Asia

August 22, 2021 @ 9:28 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) has introduced the 5th edition of its flagship project,  Fintech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge. The challenge is reportedly a part of the upcoming Fintech Abu Dhabi festival – which is scheduled to take place in November 2021. The ADGM… Read More

August 22, 2021 @ 9:13 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Bank of Thailand (BOT) has introduced its plans (after an extensive study) to start testing a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) during Q2 2022. The BOT had carried out a research study on the implications and feasibility of issuing a retail CBDC, as… Read More

August 22, 2021 @ 7:28 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Indonesia’s Lifepal, a digital direct-to-consumer (D2C) insurance marketplace, reveals that it has acquired an oversubscribed $9 million through a Series A round, bringing the total capital secured by the firm to $12 million. As noted by its management, Lifepal is the largest insurance marketplace in… Read More

August 22, 2021 @ 7:20 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Malaysian Insurtech company VSure.life has reportedly acquired a RM12 million (appr. $2.83 million) investment from ACE market-listed Revenue Group via its wholly-owned subsidiary Revenue Harvest (as well as being approved by Bank Negara Malaysia’s or BNM, the nation’s central bank to take part in its… Read More

August 22, 2021 @ 7:00 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Investment management company Investcorp and Singapore’s private capital exchange ADDX have teamed up to further expand the use of digital securities in the private markets. The first product that been introduced under the partnership is a diversified portfolio of US residential properties from the Sunbelt… Read More

August 22, 2021 @ 4:36 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Philippine Digital Asset Exchange (PDAX), a virtual currency exchange that’s licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the nation’s central bank, revealed earlier this week that it had secured $12.5 million in capital. PDAX‘s investment round has reportedly been led by an unnamed… Read More

August 22, 2021 @ 1:45 pm By Xu Gao  |  

Tencent: No Plan to Provide Palm Payment Service  This week, Tencent was reported to provide a new palm payment service, which would be the first of such functions in China and would be linked to the user’s WeChat account. However, Tencent has denied this news… Read More

August 22, 2021 @ 12:38 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

On August 18, 2021, hackers managed to steal more than $90 million in over 69 different cryptocurrencies and digital tokens from Japan-based exchange Liquid Global. Liquid’s teams had “yet to release a postmortem detailing the attack vector used by the hacker,” the CipherTrace team noted… Read More

August 19, 2021 @ 8:29 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) has teamed up with crypto-asset custodian Hex Trust in order to test out its digital asset custody services – which are compliant with the guidelines provided by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the nation’s reserve bank. Through… Read More

August 19, 2021 @ 7:25 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Touch ‘n Go Group (TNG) and Principal Asset Management revealed on August 18, 2021 that they’re introducing the Principal e-Cash Fund, which is the underlying fund for Touch ‘n Go’s GO+. This product is now Shariah-compliant, the update confirmed. TNG’s management noted that this makes… Read More

August 19, 2021 @ 10:14 am By JD Alois  |  

Yield Guild Games (YGG) has raised $4.6 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The funding was said to have been finalised prior to the YGG token sale on July 27 and was joined by Kingsway Capital, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Atelier Ventures,… Read More

August 19, 2021 @ 8:37 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Ajar, a MENA region rental collection platform, reveals that it has expanded its business operations to the Kingdom of Bahrain. With an established presence in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the firm will be providing its property management and rent collection services in… Read More

August 19, 2021 @ 7:45 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Zilliqa, the Singapore-headquartered “high-performance,” enterprise-grade blockchain platform has unveiled its 2021-2022 cohort of ZILHive Accelerator projects. The ZILHive Accelerator is a 6-month program that’s focused on launching blockchain or DLT-powered initiatives from concept to commercialization. As mentioned in the release shared with CI: “The accelerator… Read More

August 19, 2021 @ 7:41 am By Omar Faridi  |  

European Fintech solutions provider finleap has teamed up with Bahrain-based telecom firm Batelco in order to support Open Banking in the MENA region. Recently, Batelco became the very first GCC-headquartered firm to acquire an Open Banking license. Through this latest partnership, finleap will be extending… Read More

August 18, 2021 @ 10:45 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

SATYA MicroCapital has reportedly acquired ₹135cr (appr. $18.17 million) in capital. The past year has been quite challenging for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), especially when it comes to acquiring funds, because of the “liquidity crisis” in the sector following the Covid-19 outbreak. As mentioned in… Read More

August 18, 2021 @ 4:09 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

GOtyme, which is a joint initiative between Philippines-based conglomerate Gokongwei Group and Singapore’s virtual banking group Tyme, has reportedly acquired the fifth digital banking permit from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the nation’s central bank. GOtyme is set to introduce its services during Q2… Read More

August 18, 2021 @ 7:07 am By Omar Faridi  |  

UnionPay International (UPI) reveals that it has teamed up with the International Bank of Tajikistan in order to introduce the nation’s first contactless digital wallet, notably making UnionPay the very first payment service to provide mobile contactless payment options in the country. The number of… Read More

August 17, 2021 @ 11:49 pm By JD Alois  |  

XDC Network, a hybrid blockchain platform for global trade and finance, has been selected as the first blockchain company to join the global Trade Finance Distribution (TFD) Initiative, according to a note from XDC. The TFD Initiative is a consortium of trade originators, credit insurers,… Read More

August 17, 2021 @ 11:12 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Uppsala Security, a provider of security tools and services for crypto AML/CTF, transaction risk management, regulatory compliance, and cybersecurity, revealed that it has rolled out its Digital Asset Tracking Service, a solution developed for ransomware victims as well as crypto crime “caused by theft, hacking,… Read More

August 17, 2021 @ 10:03 am By Omar Faridi  |  

The researchers at BitOoda have noted in a recent update that this past Friday’s Bitcoin (BTC) network difficulty reset “took the target Hashrate (or amount of computing power securing the network) to 111 EH/s, up ~7% over the prior epoch.” BitOoda, a global digital asset… Read More