecosystem.

    Members of Singapore’s fintech community can look forward to more industry networking, upskilling opportunities, and lifestyle privileges with the launch of the SG Fintech Club by the Singapore Fintech Association and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

    Among its programs are talent matchmaking sessions, industry expert mentorship programs, and masterclasses organized by SFA. The Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) and J.P. Morgan have also been brought on board to curate skills and career development events, the announcement said.

    The rapid shift towards digital acceleration and increasing competition in the ecosystem has made it more urgent for fintech professionals to stay relevant, connected and competitive, Damien Pang, MAS deputy chief fintech officer, said in the announcement.

    He said he hopes the club will help build a tight-knit community of talents, facilitate more collaboration within the industry and bring more value to the fintech ecosystem.

    The lineup of events for the next month is already packed, and includes fireside chats with fintech founders, strategy sessions, and masterclasses. Find out more at https://club.singaporefintech.org.

  • Fintech startup Mfast raises $1.5 mln

    Fintech startup Mfast raises $1.5 mln

    Fintech startup Mfast has raised $1.5 million in its Pre-Series A funding from a group of investors led by Do Ventures.

    Mfast is a fintech platform that enables Vietnamese to access, use and introduce financial and insurance service packages as well as other product segments.

    After three years of operations in Vietnam, it has served nearly 600,000 users, with 75-80 percent of its end-users coming from remote provinces and rural areas.

    The amount disbursed to its financial partners has climbed to more than VND5 trillion ($217 million).

    Mfast’s mobile app claims to connect the underserved populations with financial and insurance institutions to give them access to basic financial services.

    Amy Do, investment manager of JAFCO Asia, a co-investor in the round, said that the fund had made the decision because of the great potential of the consumer credit and insurance market in Vietnam, as shown in the solid traction of the company despite the ongoing pandemic.

    Do Ventures is a $50 million early-stage venture capital fund that serves as a strategic partner for startups.

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  • Open Finance Startup to Expand Across Southeast Asia

    Open Finance Startup to Expand Across Southeast Asia

    Singapore-based Finantier has closed an oversubscribed seed financing round at more than 20 times its pre-seed valuation.

    Finantier plans to strengthen its presence in Indonesia and Southeast Asia after raising seven figures in seed funding in a round led by Global Founders Capital and East Ventures, it announced on Wednesday.

    Founded in 2020, the fintech provides an application programming interface (API) platform for financial institutions to access and analyze consumer financial data. The new funds will also go towards scaling and enhancing its product offerings and double the size of its team.

    Southeast Asia’s large unbanked population presents challenges for financial institutions who lack access to consumer financial data, handicapping them in providing financial services such as payments, lending, and insurance, among others, Finantier explained.

    To address this, the company works with over 150 companies to aggregate data from alternative sources to give its clients access to a more comprehensive range of datasets and enable the unbanked population to benefit from their digital data footprint.

    Finantier’s clients and partnerships have seen over 50 percent monthly growth in 2021, while its team has grown fivefold to 50 employees, the company said.

    Open finance is an extension of open banking data-sharing principles to enable third-party providers to access customers’ data across a broader range of financial sectors and products, including savings and investments.

    With open finance facilitating the open exchange of consumer data, companies can leverage it to reach more customers while creating more personalized financial services, Diego Rojas, Finantier co-founder and CEO, said.

    Rojas previously worked closely with the co-founders of NYSE-listed LendingClub and was the technical lead at the founding team of GIC-backed Chinese online lending marketplace Dianrong.

    COO Edwin Kusuma was previously from Google and was also formerly CEO of P2P lending firm 360Kredi and director of operations at Kredinesia, while CPO Keng Low was the technical lead for a payments startup in Silicon Valley and previously an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at East Ventures.

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  • Singapore Fintech Gets Digital Bank License in Philippines

    Singapore Fintech Gets Digital Bank License in Philippines

    Unobank will be entirely regulated under the Digital Banking License framework in the Philippines.

    DigibankAsia, a Singapore-headquartered fintech, has become the first fintech to receive a license to operate a digital bank in the Philippines, it announced in a statement on Tuesday.

