Asia

April 19, 2020 @ 10:20 am By Xu Gao  |  

China Encourages Innovation of Exhibition Industry On April 13th, the General Office of the Ministry of Commerce issued a circular on work related to innovating exhibition service models and cultivating new momentum for the development of the exhibition industry. The circular proposes to support cross-city… Read More

April 18, 2020 @ 8:23 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Digital banks or neobanks have now been around for several years. There are many challenger banks that aim to compete with and provide better financial services than traditional banks and institutions. Conducting transactions online has become more popular due to the deadly Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak…. Read More

April 17, 2020 @ 5:20 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Ant Financial, the Fintech division of Chinese multinational e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) and the parent firm of Alipay, has introduced its consortium blockchain platform. Referred to as “OpenChain,” the platform will assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with developing blockchain or distributed ledger technology… Read More

April 17, 2020 @ 10:13 am By JD Alois  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is telling customers of financial institutions to stop going to brick and mortar locations during the COVID-19 pandemic. MAS is urging consumers to use digital, email, and telephone channels as far as possible. Of course, MAS is telling the… Read More

April 16, 2020 @ 9:13 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Limited (OCBC) Bank (SGX: O39), a multinational banking and financial services corporation, has reportedly become the first company to introduce Google Pay’s peer to peer (P2P) money transfer service in Singapore. The new digital payments option makes Singapore only the third… Read More

April 16, 2020 @ 8:43 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

WeBank, one of China’s first all-digital challenger banks, has revealed that it will begin exploring  the potential integration of DAML, which is an open-source smart contract programming language developed by Digital Asset (the company). The DAML software has been developed in order to help software… Read More

April 16, 2020 @ 8:37 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

dForce, a Chinese decentralized finance (DeFi) solution provider, has secured $1.5 million in capital. The DeFi platform’s latest round was led by Multicoin Capital. Huobi Capital and China Merchants Bank International (CMBI), the investment division of one of the largest financial institutions in China, also… Read More

April 15, 2020 @ 10:25 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

A state-managed bank in China seems to have launched a mobile-based test app that supports the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) virtual currency initiative. A website link allows users to download a payments app that has been provided by the Agricultural Bank of China (according… Read More

April 15, 2020 @ 10:19 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

India-based PhonePe, a major digital payments platform, will be supporting delivery as an option through its app. The Bengaluru-headquartered Fintech firm will introduce a feature in the “Stores” section of its app, which will allow users to have groceries and other essentials delivered to their… Read More

April 15, 2020 @ 5:16 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Algorand (ALGO), a leading proof of stake (PoS)-based blockchain platform, recently revealed that it’s developing a trusted, public, and permissionless infrastructure (with the help of its community members) for the borderless global economy. The Algorand team announced: “In support of our mission, we are launching… Read More

April 15, 2020 @ 11:29 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Google Pay was reportedly the most downloaded Fintech app (globally) during the month of February 2020 with 15.6 million downloads. It was closely followed by Indian digital payments firm PhonePe’s app which was downloaded 6 million times. For Google Pay, this is notably more than… Read More

April 15, 2020 @ 11:23 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb announced on Tuesday it has integrated with blockchain-based digital identification organization, MyID Alliance. Bithumb claims it is the first Korean virtual asset exchange to implement the distributed identification (DID) service performed by the organization. Bithumb Korea will notably participate as… Read More

April 15, 2020 @ 10:32 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Fintech firm Zaggle, which leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning to provide innovative solutions to Indian businesses, reportedly had a turnover of around INR 1800 Crores (appr. $237 million) for the 2018-2019 financial year (FY). Zaggle is now expecting to generate INR 3500 Crores… Read More

April 15, 2020 @ 1:05 am By Omar Faridi  |  

India-based HDFC Bank, the nation’s largest private sector lender, recently issued a warning regarding a potential increase in fraudulent activities online, including phishing scams. Sameer Ratolikar, chief information security officer at HDFC Bank, said during a conference call that the cybercriminals and hackers could begin… Read More

April 14, 2020 @ 11:03 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the nation’s central bank with over $3.2 trillion in reserves, recently held a discussion in the capital city of Beijing. The PBoC’s officials confirmed during the conference (held on April 3, 2020) that the reserve bank would continue to… Read More

April 14, 2020 @ 10:44 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Seychelles-based Huobi Group, a blockchain and digital assets firm, is introducing an on-chain analytics tool, called Star Atlas, for monitoring and identifying illicit cryptocurrency transfers. The exchange’s Star Atlas tool allows users to track on-chain crypto-asset transactions in real-time. With the launch of this new… Read More

April 14, 2020 @ 10:19 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Blockchain Research Institute, which is managed by China’s Center for Information and Industry Development (CCID), has published its (17th) latest Global Public Chain Technology Evaluation Index. The distributed ledger technology (DLT)-focused index ranks 37 of the most prominent or widely-used public blockchain networks. It… Read More

April 14, 2020 @ 8:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

Zhejiang University International Business School (ZIBS) has announced a new English taught Masters program. The Masters of Fintech will be taught in the Zhejiang Province – a leading center of Fintech innovation and home to Ant Financial (part of Alibaba) one of the largest Fintech companies… Read More

April 14, 2020 @ 6:51 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Indian Fintech firm Navi Technologies, a company that aims to make financial services simple, affordable and more accessible, has secured INR 2.04 billion (appr. $26.75 million) in equity funding from Gaja Capital, a Mumbai-based private equity company. Navi aims to develop consumer-centric and technology-driven businesses… Read More

April 14, 2020 @ 12:19 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Dutch multinational banking and financial services group Rabobank announced on Monday it has collaborated with global agriculture supply chains Cargill and Agrocorp to completed a cross-continent commodity trade transaction of wheat from North America to Southeast Asia on a blockchain platform provided by Singapore-based dltledgers…. Read More