Asia

June 23, 2020 @ 9:00 am By JD Alois  |  

  BlockFi, a digital asset financial services firm, has boosted its Asia presence with the new hire of Rishi Ramchandani as Director of Business Development, Asia. According to BlockFi, Ramchandani most recently led global and Asia equities teams for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. As crypto… Read More

June 23, 2020 @ 7:58 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Singapore’s Fintech firms continue to attract substantial investments, despite the global COVID-19 outbreak and resulting socio-economic challenges. Singapore Fintechs have been able to secure a total of $650 million in capital so far this year, which notably includes a record high of $462 million in… Read More

June 23, 2020 @ 12:36 am By Omar Faridi  |  

The Japanese Liberal Democratic Party, the nation’s ruling-party, is reportedly planning to make it easier for local banking institutions to branch out into different sectors, which could help them compete with or even push back against emerging Fintech firms and other tech startups. The party’s… Read More

June 22, 2020 @ 11:23 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Jemma Xu, co-founder and partner at RedBlock Capital, a provider of digital investment services with a presence in Asia, Australia, and the US, says that we now have many technologically advanced securities issuance platforms and secondary exchanges. However, she points out that technology alone doesn’t… Read More

June 22, 2020 @ 10:39 pm By JD Alois  |  

Sparrow, an options trading platform has raised USD$ 3.5 million in a Series A funding round, according to a company release. The round was led by HDR Group, the parent company of BitMEX – a crypto exchange. The funding also included participation from Signum Capital, Du… Read More

June 22, 2020 @ 10:38 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Narayanan Ganapathy, a financial analyst, angel investor, and the CEO at Angivest Ventures, recently noted that significantly more people are using smartphone apps and other types of software to make digital payments, because of the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting challenges. Ganapathy, whose comments came during… Read More

June 22, 2020 @ 9:21 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Thailand-based Fintech firm SYNQA, the parent company of OmiseGo (previously called Omise Holdings), has reportedly secured $80 million in capital via a Series C investment round led by SCB 10x, a subsidiary of the Siam Commercial Bank. Asia-based VC group SPARX also took part in… Read More

June 22, 2020 @ 1:38 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Ant Financial Services Group, the owner and operator of Alipay, has dropped the “Financial” part of its name and is set to rebrand to Ant Technology Group, according to the Wall Street Journal. Founded in 2014 by billionaire Jack Ma, Ant Group describes itself as… Read More

June 22, 2020 @ 8:36 am By JD Alois  |  

CoAssets, a Singapore based Fintech that listed its shares on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2016, has announced the delisting of its shares. According to a release by the company, CoAssets requested a voluntary delisting for the following reasons: Low shareholder numbers – The Company… Read More

June 21, 2020 @ 6:28 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Asian Fintech firm BigPay announced on June 19, 2020, that it has added Australia and Vietnam to its global remittance service, and will be adding China soon. The company added Bangladesh and India in January of this year. BigPay’s management noted that they’re committed to… Read More

June 21, 2020 @ 5:26 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Malaysia-based Curlec, a Fintech firm that aims to offer a better way for businesses to collect recurring payments, recently secured funding from 500 Startups, an early-stage VC fund and seed accelerator established in 2010 by entrepreneurs Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. Curlec completed its seed… Read More

June 21, 2020 @ 4:23 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were recently ranked among the world’s top 100 destinations for startups across the globe. A new study published by StartupBlink, called the Startup Ecosystem Rankings Report, determines the score for each country by taking into consideration many different… Read More

June 21, 2020 @ 4:11 pm By Xu Gao  |  

Chinese Ministry of Finance Issues Anti-Coronavirus Special Sovereign Bonds On June 16th, the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China issued a total of 70 billion yuan anti-coronavirus special sovereign bonds. According to the press release: The bonds are 10-year fixed-rate interest-bearing bonds… Read More

June 21, 2020 @ 2:27 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The team at Matrixport, a company that aims to serve as a gateway to the digital economy where users can trade, custody, invest, and borrow crypto-assets through a single, unified platform, recently compared the advantages and disadvantages of using centralized and decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions…. Read More

June 21, 2020 @ 12:18 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The COVID-19 outbreak has created significant socio-economic challenges, which have impacted individuals and businesses across the globe. More people are now spending time at home due to government-enforced nationwide lockdowns. Certain segments of the Fintech industry, including digital, mobile, and contactless payments,  have seen increased… Read More

June 20, 2020 @ 9:42 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Switzerland listed Fintech firm Achiko is reportedly planning to offer payment services to European businesses. Based in Indonesia, the company is now moving to Switzerland after its shareholders supported the decision during a recent meeting. Established in 2018, the Jakarta-headquartered company currently offers payment services… Read More

June 19, 2020 @ 7:59 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

AMTD Group (NYSE: HKIB; SGX: HKB), an integrated, licensed, comprehensive, non-bank financial institution group that offers several different financial services, has introduced a Fintech leadership program. The Singapore Management University (SMU), the Institute of Systems Science at the National University of Singapore (NUS-ISS), and Xiaomi… Read More

June 19, 2020 @ 6:57 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Singapore-based Institutional Lending Exchange (iLex), a Fintech firm focused on developing a multilateral digital or e-market platform that will support the deal flow and liquidity opportunities for loan market participants, has reportedly finalized its seed funding round. The amount raised has not been disclosed. Investors… Read More

June 19, 2020 @ 2:56 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com announced On Thursday it has rolled out significant infrastructure upgrades to its Exchange, including a revamped Matching Engine, OMS (Order Management System), and unified REST and Websocket API. According to Crypto.com, the update will lead to a ten times increase… Read More

June 19, 2020 @ 2:27 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Delta Exchange, a digital asset derivatives exchange that’s based in Singapore, announced on Thursday the launch of Options trading on leading altcoins Binance Coin, BNB, and Chainlink’s LINK token with XTZ, ATOM, XRP, LTC to follow soon. Delta Exchange reported that MOVE Options on LINK… Read More