    Uno, which is operated by Singapore-based DigibankAsia, has been working with digital services and consulting firm Xebia, fintech software provider Backbase, cloud banking provider Mambu and Amazon Web Services, for its rollout in the Philippines, which has among the lowest banking penetration in Southeast Asia.

    The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ vision and foresight to digitize the local banking industry is future-forward and apt, because ultimately it will help align the Philippines as a modern banking center for the region, Manish Bhai, Unobank CEO, said in the announcement.

    According to Uno, it aims to bridge the financial inclusion gap to help pave the way for all Filipinos to have access to basic financial services, and hopes to extend its services to the rest of Southeast Asia and South Asia.

    Around 70 percent of the population of the Philippines is considered unbanked, while the country has very high mobile penetration, with 60 percent owning a smartphone and 67 percent of the population using the internet.

    The country’s banking regulator previously issued two digital banking licenses, which are conversions from previous bank licenses.

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  • Singapore Fintech Partners BNP for Impact Investment

    Singapore Fintech Partners BNP for Impact Investment

    AI-driven fintech GreenArc Capital and BNP Paribas have been awarded a proof of concept grant by the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Financial Sector Development Fund.

    The partners will collaborate on impact measurement and audit project, which will be led by Rony J Palathinkal, COO of GreenArc Capital, according to an announcement.

    The POC is an extension of their previous work to develop the GreenArc platform – an impact investment solution with an embedded impact measurement module that connects investors with impact opportunities focused on financial inclusion and climate action.

    GreenArc uses advanced machine learning techniques to provide assurance of the stated impact objectives of financial products, as well as facilitate investor capital towards true sustainable investments to avoid impact washing. It has been deployed successfully by financial institutions to measure their debt portfolio’s impact.

    We aim to bring transparency to investors and liquidity to select last-mile lenders and microfinance lenders, Joris Dierckx, BNP Paribas regional head of Southeast Asia and CEO, Singapore, said, noting the growing interest among institutional and retail investors to have a positive impact climate change and economic inequality.

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  • China Widens Regulatory Net for Fintech Crackdown

    China Widens Regulatory Net for Fintech Crackdown

    More than a dozen major technology firms in China are set to face similar restrictions imposed on Jack Ma’s Ant Group as Beijing widens its fintech crackdown.

    13 tech titans – including Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com, Meituan and Didi Chuxing – were summoned to a meeting over a series of new requirements for their financial units, according to a joint statement by Chinese regulators.

    State representatives at the meeting included the central bank, the banking and insurance regulator, the securities regulator and the foreign exchange watchdog. The 13 tech firms will face similar requirements previously imposed on Jack Ma’s Ant Group including the restructuring of financial units into holding companies for regulatory supervision.

    Restrictions will be tightened in numerous areas such as payment links to financial products, collection of customer data, credit scoring services and overseas listings.

    The latest regulatory push against the broader fintech sector follows the headline crackdown against Ant Group with the latest move being a probe against its IPO backers and considerations for the divestment of Ma’s stake.

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  • ZA Tech Opens Fintech Center in Singapore

    ZA Tech Opens Fintech Center in Singapore

    The Singapore-based center aims to explore financial services innovation and help industry partners in the region to build new products that will accelerate their digital ambitions.

    ZA Tech Global has opened its first Asia Fintech Center (AFC), which will specialize in solving specific use-cases in insurance and financial services in collaboration with industry partners, according to an announcement by the Chinese firm, which provides proprietary insurtech capabilities and applications

    The center will have an initial focus on insurance use-cases by co-designing innovative propositions with insurers in ASEAN, the announcement said. It will also partner with local universities to develop further fintech expertise and talent.

    The internet economy continues to rapidly reshape consumer expectations across Asia, digital transformation is becoming as crucial as ever for financial services firms, Bill Song, CEO of ZA Tech, said, adding that the AFC is an important pillar of its regional ambitions.

    George Kesselman, ZA Tech’s head of commercial, will take on the additional responsibility as a leader of the AFC.

    ZA Tech Global is the business entity established by ZhongAn Technologies International, the international arm of Chinese online insurer ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance.

    The company previously inked micro-insurance partnerships with Grab and NTUC Income in Singapore, Ovo in Indonesia, and regionally with AIA

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