Asia

August 24, 2020 @ 10:12 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Indonesia, which has one of the largest economies in Southeast Asia and also ranked high globally, has emerged as a fast-growing Fintech hub. It’s estimated that in the next five years, digital financial services revenues in Indonesia will reach $8.6 billion, meaning they’re increasing at… Read More

August 24, 2020 @ 10:04 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Qatar has been ranked or classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Although the Middle Eastern country only has a GDP of around $200 billion (a lot less compared to many trillion-dollar economies), it’s home to just over 2.7 million people so the… Read More

August 24, 2020 @ 9:58 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Taro Aso, the Japanese Finance Minister, has reportedly said that blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) could potentially help with combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Aso believes that DLT-powered solutions may be used for contact tracing while ensuring the privacy of user data. Aso, whose comments… Read More

August 24, 2020 @ 3:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

LIFULL Co., Ltd., operator of a Japanese real estate listing website “LIFULL HOME’S” has partnered with Securitize to offer digital securities based on real estate assets. According to a note from Securitize, LIFULL and Securitize are emblematic of the evolution of the global digital securities… Read More

August 24, 2020 @ 2:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

Nium, a payments Fintech based in Singapore, has announced a partnership with Teledolar in Costa Rica thus entering the Latin American market. Nium states that its expansion in LatAm will help Fintechs, banks and financial institutions digitize their solutions. Through the partnership with Teledolar, customers… Read More

August 23, 2020 @ 7:32 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Hong Kong’s future economy is set to be supported by the latest Fintech platforms and services, as the city-state will be home to at least eight virtual banks. Hong Kong serves as the primary gateway for (mainland) Chinese businesses to expand their operations, globally. It… Read More

August 23, 2020 @ 5:21 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

London-based British Pearl, a directly FCA authorized property investment platform that’s listed in the top 100 UK Fintech firms by Her Majesty’s Treasury, will be expanding its business into other jurisdictions, instead of just focusing on the local markets. British Pearl specializes in fractionalized property… Read More

August 23, 2020 @ 2:44 pm By JD Alois  |  

Taviner, the power generation and transmission company of Iran, has shut down 1100 crypto mining farms that apparently were not licensed to do business in the country. In the summer of 2019, it was reported that the Iranian government had legalized crypto mining companies for… Read More

August 22, 2020 @ 8:27 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Local service providers continue to dominate the digital or e-wallet market in Indonesia, according to a recent report. iPrice Group recently teamed up with App Annie, an app market data and insight firm, to provide the latest developments related to digital wallets in Indonesia (during… Read More

August 22, 2020 @ 7:39 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Hangzhou’s Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun), a Chinese cloud computing company that operates as a subsidiary of the e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA), has partnered with the Fintech Academy in Singapore and Pfizer, an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation. Through the partnership, the two companies and the Fintech Academy… Read More

August 22, 2020 @ 5:55 pm By Xu Gao  |  

Insurtech Platform Shuidi SecureS US $230 Million D-round of Financing On August 20th, at the 2020 Global Partner Conference of Shuidi Insurance Mall, Shen Peng, founder & CEO of Shuidi, announced that the company had completed a series D financing of US$230 million, led by… Read More

August 22, 2020 @ 5:00 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Pakistan‘s National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (NIFT) and Checkout.com, the provider of cross-border payments solutions to Fintech firms, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). NIFT is Pakistan’s largest transactional clearing facilitator. It provides efficient, cost-effective and automated clearing of financial transactions. Meanwhile. Checkout.com is a… Read More

August 21, 2020 @ 6:51 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Blockchain security firm Chainalysis reports that East Asia is home to the world’s largest cryptocurrency market. It reportedly accounted for more than 30% of all digital currency transactions during the past year. As mentioned in Chainalysis’ latest report: “East Asia-based addresses have received $107 billion… Read More

August 21, 2020 @ 5:50 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Southeast (SE) Asia is home to an unbanked population of around 290 million, according to a recent report from Fitch Ratings. Fintech solutions can enable more widespread financial inclusion, and could potentially increase the GDP of emerging markets by $3.7 trillion, according to an updated… Read More

August 21, 2020 @ 4:54 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Salman Ali, the chief operating officer at Virtual Remittance Gateway, notes that Pakistan has a population of more than 218 million (one of the highest in the world). He points out that 60% of the nation’s population are adults, however, only 23% of residents have… Read More

August 21, 2020 @ 3:54 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb announced on Friday it has launched a learning platform called “BG Learning.” According to Bithumb, the platform uses the capacity of new investors in the crypto community to make more informed and properly thought out decisions while making investments. The… Read More

August 21, 2020 @ 10:40 am By JD Alois  |  

The Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research (HKIMR), the research segment of the Hong Kong Academy of Finance (AoF), has published a on AI and banking. Entitled “Artificial Intelligence in Banking: The Changing Landscape in Compliance and Supervision” the report seeks to provide… Read More

August 21, 2020 @ 9:59 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Digital banking or the use of online services and platforms may have been accelerated due to the COVID-19 outbreak, which had led to many countries enforcing nationwide lockdowns. While many countries are now beginning to “re-open” their businesses, the Coronavirus crisis has led to major… Read More

August 21, 2020 @ 9:19 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Chinese Fintech Unicorn Ant Group, which is part-owned (33%) by digital commerce giant Alibaba, is currently planning dual IPO listings in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Established by billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), Ant Group, which includes AliPay, earned 9.2 billion CNY (appr. $1.3 billion) in… Read More

August 21, 2020 @ 7:32 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Bitcoin (BTC) and the controversial Facebook-led Libra stablecoin or payments project might  play a key role in a world where reserve banks are beginning to issue their own digital currencies or CBDCs, according to Raghuram Rajan, former governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)…. Read More