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Tag: P2P

  • China cryptocurrency craze drives hard drive shortage in Vietnam

    China cryptocurrency craze drives hard drive shortage in Vietnam

    Large capacity hard drives are virtually out of stock in Vietnam because of a cryptocurrency mining craze in China.

    Customers and market observers say local people have been buying large-capacity hard drives in bulk and reselling them to the Chinese amidst a new mining craze for the Chia cryptocurrency in China.

    People who need to buy large space hard drives have commented on online groups for computer component buyers that they could not find any 6TB or larger-spaced hard drives, so they were having to buy smaller ones to merge into a large one.

    Hoang Lam, Subject Matter Expert of data storage company Seagate Vietnam said that Seagate’s 4TB hard drives have been out of stock since last month because “many of our customers bought the hard drives in bulk, from hundreds to thousands in one order, instead of a few units in one order as usual.”

    A computer component distributor in HCMC said that their hard drive sales surged by 50 percent last month despite prices rising 10-20 percent, and now the store is out of stock.

    Thanh Phong, a cryptocurrency miner and cryptocurrency mining gear seller, said the chokehold on large capacity hard drives supply in Vietnam was caused by the cryptocurrency mining boom for Chia in China.

    Chia is built around a cryptographic technique called Proof of Space and Time, which allows the cryptocurrency to be mined with unused storage space on hard drives rather unlike others like Bitcoin or Ethereum that use graphics cards. The more unused storage on the hard drive, the more Chia can be mined.

    Phong said that the Chia craze is yet to spread to Vietnam. Therefore, Vietnamese were buying hard drives in bulk to sell them to China.

    The Chinese miners have been stockpiling hard drives, preparing for Chia’s launch in May. As a result, hard drives with large capacities, from 4TB to 18 TB, have already been sold out on many Chinese e-commerce platforms.

    According to manmanbuy.com, a Chinese website that tracks and compares historical prices of products on China’s popular e-commerce platforms, the price of hard drives has surged 300 percent since the end of last year.

    Chia is the brainchild of Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer protocol that allows users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a decentralized manner. Cohen created Chia in 2017 with the aim of making a cryptocurrency that consumes less energy and generates less carbon when mining, compared to Bitcoin or Ethereum.

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  • P2P Lender Funding Societies Launches in Thailand

    P2P Lender Funding Societies Launches in Thailand

    This expansion to the startup’s fourth market comes after more than a year of working with Thai regulators and planning for market entry.

    Singapore-based Funding Societies, Southeast Asia’s largest SME digital financing platform, has rolled out its platform in Thailand, the company announced in a statement on Tuesday.

    The P2P lender noted Thailand’s large and SME-driven economy and the credit gap that has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

    The platform will provide Thai SMEs with full access to short-term customizable financing solutions, which are funded by retail and institutional investors, who can expect returns of 8 to 13 percent, the announcement said.

    The crowdfunding landscape in the country is growing steadily and we see a lot of potential here, Varun Bhandari, country head of Funding Societies Thailand, said about the expansion. The market follows launches in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

    In its six years of operation, Funding Societies has disbursed over $1.4 billion in funding to some 65,000 SMEs. The platform is backed by major investors like Sequoia India and Softbank Ventures Asia.

    Funding Societies recently announced a strategic alliance with Samsung Ventures and Samsung Life Insurance to introduce prospective partnerships and collaborations.

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  • Google Debuts P2P Fund Transfers in Singapore

    Google Debuts P2P Fund Transfers in Singapore

    With OCBC enabling peer-to-peer (P2P) fund transfers on Google Pay, the city-state becomes the third globally to offer the service, after India and the United States.

    The integration means that OCBC customers can now transfer or receive payments directly from their bank accounts to or from anyone registered to PayNow using the Google Pay app, the bank announced in a statement this week.

    At the same time, bank account holders without credit cards can also Google Pay to make payments to merchants in Singapore.

    We have long rejected the ‘digital wallet’ approach that requires customers to top up an e-wallet and hold funds in one without earning interest. Instead, we put a lot of effort into developing OCBC Pay Anyone as an open-loop payment system, whereby customers literally ‘pay anyone’ directly from their bank accounts, Ching Wei Hong, OCBC head of Global Wealth Management & Consumer Banking, said.

    Introduced in 2017, Singapore’s national e-payments system PayNow enables digital payments directly between customers’ bank accounts and funds transfers using their recipients’ mobile numbers.

    The integration of Google Pay and PayNow is expected to significantly impact the adoption and usage of PayNow in Singapore, which already recorded more than 70 million transactions worth S$12.16 billion in 2019, OCBC noted.

    Google previously said it is looking at adding more banks to Google Pay, including DBS and Standard Chartered, with launches expected by the end of 2020.

