Asia

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

August 20, 2020 @ 11:41 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Malaysian Fintech firms are regulated according to the requirements provided by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the nation’s central bank. Suhaimi Bin Ali, director of the Financial Development and Innovation Department at BNM, explained (during the introduction of the Fintech Booster program earlier this month): “We… Read More

August 20, 2020 @ 11:38 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Pakistan’s Easypaisa, a leading online wallet provider, has teamed up with the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) in order to support digital payments in the country. The agreement was made official and signed by Khurram Malik, Head of Easypaisa, Telenor Microfinance Bank and… Read More

August 20, 2020 @ 10:45 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The COVID-19 outbreak and nationwide lockdowns in India have forced many local residents to re-evaluate how they conduct business and manage their finances. An analysis performed by ETMoney reveals that the overall spend by India’s residents between March and June 2020 dropped by around 40%,… Read More

August 20, 2020 @ 10:35 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

More Singapore based companies and businesses are expected to use the latest Fintech platforms and services in the coming year. Firms operating in the Asian country aim to streamline their business by adopting the latest digital technologies, according to a report from CPA Australia, a… Read More

August 20, 2020 @ 9:34 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

South Korea’s ICONLOOP, a major blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT)-focused firm, revealed on August 19, 2020 that Jeju Island, the nation’s most popular local tourist destination, will be using its Decentralized Identity (‘DID’) blockchain tech to offer private, secure COVID-19 contact tracing to (approximately)… Read More

August 20, 2020 @ 4:10 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Ravi Menon, the Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), recently delivered a speech on “Powering the next stage of Singapore Fintech” at the Singapore Fintech Festival Just five years ago, the country’s leaders had a vision that focused on making Singapore a… Read More

August 20, 2020 @ 7:58 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Neat, a digital bank based in Hong Kong, announced on Wednesday a $4 million extension to its $11 million Series A investment round, which originally closed in April 2020. MassMutual Ventures, Pacific Century Group, Linear Capital, and Robby Hilkowitz as well as new investor Vectr Fintech… Read More

August 20, 2020 @ 12:42 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Blockchain platforms Ontology, Neo, and Switcheo have announced the launch of Poly Network, a “heterogeneous” distributed ledger technology (DLT) interoperability protocol alliance. The Poly Network will enable cross-platform interoperability, which should significantly increase transparency and accessibility. As mentioned in a blog post by Ontology: “Enterprises… Read More