Asia

April 20, 2020 @ 11:45 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Easypaisa, a local provider of online financial services, teamed up with Zakat and Ushr department of the Government of (the province of) Punjab, in order to distribute funds to locals who have been impacted by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and resulting… Read More

April 20, 2020 @ 11:26 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Filecoin, a highly-anticipated decentralized storage network (under development), announced that there will be more delays before its mainnet can be officially launched. Filecoin’s developers have postponed the release date for their mainnet to between late July and late August 2020. As mentioned in a recent… Read More

April 20, 2020 @ 11:16 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Curv, a company that provides crypto asset custody services to institutional investors, has established a business office in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) area. The office has been set up through a partnership with Crypto Garage, a firm that offers various financial instruments based on Bitcoin (BTC)… Read More

April 20, 2020 @ 2:40 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

  Authorities in Malaysia have arrested 14 Chinese citizens because of their alleged involvement in a Bitcoin-related scam, which reportedly targeted unsuspecting investors in their home country. Dzulkhairi Mukhatar, the assistant commander in Malaysia, confirmed that the men were taken into police custody on April… Read More

April 20, 2020 @ 12:40 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

  Venture Smart Asia, a company licensed by Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), has introduced the territory’s first approved crypto asset fund with a target of $100 million under management during the first year of its launch. As reported by Bloomberg on April… Read More

April 20, 2020 @ 10:27 am By JD Alois  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has launched a new lending facility to make certain SMEs have access to capital to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The MAS SGD Facility for ESG Loans is in partnership with Enterprise Singapore (ESG). The goal is… Read More

April 20, 2020 @ 7:58 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Singapore’s tax authority, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS), confirmed that it will not be collecting taxes on airdropped cryptocurrency, provided that the recipients get them  for free. As noted in an income tax treatment guide, released on April 17, 2020, the IRAS clarified… Read More

April 20, 2020 @ 7:35 am By Omar Faridi  |  

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA), the nation’s reserve bank which is also responsible for ensuring the growth and soundness of the Kingdom’s financial system, confirmed on April 19, 2020 that it will allow nine more Fintech firms to provide services through a regulatory sandbox… Read More

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

South Korea’s government has argued that the blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) sector represents a “golden opportunity” for the $1.6 trillion economy. The nation’s authorities are calling on private sector firms to take advantage of the potential of DLT-based platforms. As reported by local… Read More

April 19, 2020 @ 9:48 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Tokyo-based Mizuho Bank, the integrated corporate and retail banking division of Mizuho Financial Group (TYO: 8411; NYSE: MFG), the third largest financial services company in Japan, has initiated proof-of-concept (PoC) trials and testing of digital IDs that are based on device location and facial recognition…. Read More

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