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  • PayPal-Backed Korean Fintech Raises $64 Million

    PayPal-Backed Korean Fintech Raises $64 Million

    South Korean fintech unicorn, Viva Republica, raised $64 million for its financial service platform Toss pushing the firm’s total value to $2.2 billion.

    The Seoul-based fintech has raised a total of $250 million, including $80 million in the December round, and new funding joins prominent existing investors such Singapore’s GIC and Sequoia Capital.

    Viva Republic was founded in 2013 and launched Toss in 2015 as a P2P money transfer service. It has since grown the platform to include various other financial services including banker, money transfer, credit score management and more. It currently boasts 13 million registered users with more than $42 billion of translation processed.

    This funding round was led by newly established Aspex Management (founded in 2018) which specializes in Asian equity investments in industries and firms with long-term structural tailwinds.

    We like the large addressable market financial services offer and the unique leading position Toss occupies amongst mobile consumers, said Hermes Li, founder and CIO of Aspex Management.

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  • Telcos to use AI to fight SMS fraud and drive A2P messaging revenue

    Telcos to use AI to fight SMS fraud and drive A2P messaging revenue

    Juniper Research is forecasting that total operator revenues from A2P (Application-to-Person) messaging services will reach $62 billion by 2023, up from $43 billion in 2019.  This represents a growth of 42% over the next 4 years.

    The research firm also claimed that revenue growth will be driven by operator efforts in mitigating messaging fraud over grey routes, alongside the emergence of rich-media messaging technologies including RCS (Rich Communications Suite).

    The Juniper research, A2P Messaging: SMS, RCS & OTT Business Messaging 2019-2023, also found that increased investment in SMS firewalls and AI (Artificial Intelligence) will drive down operator loss due to grey route SMS messages to $4 billion by 2023. This represents a fall from $10 billion in 2019, further contributing to operators’ messaging revenue growth over the next four years.

    Grey route SMS includes A2P messages disguised as P2P (Peer-to-Peer) traffic to exploit the lower costs compared to directly connected A2P SMS. Juniper estimates that 24% of A2P SMS messages will be delivered via grey routes in 2019, however efforts in improving SMS firewall capabilities will drive this down to below 10% by 2023.

    Meanwhile, RCS business messaging will account for under 10% of operators’ A2P messaging revenue by 2023. However, the research claimed that RCS business users will continue to use SMS for simple notifications, such as OTPs (One Time Passwords) owing to the low cost and simplicity. The research identified the integration of mobile payment capabilities directly into the RCS client to provide a differentiation point to SMS and increase RCS traffic.

    Research author Sam Barker added “RCS will provide operators with additional revenue opportunities beyond simple message termination. Operators must explore the advertising ecosystem and mobile payments over RCS to exploit their substantial subscriber bases to generate fresh revenue streams.”

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  • Indonesian P2P Fintech Startup Modalku Becomes Fully Registered With the OJK

    Indonesian P2P Fintech Startup Modalku Becomes Fully Registered With the OJK

    Modalku, an Indonesia-based peer-to-peer lending fintech startup, announced this week it is now fully registered with the Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK). Founded in 2016, Modalku describes itself as an online marketplace for small businesses to acquire loans and for lenders to fund small business loans to earn returns. The company revealed:

    “Our technology-based approach enables borrowers to receive loans for the first time or at lower than market rates, while lenders will earn returns well above that of bank deposits, traditional fixed income products, and life insurance investment-linked products. This marketplace lending model is proven in countries such as USA, UK, China & Singapore.”

    Modalku also noted that SMEs are a key source of employment and economic growth in Indonesia, but seem to be structurally disabled by financial institutions to get the financing they need. According to Digital News Asia, Modalku has already disbursed loans totaling more than Rp175 billion (US$13.15 million) to 320 MSME loans. While discussing the OJK registration milestone, Modalku co-founder and CEO Reynold Wijaya revealed:

    “The fact that OJK focused on P2P lending regulations in Indonesia shows that the government sees the enormous potential of fintech in supporting financial inclusion. MSMEs have always been the backbone of the Indonesian economy, contributing 60.3% of national GDP and 97% of national employment. With solid regulation, underbanked MSMEs will have better access to financing and find it easier to grow their businesses.”

    OJK senior executive researcher Hendrikus Passagi added:

    “OJK supports and will continue to encourage borrowing and lending activities via P2P lending fintechs as an alternative to national financing products that require no collateral. We view the digital financial ecosystem built by P2P lending fintech platforms as ideal partners to support financial inclusion in Indonesia. With official registration at OJK, Indonesian P2P lending platforms are expected to increase borrowing and lending activities at a much larger scale for local MSMEs while still putting customer protection and stability of the Indonesian financial system first.”

    Modalku currently operates in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia.

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  • CB Bank in Myanmar rolls out cardless cash withdrawal and P2P payment services

    CB Bank in Myanmar rolls out cardless cash withdrawal and P2P payment services

    Recently, Diebold Nixdorf helped CB Bank migrate all its ATMs to more secure EMV chip card technology and obtain EMV certification with both VISA and MasterCard. EMV is a technical standard for smart payment cards introduced by Europay, Mastercard and VISA.

    Diebold Nixdorf is also assisting CB Bank with the implementation of cardless cash withdrawals at ATMs. The solution allows bank customers to use their mobile devices to generate a one-time PIN to activate a withdrawal at an ATM either for themselves or for a third party without requiring a bankcard. The technology provides an innovative person-to-person payment service to consumers especially in developing markets, and underscores Diebold Nixdorf’s commitment to drive connected commerce and help bridge the digital and physical worlds.

    “Diebold Nixdorf was awarded the contract due to its superior product quality, flexible software and ability to offer field service for both hardware and software within the country,” said U Kyaw Lynn, CEO and Executive Vice Chairman, at CB Bank. “With the help of their advanced technology and services provided, we aim to become one of Myanmar’s top banks offering secure, innovative and convenient cash services across our branch, online and mobile channels.”

    Diebold Nixdorf’s Myanmar partner, Kaytumadi iSolutions, will localize product features and begin installing the new systems at the start of next year. The rollout is scheduled for completion by the end of 2017.

    Diebold Nixdorf will service the entire 1,000-strong fleet of advanced cash systems in CB Bank’s network of 180 branches.

    “Together with our local partner, we are enabling CB Bank to extend the reach of its self-service offerings and win a greater share of Myanmar’s growing market for cash services,” said Neil Emerson, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Asia Pacific, at Diebold Nixdorf.

    Demand for cash is strong in Myanmar. Cash is the main mode of payment in the southeastern Asia country of more than 53 million people. Competition to provide cash services is also fierce. CB Bank already operates one of the largest ATM networks in the country and aims to expand its market position even further by doubling the number of terminals in its self-service network.

    CB Bank benefits from its IT partner’s wealth of local experience in Myanmar. Diebold Nixdorf, which has been delivering solutions to CB Bank since 2012, is a major supplier of cash-handling technology and services to all major banks in the country and across the Asia-Pacific region.

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  • Illegal OTT boxes are the new P2P piracy

    Illegal OTT boxes are the new P2P piracy

    Online video piracy is alive and well in 2016, but the threat landscape has shifted from straight conditional access (CA) technology and P2P file-sharing to illegal OTT set-top-boxes (STBs) that connect users to sites that look like professional OTT service providers with fancy EPGs, but are in fact hosting stolen content.

    “So these new-age pirates are no longer hacking the CA on the STB, they are selling their own STBs and delivering illegal content through them,” says Bengt Jonsson, VP of Asia-Pacific at Irdeto.

    Combating that involves some tried-and-true techniques like watermarking so stolen content can be identified. But that’s just the start, says Jonsson.

    “You also need a monitoring service to go and find stolen content on these sites and identify it,” he says. “And you need a takedown service where you go to the ISPs and tell them, ‘We represent this customer, this is their content and it’s pirated,’. And you have to monitor for compliance.”

    Irdeto supplies all of these services, and also has agreements with major e-commerce sites like Alibaba and eBay under which they will remove illegal OTT STBs from the site when Irdeto identifies them.

    However, says Jonsson, this kind of piracy is a global problem that requires cooperation from both the pay-TV operators (as well as industry organizations like CASBAA) and regulators who police copyright infringement.

    A challenge to the latter is jurisdictional issues – for example, what do you do when content produced in Australia is being pirated for an OTT box sold in Ukraine?

    “We start by using watermarking and fingerprinting to trace the source of the content, and from there we can locate the subscriber and block them and see where the traffic is going,” says Roger Harvey, Irdeto’s ANZ managing director. “So we can determine both where the pirate site is and where they got the content from.”

    The rest is up to legislation frameworks in each country to not only combat piracy, but keep up with changing delivery models such as the shift from linear pay-TV to multiscreen OTT.

    Interestingly, the ability to track and monitor stolen content also gives Irdeto’s customers valuable data on how popular certain content is and where.

    “We have what’s called a heat map, where our customers can see what content is being consumed in what area, legally or illegally, which shows demand for it,” Jonsson says. “An effective way to combat online piracy is to deliver a legal alternative, so with this, data content owners can see what viewers want so much that they’re willing to pirate it if it’s not available.”

    Last week, Irdeto partnered with Taiwan-based ALi Corp, which will integrate Irdeto’s security solutions on its latest generation chipset offerings for STBs.

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